drew back. The mechanic resumed sullenly,--"I seek no quarrel with
lass or lover. I am a plain, blunt man, with a wife and children, who
are dear to me; and if I have a grudge to the nigromancer, it is
because he glamoured my poor boy Tim. See!"--and he caught up a blue-
eyed, handsome boy, who had been clinging to his side, and baring the
child's arm, showed it to the spectators; there was a large scar on
the limb, and it was shrunk and withered.

"It was my own fault," said the little fellow, deprecatingly. The
affectionate father silenced the sufferer with a cuff on the cheek,
and resumed: "Ye note, neighbours, the day when the foul wizard took
this little one in his arms: well, three weeks afterwards--that very
day three weeks--as he was standing like a lamb by the fire, the good
wife's caldron seethed over, without reason or rhyme, and scalded his
arm till it rivelled up like a leaf in November; and if that is not
glamour, why have we laws against witchcraft?"

"True, true!" groaned the chorus.

The boy, who had borne his father's blow without a murmur, now again
attempted remonstrance. "The hot water went over the gray cat, too,
but Master Warner never bewitched her, daddy."

"He takes his part!--You hear the daff laddy? He takes the old
nigromancer's part,--a sure sign of the witchcraft; but I'll leather
it out of thee, I will!" and the mechanic again raised his weighty
arm. The child did not this time await the blow; he dodged under the
butcher's apron, gained the door, and disappeared. "And he teaches
our own children to fly in our faces!" said the father, in a kind of
whimper. The neighbours sighed in commiseration.