As for the quarry
shafts themselves, they too were covered round the tips with the green
turf, and down them led a narrow flight of steep-cut steps, with a slide
of soap-stone at the side, on which the marble blocks were once hauled up
by wooden winches. Down these steps no feet ever walked now, for not only
were suffocating gases said to beset the bottom of the shafts, but men
would have it that in the narrow passages below lurked evil spirits and
demons. One who ought to know about such things, told me that when St.
Aldhelm first came to Purbeck, he bound the old Pagan gods under a ban
deep in these passages, but that the worst of all the crew was a certain
demon called the Mandrive, who watched over the best of the black marble.
And that was why such marble might only be used in churches or for
graves, for if it were not for this holy purpose, the Mandrive would
have power to strangle the man that hewed it.
It was by the side of one of these old shafts that Elzevir laid me down
at last. The light was very low, showing all the little unevennesses of
the turf; and the sward crept over the edges of the hole, and every crack
and crevice in steps and slide was green with ferns. The green ferns
shrouded the walls of the hole, and ruddy brown brambles overgrew the
steps, till all was lost in the gloom that hung at the bottom of the pit.
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