"Collet says Mother Izan is a witch," said Eleanor, abandoning the subject
of snakes. "She hated it, when mother used some of her herb drinks last
year."

"I like Mother Izan," said Roger sturdily. "She cured my leg once, when a
stone fell on it--long before you came, when I was a little fellow." Roger
was not quite ten. "She knows more about plants and animals than anybody.
Ruric let her doctor his dog, the big one he calls Cuchullin."

"Collet doesn't like Ruric either," said Eleanor.

"She doesn't like anybody here really, except mother and me. I never mind
very much about what she says. There's Mother Izan in the doorway,--and
oh, what has she got hanging up in the big tree?"

The old woman was a queer bent creature with greenish eyes like a cat's,
and white unruly hair that would not stay under her coif. In fact she
looked not unlike a gaunt, grim old puss who had all her life fought what
crossed her path, from snakes to staghounds. She was so old that the
village people could not remember when she had been young, and her
grandsons were elderly men.

A wicker basket hung from the lowest branch of the poplar tree. In it,
cradled in close fine-woven osiers with a lining of rabbitskin, lay a
solemn black-eyed baby, looking almost as old as the old woman herself.

"It's like a changeling," thought Eleanor, looking with fascinated eyes at
the weird little being. Lady Philippa smiled, and laid her hand softly on
the furry black head. "This is an unusual sight in your cottage," she
said. "Whence came it, Goody?"