THE MINERS.
It much increased Curdie's feeling of the strangeness of the whole
affair, that, the next morning, when they were at work in the mine, the
party of which he and his father were two, just as if they had known
what had happened to him the night before, began talking about all
manner of wonderful tales that were abroad in the country, chiefly of
course those connected with the mines, and the mountains in which they
lay. Their wives and mothers and grandmothers were their chief
authorities. For when they sat by their firesides they heard their wives
telling their children the selfsame tales, with little differences, and
here and there one they had not heard before, which they had heard their
mothers and grandmothers tell in one or other of the same cottages. At
length they came to speak of a certain strange being they called Old
Mother Wotherwop. Some said their wives had seen her. It appeared as
they talked that not one had seen her more than once. Some of their
mothers and grandmothers, however, had seen her also, and they all had
told them tales about her when they were children. They said she could
take any shape she liked, but that in reality she was a withered old
woman, so old and so withered that she was as thin as a sieve with a
lamp behind it; that she was never seen except at night, and when
something terrible had taken place, or was going to take place--such as
the falling in of the roof of a mine, or the breaking out of water in
it. She had more than once been seen--it was always at night--beside
some well, sitting on the brink of it, and leaning over and stirring it
with her forefinger, which was six times as long as any of the rest. And
whoever for months after drank of that well was sure to be ill. To this
one of them, however, added that he remembered his mother saying that
whoever in bad health drank of the well was sure to get better. But the
majority agreed that the former was the right version of the story--for
was she not a witch, an old hating witch, whose delight was to do
mischief? One said he had heard that she took the shape of a young woman
sometimes, as beautiful as an angel, and then was most dangerous of all,
for she struck every man who looked upon her stone-blind. Peter ventured
the question whether she might not as likely be an angel that took the
form of an old woman, as an old woman that took the form of an angel.
But nobody except Curdie, who was holding his peace with all his might,
saw any sense in the question. They said an old woman might be very glad
to make herself look like a young one, but who ever heard of a young and
beautiful one making herself look old and ugly? Peter asked why they
were so much more ready to believe the bad that was said of her than the
good. They answered because she was bad. He asked why they believed her
to be bad, and they answered, because she did bad things. When he asked
how they knew that, they said, because she was a bad creature. Even if
they didn't know it, they said, a woman like that was so much more
likely to be bad than good. Why did she go about at night? Why did she
appear only now and then, and on such occasions? One went on to tell how
one night when his grandfather had been having a jolly time of it with
his friends in the market town, she had served him so upon his way home
that the poor man never drank a drop of anything stronger than water
after it to the day of his death. She dragged him into a bog, and
tumbled him up and down in it till he was nearly dead.
"I suppose that was her way of teaching him what a good thing water
was," said Peter; but the man, who liked strong drink, did not see the
joke.
"They do say," said another, "that she has lived in the old house over
there ever since the little princess left it. They say too that the
housekeeper knows all about it, and is hand and glove with the old
witch. I don't doubt they have many a nice airing together on
broomsticks. But I don't doubt either it's all nonsense, and there's no
such person at all."
"When our cow died," said another, "she was seen going round and round
the cowhouse the same night. To be sure she left a fine calf behind
her--I mean the cow did, not the witch. I wonder she didn't kill that
too, for she'll be a far finer cow than ever her mother was."
"My old woman came upon her one night, not long before the water broke
out in the mine, sitting on a stone on the hill-side with a whole
congregation of cobs about her. When they saw my wife they all scampered
off as fast as they could run, and where the witch was sitting there was
nothing to be seen but a withered bracken bush. I make no doubt myself
she was putting them up to it."
And so they went on with one foolish tale after another, while Peter put
in a word now and then, and Curdie diligently held his peace. But his
silence at last drew attention upon it, and one of them said,--
"Come, young Curdie, what are you thinking of?"
"How do you know I'm thinking of anything?" asked Curdie.
"Because you're not saying anything."
"Does it follow then that, as you are saying so much, you're not
thinking at all?" said Curdie.
"I know what he's thinking," said one who had not yet spoken; "--he's
thinking what a set of fools you are to talk such rubbish; as if ever
there was or could be such an old woman as you say! I'm sure Curdie
knows better than all that comes to."
"I think," said Curdie, "it would be better that he who says anything
about her should be quite sure it is true, lest she should hear him, and
not like to be slandered."
"But would she like it any better if it were true?" said the same man.
"If she is what they say--I don't know--but I never knew a man that
wouldn't go in a rage to be called the very thing he was."
"If bad things were true of her, and I _knew_ it," said Curdie, "I would
not hesitate to say them, for I will never give in to being afraid of
anything that's bad. I suspect that the things they tell, however, if we
knew all about them, would turn out to have nothing but good in them;
and I won't say a word more for fear I should say something that
mightn't be to her mind."
They all burst into a loud laugh.
"Hear the parson!" they cried. "He believes in the witch! Ha! ha!"
"He's afraid of her!"
"And says all she does is good!"
"He wants to make friends with her, that she may help him to find the
gangue."
"Give me my own eyes and a good divining rod before all the witches in
the world! and so I'd advise you too, Master Curdie; that is, when your
eyes have grown to be worth anything, and you have learned to cut the
hazel fork."
Thus they all mocked and jeered at him, but he did his best to keep his
temper and go quietly on with his work. He got as close to his father as
he could, however, for that helped him to bear it. As soon as they were
tired of laughing and mocking, Curdie was friendly with them, and long
before their midday meal all between them was as it had been.
But when the evening came, Peter and Curdie felt that they would rather
walk home together without other company, and therefore lingered behind
when the rest of the men left the mine.