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CHAPTER 5
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 hillside 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 made 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 silver ore.'
'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.
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