The one was her flesh and her blood--the child of
her dead mother; the other was some fiend who came to torture and
convulse the creature she so loved. She believed that she fought her
brother's battle in holding down those tearing hands, in binding
whenever she could those uplifted restless arms prompt and prone to
do mischief. All the time she subdued him with her cunning or her
strength, she spoke to him in pitying murmurs, or abused the third
person, the fiendish enemy, in no unmeasured tones. Towards morning
the paroxysm was exhausted, and he would fall asleep, perhaps only to
waken with evil and renewed vigour. But when he was laid down, she
would sally out to taste the fresh air, and to work off her wild
sorrow in cries and mutterings to herself. The early labourers saw
her gestures at a distance, and thought her as crazed as the idiot-
brother who made the neighbourhood a haunted place. But did any
chance person call at Yew Nook later on in the day, he would find
Susan Dixon cold, calm, collected; her manner curt, her wits keen.
Once this fit of violence lasted longer than usual. Susan's strength
both of mind and body was nearly worn out; she wrestled in prayer
that somehow it might end before she, too, was driven mad; or, worse,
might be obliged to give up life's aim, and consign Willie to a
madhouse.
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