“I reckon,” he said to Paradine, in tones
of mild reproach, “ye think I’m a-lyin’
about puttin’ these here Yanks to sleep.”
Paradine smiled at him, as he might have smiled at an importunate child. “I didn’t call you a liar,” he temporized, “and the Yankees are certainly in dreamland. But I think there must be some natural explanation for—”
“Happen I kin show ye better’n tell ye,” cut in the dotard. His paper-bound book was open in his scrawny hands. Stooping close to it, he began rapidly to mumble something. His voice suddenly rose, sounded almost young:
“Now, stand there till I tell ye to move!”
Paradine, standing, fought for explanations. What was happening to him could be believed, was even logical. Mesmerism, scholars called it, or a newer name, hypnotism.
As a boy he, Paradine, had amused himself by holding a hen’s beak to the floor and drawing a chalk line therefrom. The hen could never move until he lifted it away from that mock tether. That was what now befell him, he was sure. His muscles were slack, or perhaps tense; he could not say by the feel. In any case, they were immovable. He could not move eye. He could not loosen grip on his saber-hilt. Yes, hypnotism. If only he rationalized it, he could break the spell.
But he remained motionless, as though he were the little iron figure to which his horse was tethered, yonder at the foot of the street.
The old man surveyed him with a flicker of shrewdness in those bright eyes that had seemed foolish.
“I used only half power. Happen ye kin still hear me. So listen:
“My name’s Teague. I live down yon by the crick. I’m a witch-man, an’ my pappy was a witch-man afore me. He was the seventh son of a seventh son—an’ I was his seventh son. I know conjer stuff—black an’ white, forrard an’ back’ard. It’s my livin’.
“Folks in Channow make fun o’ me, like they did o’ my pappy when he was livin’ but they buy my charms. Things to bring love or hate, if they hanker fer ’em. Cures fer sick hogs an’ calves. Sayin’s to drive away fever. All them things. I done it fer Channow folks all my life.”
It was a proud pronouncement, Paradine realized. Here was the man diligent in business, who could stand before kings. So might speak a statesman who had long served his constituency, or the editor of a paper that had built respectful traditions, or a doctor who had guarded a town’s health for decades, or a blacksmith who took pride in his lifetime of skilled toil. This gaffer who called himself a witch-man considered that he had done service, and was entitled to respect and gratitude. The narrator went on, more grimly:
“Sometimes I been laffed at, an’ told to mind my own bizness. Young ’uns has hooted, an’ throwed stones. I coulda cursed ’em—but I didn’t. Nossir. They’s my friends an’ neighbors—Channow folks. I kep’ back evil from ’em.”
The old figure straightened, the white beard jutted forward. An exultant note crept in.
“But when the Yanks come, an’ everybody run afore ’em but me, I didn’t have no scruples! Invaders! Tyrants! Thievin’ skunks in blue!” Teague sounded like a recruiting officer for a Texas regiment. “I didn’t owe them nothin’—an’ here in the street I faced ’em. I dug out this here little book, an’ I read the sleep words to ’em. See,” and the old hands gestured sweepingly, “they sleep till I tell ’em to wake. If I ever tell ’em!”
Paradine had to believe this tale of occult patriotism. There was nothing else to believe in its place. The old man who
