Once upon a time, which somewhat vague reference in this instance
means long before it was considered a compliment by the fair dames of
Lancashire to be termed witches, there lived in the Fylde country
village of Singleton a toothless, hooknosed old woman, whose ill
fortune it was to be credited with the friendship of the Evil One.
Perhaps had the ancient dame been somewhat better looking she might
have borne a better character. In those distant days to be poor was
considered decidedly discreditable, but to be ugly also was to add
insult to injury. The old woman knew only too well that she was poor
and that she was plain, for the urchins and hobbledehoys of the
locality lost no opportunity of reminding her of the facts, whenever,
on frugal mind intent, she emerged from her rude cottage to expend a
few pence upon articles of food.
Ugliness and poverty, however, Mag Shelton persisted in considering
misfortunes and not crimes, and when anybody to whom she was an
eyesore, with gallantry peculiar to the time and place let us hope,
wished that she would die and rid the village of her objectionable
presence, the old woman took no notice of the polite expression. To
die by particular desire was not in Mag's line. What harm could a
toothless old woman do, that the world, by which term the half-dazed
creature meant the village in which she had spent her life, should
evince so much anxiety to be rid of her?--argued Mag. True, if
toothless, she had her tongue; but without a visiting circle, and with
no benefactors to belie, that valuable weapon in the service of spite
might just as well have been in the mouth of an uneducated heathen.
Harmless, however, as the old dame thought herself, the villagers held
a different opinion, and the children, afraid of disturbing the witch,
invariably removed their wooden-soled clogs before they ran past the
hut in which Mag lived,{25} while the older folk, if they did not
literally take the coverings from their feet as they passed the
lonely dwelling, crept by on tiptoe, and glanced furtively at the
unsuspecting inhabitant of the cottage, who, by the aid of the fitful
firelight, might be seen dozing near the dying embers, and now and
again stroking a suspiciously bright-eyed cat, nestled snugly upon her
knee.
The old woman's solitary way of life favoured the growth of
superstitions regarding her, for the Singletonians were not without
their share of that comforting vanity which impresses the provincial
mind with a sense of the high importance of its society, parish, and
creed; and they could not imagine anyone preferring to keep away from
them and to sit alone, without at once believing, as a necessary
consequence, that the unappreciative ones must have dealings with
Satan.
It soon was found convenient to attribute anything and everything of
an unpleasant nature to the denizen of the lonely cottage, 'th' Owd
Witch,' as she was termed. Was a cow or a child ailing? Mag had done
it! Had the housewife omitted to mark with the sign of the cross the
baking of dough left in the mug on the hearth, and the bread had
turned out 'heavy,' Mag Shelton had taken advantage of the overworked
woman's negligence! Was there but a poor field of wheat? 'Twas the
fault of old Mag, swore the farmer. In short, whatever went wrong
throughout the entire country-side was judged to be clearly traceable
to the spite and malevolence of the toothless old woman and her
suspicious-looking cat.
This state of things might, however, have continued without any
interruption, until Nature had interposed and released Mag from her
attendance upon such a world, had it not begun to be noticed that
almost every farmer in the neighbourhood was complaining of the
mysterious disappearance of milk, not only from the dairies, but also
from the udders of the cows grazing in the pastures. A bucolic genius
immediately proclaimed that in this case, too, the culprit must be
Mag, for had not she her familiars to feed, and what could be more
agreeable to the palate of a parched fiend or perspiring imp, than a
beaker of milk fresh from the cow and redolent of meadow-flowers? With
such a gaping family to satisfy, what regard could the old lady retain
for the Eighth Commandment?
This logic was deemed unanswerable, and a number of the farmers
determined to conceal themselves one night about the witch's cottage,
in the hope of something confirmatory turning up. It was late when
they took their places, and they barely had settled themselves
comfortably behind the hedgerow before a noise was heard, and the old
woman emerged from the house,--the cat, and, of all things else in the
world, a stately goose solemnly paddling behind her.
The men in ambush remained silent until Mag and her attendants had
passed out of sight and hearing, when one of them said, 'Keep still,
chaps, till hoo comes back. Hoo's gone a milkin', I daat.' The
watchers therefore kept perfectly quiet, and in a little while their
patience was rewarded; for the old woman reappeared, walking slowly
and unattended by her former companions. As she paused to unfasten the
cottage door, the men pounced out of their hiding-place, seized her
roughly, and at once tore off her cloak. To the surprise of the rude
assailants, however, no sign of milkjugs could be observed; and, as
they stood aghast, Mag cried, in a shrill and angry voice, 'Will ye
never learn to respect grey hair, ye knaves?' 'We'll respect tha'
into th' pit yon, mi lady,' immediately responded one of the roughest
of the men. 'What hes ta done with th' milk to-neet?'
In vain were the old woman's protestations,--that, driven from the
roads and lanes in the daytime by the children and the hobbledehoys
who persecuted her, she had of late taken her exercise by night; the
judicial mind was made up, and rude hands were outstretched to drag
her to the horsepond, when, fortunately for Mag, the appearance of the
goose, waddling in a hurried and agitated manner, created a timely
diversion in her favour.
'I thowt it quare,' said one of the would-be executioners--'varra
quare, that th' goose worn't somewheer abaat, for hoo an' it's as
thick as Darby an' Jooan.'
As though conscious that all was not well with its mistress, the
ungainly and excited bird, stretching its neck towards the bystanders,
and hissing loudly, placed itself by the old woman's side.
'We want no hissin' heear,' said the leader of the band, as he lifted
a heavy stick and struck the sibilant fowl a sharp rap on its head.
No sooner had the sound of the blow fallen upon the ears of the
assembled rustics than the goose vanished, not a solitary feather
being left behind, and in its place there stood a large broken
pitcher, from which milk, warm from the cow, was streaming. Here was
proof to satisfy even the most credulous, and, as a consequence, in a
moment the old woman was floundering in the pond, from which she
barely escaped with her life. A few days afterwards, however, upon the
interposition of the Vicar, she was permitted to leave the
inhospitable village, and away she tramped in search of 'fresh woods
and pastures new,' her cat and the revivified goose bearing her
company.{26}
She had left the inhospitable place, when the landlord of the Blue Pig
discovered that the jug in which the witch-watchers had conveyed their
'allowance' to the place of ambush had not been returned. It was not
again seen in its entirety, and the sarcastic host often vowed that it
was here and there in the village in the shape of cherished fragments
of the broken one into which the watchers declared that they had seen
Mag's goose transformed.