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."