"Good woman, indeed! Well, many's the one has been called good with as little reason. Yes, sir, coming: my old limbs are feeble; I do not move as I used to when I was young."
Thus apologizing, with her pipe in one hand, while the other undid the entrance, Mother Blonay admitted her visiters.
"So, you have been young once, mother?" said Humphries, while entering.
The old woman darted a glance upon him—a steadfast glance from her little grey eyes, and the stout and fearless trooper felt a chill go through his veins on the instant. He knew the estimate put upon her throughout the neighbourhood, as one possessed of the evil eye, or rather the evil mouth; one whose word brought blight among the cattle, and whom the negroes feared with a superstitious dread, as able to bring sickness and pestilence—a gnawing disease that ate away silently, until, without any visible complaint, the victim perished hopelessly. Their fears had been adopted in part by the whites of the lower class in the same region, and Humphries, though a bold and sensible fellow, had heard of too many dreadful influences ascribed to her, not to be unpleasantly startled with the peculiar intensity of the stare which she put upon him. Though a soldier, and like his fellows, without much faith of any kind, he had not altogether survived his superstitions.
"Young!" she said, in reply; "yes, I have been young, and I felt my youth. I knew it, snd I enjoyed it. But I have outlived it, and you see me now. You are young, too, Bill Humphries; may you live to have the same question asked you which you put to me."
"A cold wish. Mother Blonay; a bitter cold wish, since you should know, by your own feelings, how hard it will be to outlive activity and love, and the young people that come about us. It's a sad season that, mother, and may I die before it comes. But, talking of young people, mother, reminds me that you are not so lonesome as you say. You have your son, now, Goggle."
"If his eye is blear, Bill Humphries, it's not the part of good manners to speak of it to his mother. The curse of a blear eye, and a blind eye, may fall upon you yet, and upon yours—ay, down to your children's children—for any thing we know."
