I wonder that you can believe in such things."
"I know mun too well, my Lady," said Mrs. Fry mournfully. "There was
my pig back in the spring, so rasonable a pig as ever ate mate, until
the white witch to Gratton overlooked mun. And I never did the white
witch no harm, nor the pig didn't neither; but as they was driving the
pig along the road--and you know what pigs is, driving, my Lady,--the
white witch comes riding on his one-eyed donkey; and the pig runned
against the donkey, and the old man[1] muttered something or 'nother--"
"But the old man is dead, I was told," said Lady Eleanor.
"'Eas fai! and so he is, my Lady, and a terrible job they had to bury
mun--thunder, lightning and hailstones so big as sloes. Dead he is,
and I won't jidge mun--but not afore he'd a doed the mischief, for but
three weeks afterward my pig falls into the mill-leat. So there's my
pig a drownded, and my Tommy so dumb as a haddock--can't go to school,
can't do nought but ate his mate and sit in the corner for all the
world like a moulting hen. Ah, they witches! I wish they was
a-burned, I do." And she hid her face in her apron and sobbed.
"Hush, hush!" said Lady Eleanor gently; but just then she was startled
by a little cry from Elsie; and there was Dick, who had just leaped his
pony over a low bar, tilted right forward on the pony's neck. "Sit
fast, sir, sit fast," cried the Corporal, as Dick floundered to regain
his seat; and with a desperate effort the boy recovered himself and sat
up, flushed and smiling.
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