35
Chapter Seven
Agnes Sampson and her husband, Petie, lived in one of two small thactched
cottages which sat on top of Knocknadreemally, so called because here the
fringes of Havara, Banyil and Lusky woods touched. The visitors entering the
cottage set swinging clusters and strings of herbs and roots hanging from the
dark rafters. On the mantelpiece and deep window-ledge sat jars filled with
tormentil, tansy and golden rod, and many other dried pods, flowers, barks and
roots. Iron time to time there arose murmurs among the wealthier farmers of
an inquiry into the old woman’s traffic, and a possible prosecution. .Jut Q3
it was never proven that she had injured any of her poor patients, but on the
contrary had dispelled innumerable fevers, bruises and domestic upsets, nothing
was ever done about it.
Her humour, energy and skill, and the many wild nights when she had clung
to the back of a frantic non as he whipped his horse along the roads, so that
she might be inn tine to wipe the lips and catch the last words of some dying
crone, or deliver safely a whimpering child, had further endeared her in the
affection and respect of the country folk.
Her husband, Petie, was a small soft-spoken man who only put on a jacket
when he was going to meeting-house. Be had a remarkable collection of parti-
coloured waistcoats which he wore three at a time, winter and summer. Thus he
had twelve pockets in which to mislay his chewing roll, opportunities of which
he took full advantage. But as he was a gentle humorous creature, the search
was calm and leisured.
Having neither chick nor child, as the country folk say, Petie and Agnes
had worked for many years in the fields of their neighbours, particularly the
Echlins and their cousins the Pentlands. Agnes had been present at the birth
