The farmer, who was not so easily imposed upon, suspected a trick.  He demanded the key, and went and opened the cellar-door; there he found the basin, and in it five round pieces of tin covered with powder.  Mrs. Jenkins burst out a crying; but the farmer thought of nothing but getting a warrant to apprehend the cunning woman.  Indeed, she well proved her claim to that name, when she insisted that the cellar-door might be kept locked till she had time to get out of the reach of all pursuit.

* * * * *

Poor Sally Evans.  I am sure she rued the day that ever she listened to a fortune-teller.  Sally was as harmless a girl as ever churned a pound of butter; but Sally was ignorant and superstitious.  She delighted in dream-books, and had consulted all the cunning women in the country to tell her whether the two moles on her cheek denoted that she was to have two husbands, or only two children.  If she picked up an old horseshoe going to church, she was sure that would be a lucky week.  She never made a black-pudding without borrowing one of the parson’s old wigs to hang in the chimney, firmly believing there were no other means to preserve them from bursting.

She would never go to bed on Midsummer-eve without sticking up in her room the well-known plant called Midsummer-men, as the bending of the leaves to the right or to the left, would not fail to tell her whether Jacob, of whom we shall speak presently, was true or false.  She would rather go five miles about than pass near a churchyard at night.  Every seventh year she would not eat beans, because they grew downward in the pod, instead of upward; and she would rather have gone with her gown open than have taken a pin of an old woman, for fear of being bewitched.

Poor Sally had so many unlucky days in her calendar, that a large portion of her time became of little use, because on these days she did not dare set about any new work.  And she would have refused the best offer in the country if made to her on a Friday, which she thought so unlucky a day, that she often said what a pity it was that there was any Friday in the week.  Sally had twenty pounds left her by her grandmother.  She had long been courted by Jacob, a sober lad, with whom she lived a fellow-servant at a creditable farmer’s.  Honest Jacob, like his namesake of old, thought it little to wait seven years to get this damsel to wife, because of the love he bore her, for Sally had promised to marry him when he could match her twenty pounds with another of his own.

Now, there was one Robert, a rambling, idle young gardener, who, instead of sitting down steadily in one place, used to roam about the country, and do odd jobs where he could get them.  No one understood any thing about him, except that he was a down-looking fellow, who came nobody knew whence, and got his bread nobody knew how, and never had a penny in his pocket.  Robert, who was now in the neighborhood, happened to hear of Sally Evans and her twenty pounds.  He immediately conceived a longing desire for the latter.  So he went to his old friend Rachel, told her all he had heard of Sally, and promised if she could bring about a marriage between them, she should go shares in the money.