Page:The Partisan (revised).djvu/194

 "That's true, mother&mdash;none of us can say. I meant no harm, but as everybody calls him Goggle&mdash;"

"The redbug be upon everybody that so calls him! The boy has a name by law."

"Well, well, mother, do not be angry, and wish no sores upon your neighbours' shins that you can't wish off. The redbugs and the June-flies are bad enough already, without orders; and people do say you are quite too free in sending such plagues upon them, for little cause, or for no cause at all."

"It's a blessing that I can do it, Bill Humphries, or idle rowdies, such as yourself, would harry the old woman to death for their sport. It's a blessing and a protection that I can make the yellow jacket and the redbug leave their poison stings in the tender flesh, so that the jester that laughs at the old and suffering shall learn some suffering too."

"Quite a hard punishment for such an offence. But, mother, they say you can do more; that you have the spell of the bad mouth, that brings long sickness and sudden death, and many awful troubles; and some that don't wish you well, say you love to use it." "Do they say so?&mdash;then they say not amiss. Think you, Bill Humphries, that I should not fight with him who hates me, and would destroy me if he could? I do; and the bad mouth of Mother Blonay upon you, shall make the bones in your skin ache for long months after, I tell you."

"I beg, for God's sake, that you will not put your bad mouth upon me then, good mother," exclaimed Humphries, with ludicrous rapidity, as if he half feared the immediate exercise of her faculty upon him.

The old woman seemed not displeased with this tacit acknowledgment of her power, and she now twisted her chair about so as to place herself directly in front of Singleton. He, meanwhile, had been closely scrutinizing the apartment, which was in no respects better than those of the commonest negro-houses of the low country. The floor was the native soil. The wind was excluded by clay, loosely thrust between the crevices of the logs; and an old scaffolding of poles, supporting a few rails crossing each other,