ow you unfairly; nor did I know
there was a rock there. They are so much hidden by the turf that it
would take a wizard to tell where they are. But I'm sorry you are
hurt; let me help you home."

He looked at me strangely again.

"Help me home?" he said; "no, I can go without help; and I tell you
this, Roger, big as you are I'm as strong as you."

This pricked my pride. "As strong as I, Wilfred, why I could throw you
over my head."

"Yes, you say that now because my arm has been hurt on this rock; but
you wouldn't dare to wrestle again if I were well."

This put me into a passion. "Not dare!" I cried. "If I daren't it
would be because I should be afraid of hurting your poor, thin body.
Name any day you like and I'll take you."

"No," he said, "I've had enough of you. Never mind, my turn will come."

I again challenged him, and said all the things I could to vex him; but
he would not reply, and giving me another of his strange looks he went
towards the house.

He had not been gone long before my temper began to cool down, and
loving my brother very much I began to blame myself a great deal. I
condemned myself for not letting him throw me. I was a coward and a
brute, I thought within myself, to hurt my younger brother, and acting
on the impulse of the moment I hurried towards the house in order to
ask his forgiveness.

I had gone about half the distance when I met an old woman who was
almost bent double with old age and rheumatism. We recognised each
other in a minute. The old woman was Deborah Teague, the terror and
yet the blessing of the whole neighbourhood. To her friends there
could be no greater comfort than Deborah. She was acquainted with
medicine that cured almost every disease save that of old age. She
knew all the healing qualities of every herb that grew in the
neighbourhood. Deborah was doctor and nurse to all the people round
about. Fever, colds, ague, rheumatics, scarlatina, jaundice, bile;
Deborah could cure them all, and a dozen diseases besides. But this
was not all. What she could not cure by her medicine she could by her
charms, for with these she was abundantly supplied. Ringworms, warts,
gout, adder's stings, whooping cough, measles, she could charm every
one of them, and what was more, no one who was a friend of Deborah's
went away uncured, if a cure were possible.

Consequently she was much thought of when her helpful qualities were
taken into consideration, but, as I