Finally, Mrs. Mugford was seen weeping over
the ghastly heads of six or eight fowls which lay in a heap before her
door. The said fowls, so Colonel George ascertained from her, had
strayed away in the previous night, which she had never known them do
before, and the keeper had found the heads scattered about the wood not
far from an earth where an old vixen was known to have brought up a
litter of cubs. What could have possessed the fowls Mrs. Mugford
couldn't say, for her old stag (and she selected the head of a
venerable cock from the heap as she spoke, to give point to her remark)
was so sensible as a Christian almost.
"What a day of misfortunes!" said Lady Eleanor, as they left the
disconsolate woman.
"Yes, indeed," said Colonel George, "I only hope that they may end
here. Listen!" And as he spoke the voice of Mrs. Fry rose high from
the garden above.
"Yes," she said, "the mazed man was up to the park yesterday. The
young gentleman and the little lady seed mun; and the witch wasn't far
away, you may depend. She's a-witched mun all; that's what it is; and
now maybe," she added with a triumphant glance at the weeping Mrs.
Mugford, "there's some as won't be so sartain as they was as to the
doings of witches."
Lady Eleanor gave a little laugh, but turned suddenly grave, and asked
Colonel George anxiously, "Do you think that they really believe it?"
"There is no doubt that they believe it," he said quietly.
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