A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. 1 59 



of the wise woman of tradition. We all know her 

 infinitely pathetic face, scored with wrinkles, with a 

 recollection of pretty lines about the mouth and 

 chin, and the pale blue eyes that look with mournful 

 patience on an incomprehensible world. We know, 

 too, something of the reality behind the mask ; the 

 inveterate begging-nature, the cunning, the all too 

 frequent drops of spirits. The Rector always comes 

 from Widda Blackmail's depressed and silent ; he 

 knows the impenetrable recesses of that half-Pagan 

 nature, and is not to be deceived by pious guile 

 now grown mechanic. Through all kinds of religious 

 cultivation, from the Church Catechism of her child- 

 hood, through the Calvinistic rule of her first 

 husband, the fervid Baptist zeal of her second and 

 third men, to the return in her eighth decade to the 

 Church, to the foreseeing care and keen siege of 

 intellect and devotion on the Rector's part, she has 

 remained mean, crafty, animal, base utterly. Now, 

 but a poor ghost of a witch, she is only credited with 

 power to wish away warts. Warts are, as far as my 

 observation goes, almost the only subject of super- 

 stition left among our people. Children cut notches 

 on a stick, and the dirt-bred nuisance departs ; you 

 can wish your warts on to another boy, or sell them ; 

 but if you want a radical cure in a bad case, you must 



