"Oh, ah, like enough."

"Don't think," I added solicitously, "that I doubt the truth of your
statements in any way, but what could this black doctor, as you call
him, have to gain by persecuting these people?"

"There be things," replied my aged friend, "what none of us can
understand, but there be things that all of us do. Oh, ah, there be;
and all of us in these parts knows as Upper Crossleys ain't been the
same since that black doctor settled here. Besides, first Mr. Roger
went, then Sir Burnham went. Now I do read in this 'ere paper as
another of 'em is gone."

He held up two gnarled and twitching fingers crossed before him.

"Did you ever hear tell of the evil eye?" he asked, and peered at me
cunningly. He took a long drink from his mug. "But maybe you'll laugh
at _that_," he added.

"I am in no way disposed to laugh at anything you have told me," I
assured him; "and as to the evil eye, I have certainly heard of such a
thing, although I must admit, and I am glad to admit, that I have
never met with it."

"I do trust, sir," responded the ancient, "that such a kind-hearted
gent may never meet with it. Ah, I do trust that you never may, which
is to say, so to speak, as I do trust as you'll never meet that black
doctor. If ever a man, had the evil eye, that black doctor's got it,
and old Mother Shale what lives in the cottage on the heath down