ren. 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