both Mr. and Mrs. Twitt. In his
every-day ramble down to the ocean end of the "coombe" he often took a
rest of ten minutes or a quarter of an hour at Twitt's house before
climbing up the stony street again to Mary Deane's cottage, and Mrs.
Twitt, in her turn, was a constant caller on Mary, to whom she brought
all the news of the village, all the latest remedies for every sort of
ailment, and all the oddest superstitions and omens which she could
either remember or invent concerning every incident that had occurred to
her or to her neighbours within the last twenty-four hours. There was no
real morbidity of character in Mrs. Twitt; she only had that peculiar
turn of mind which is found quite as frequently in the educated as in
the ignorant, and which perceives a divine or a devilish meaning in
almost every trifling occurrence of daily life. A pin on the ground
which was not picked up at the very instant it was perceived, meant
terrible ill-luck to Mrs. Twitt,--if a cat sneezed, it was a sign that
there was going to be sickness in the village,--and she always carried
in her pocket "a bit of coffin" to keep away the cramp. She also had a
limitless faith in the power of cursing, and she believed most
implicitly in the fiendish abilities of a certain person, (whether male
or female, she did not explain) whose address she gave vaguely as, "out
on the hills," and who, if requested, and paid for the trouble, would
put a stick into the ground, muttering a mysterious malison on any man
or woman you chose to name as an enemy, with the pronounced guarantee:--

"As this stick rotteth to decay,
So shall (Mr, Miss or Mrs So-and-so) rot away!"

But with the exception of these little weaknesses, Mrs. Twitt was a good
sort of motherly old body, warm-hearted and cheerful, too, despite her
belief in omens. She had taken quite a liking to "old David" as she
called him, and used to watch his thin frail figure, now since his
illness sadly bent, jogging slowly down the street towards the sea, with
much kindly solicitude. For despite Mr. Bunce's recommendation that he
should "sit quiet," Helmsley could not bring himself to the passively
restful condition of weak and resigned old age. He had too much on his
mind for that. He worked patiently every morning at basket-making, in
which he was quickly becoming an adept; but in the afternoon he grew
restless, and Mary, seeing it was better for him to walk as long as
walking was possible to hi