The Piskey Purse Part 14

'How can I?' asked the poor Little Mother helplessly.

'I leave that to your clever wits to find out!' snapped the witch. 'And let me tell you that until you can fly you will never see Monday and your five other children again, nor get them out of my clutches!' And with a 'Ha! ha!' and a 'He! he!' the witch pulled her petticoats round her and disappeared under the dark waters of the well.

'My dear life!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Betty, now really frightened. 'I believe that old woman who played the game with us was a real witch, and wasn't pretending at all, and has really and truly taken Monday, Tuesday, and all the others away.' And she sped away down to the quay where she lived with her terrible news.

There was a great to-do when the children's friends learned what had happened, and there was bitter woe and lamentation when, after days and days of searching, the poor little souls could not be found.

A year went by, and all this time Betty, the child who had acted the 'Mother' in the game, never forgot her six little friends. They were seldom out of her thoughts, and she longed for a pair of wings to fly up the witch's stairs; and the more she wanted wings, the more impossible they seemed to get.

One evening in the beginning of June--the very same day, as it happened, that she and her little companions had met together at the Witch's Well to play the game--she was pa.s.sing the well, when a little white dog ran out of a garden close by, and came and licked her shoes.

She was fond of dogs, and, as she patted it, to her amazement it began to talk to her just like a human being, which almost scared her out of her wits.

'Please don't be afraid of me,' he said, wagging his stump of a tail as Betty backed into the hedge. 'I am only a dog in shape. I was a little boy before the dreadful old Witch o' the Well turned me into a dog, or what looks like a dog.'

'Were you really a boy once? And do you know the Witch o' the Well?' asked Betty, trying to get over her fears in her interest in what he told her.

'Alas, I do!' answered the dog. 'She is my mistress, and I have to follow her about all day long, and am never free of her except at night, when she is riding about on her broom. Then I have to haunt certain lanes to make silly superst.i.tious people believe I am a ghost. The old Witch sent me to this lane a few days ago, and very glad I was, because I hoped to see you.'

'Whatever for?' asked Betty, still very much afraid of this strange dog, with his human-like voice.

'Because I know your little friends Monday and the others.'

'Do you really?' cried the child. 'I am glad!--Where are they?'

'In the witch's house, away on a dark moor, in her upstairs chamber,'

answered the little white dog, with a wag of his tail, 'and where they will have to stay--so the witch says--until the little maid who played "Mother" in the game is able to fly upstairs after them.'

'Then, I'm afraid they will have to stay there always,' said Betty, her eyes filling with tears. 'Can't you get up the witch's stairs and bring them down?'

'The stairs are almost as steep as a tower,' answered the dog; 'and even if I could climb them, the door of the chamber where they are shut up is locked, and a spell worked upon the lock that nothing can open save a pair of wings and music.'

'What kind of music?' asked Betty.

'I haven't the smallest idea,' answered the dog. 'I only know that it has to do with you.'

'Are my dear little friends happy?' asked Betty, hardly noticing the dog's last remark.

'They are most unhappy,' said the dog. 'They have nothing to cheer them, poor little souls, save the forlorn hope that perhaps one day their dear Little Mother Betty will be able to fly and get them out of the witch's power.'

'If I only knew how to fly, how quickly I would get up those stairs!' said Betty. 'There is nothing I can do, is there, to get a pair of wings?' she asked wistfully. 'n.o.body who can help me to get wings?' she added, as the little white dog seemed to bend his head in thought.

'n.o.body but the Wise Woman of Bogee Down,' he answered, after considering a few minutes.

'I have heard of that strange old body,' said Betty. 'My mother often told me about her. She is very clever and wise, she said, and used to make simples for sick folks. She is terribly old now--a hundred and twenty, I think she told me.'

'That or more,' said the dog. 'But aged as she is, she is not too aged to work a kindness for anybody that asks her, particularly if it be against the Witch o' the Well.'

'Will she help me to get wings, do you think?' asked Betty eagerly.

'If it is within her power, I am certain she will,' returned the little white dog. 'Why don't you go and see her, and tell her the old Witch o' the Well has shut up six dear little maids, who were unfortunate enough to play the game with her a year ago, and that they cannot be set free until you, who acted the "Mother" in the game, can fly up to their rescue?'

''Tis a long way to Bogee Down,' answered Betty, 'but I'll go there to-morrow, all the same, if I can.'

'That is well,' cried the little white dog. 'You will not seek her help in vain, I am sure, especially if you tell her the witch's little white dog Pincher sent you. Now I must be off, for the old witch is up on her broom, and if she should happen to see us talking together, her horrid old cat would sclow [40] our eyes out. Good-bye, dear little Betty, and give thee favour in the sight of the Wise Woman'; and with another wag of his tail he vanished.

Betty hardly slept a wink that night, thinking of her six little friends shut up in the witch's tower, and so ardently did she desire wings to fly up to their help that she got up and dressed before the sun was risen. He was just rising over the golden towans on the east side of the river as she left her mother's house for Bogee Down, a wild, picturesque, but lonely tableland about four miles from the ancient town.

It was so early that n.o.body was up except herself, and the doors of the Crown and Anchor were still closed as she walked over the quay, down the slip, and across the beach to the south quay.

The child went out of the town the nearest way to the downs, up through a side road called the Drang, and up Sander's Hill.

When she got up to Three Turnings, which commanded a view of the river and Padstow low in the hollow of the hills, she climbed a stile and looked down to see if she could see the quay.

The river was now very beautiful with reflections of the dawn, and its pale-blue water was flushed with tenderest rose and gold. There was a flush on the rounded hills, and a gleam of light on the distant tors--Rough Tor and Brown w.i.l.l.y. There was a ship in full sail coming up the harbour, followed by a company of white-breasted gulls, which also caught the light.

The sun was high in the sky when Betty reached Bogee Down. Now she had got there she did not know in what part of it the Wise Woman lived. As she sent her glance over the wild down, gorgeous with yellow broom and other down flowers, she thought she saw blue smoke rising from a hedge a short distance up from Music Water, a delightful spot where Sweet-Gales, b.u.t.terfly Orchises, Bog-Asphodels grew, and where a clear brown musical stream ran down between the fragrant flowers, which made the place that June morning very beautiful.

The child went up over the down where she had seen the smoke rising, and found a hut huddled under a high blackberry hedge.

She knocked at the door, which was half open, and a thin cracked voice called out:

'Come in and tell me what has brought thee to this lonely down.'

Betty obeyed, but not without fear; and as she pushed the door open, she saw sitting in front of a peat fire on the hearthstone the bent form of an old woman with her back to the door. She was quaintly dressed, after the manner of ancient dames of the sixteenth century, and on her head she wore a cap as white as sloe blossom.

The old dame did not look round as Betty entered, but when the child had said all that Pincher the little white dog had told her to say, and had asked if she would kindly help her to get wings to fly up the witch's stairs, she suddenly glanced at her over her shoulder, with the brightest, keenest eyes the girl had ever seen, and which seemed to look into her pure young soul.

Evidently Betty's earnest little face pleased her, for she smiled and said kindly:

'Pincher was a wise dog to send you to me. But, let me tell you, you have asked me to do an almost impossible thing. Yet, fortunately for those poor shut-up little maids, it is not quite impossible; but it will depend on yourself, whether your love and pity for your little friends is strong enough to do all that is required of you.'

'I'll do anything if I can only get wings to fly with, and see Monday, Tuesday, and the others again,' broke in Betty, with all a child's eagerness.

'Alas! the will that is strong and eager to do is often weakened by the flesh that is frail,' said the Wise Woman, with a shake of her head; 'but the question now is, Are you willing to live with me, an old woman, in this out-of-the-way place, for a year and a day, if 'tis required, and do all I bid you willingly, without asking a single question?'

'A year and a day is a long time to be away from home,' said Betty honestly. 'Still, I am willing to stay with you all that time and do your bidding if my mother will let me.'

'That is well!' cried the Wise Woman. 'Now go back to Padstow Town and get your mother's consent, and return to me to-morrow about this time.'

Betty's mother was very glad to let her little girl go and live with the Wise Woman, for she was very poor, and had twelve children.

The next day, when Betty was returning to Bogee Down, which she did by the same road as before, with her clothes done up in a bundle under her arm, who should she see, leaning over a gate, at a place called Uncle Kit's Corner, but the old Witch o' the Well, smoking her pipe!

'Whither away, my little dear?' cried the witch, as the child drew near the gate.