Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/118

 io8 Miscellanea.

thin, when I went to Martin's Town to tell my parents about it, and they wished me to go to ' the old woman ' at Dorchester. I had often heard of her, but had never seen her.

" So in the middle of March I went to her with my brother's wife, Mrs. Spracklen, laundress, Weymouth, taking my little boy Willy, who was four years old. ' The old woman ' lived in Pease Lane, now Colyton Street. She is now dead. She wore a black gown, a little shawl, and a very high cap with a frill all round her face and under her chin ; and Willy was so frightened at the sight of her that he would not go into her room, which was up-stairs, but stayed out on the landing. I forget her name.

" I told her how Elizabeth was affected, and that I had been advised to come to her to see if she could help me, and if there was anything wrong.

" First she took out a pack of cards, and told me to cut them. I turned up a queen. ' It is a dark woman who has to leave her house,' she said, 'and who has an ill will, not to the child, but to the parents.' The neighbour I suspected was Mrs. Rigg, who was dark. It had been thought that we were leaving at Lady Day, but at last we had settled not to leave, as was expected. Rigg had not a settled place like my husband. He just rented a cottage and worked for one and another as a labourer, but he wished to get a regular place. Mrs. Rigg wanted to have our house. It was better than hers, which was ruinous. So they were hoping to get our house and our place. Elizabeth used to play with Rigg's children, but now she was so timid she would cling to me and not play with anyone. ' The old woman ' told me to throw salt on the fire every morning as soon as I had kindled it, and before I broke my fast. Also, to nail up a horse-shoe, loop downwards and legs up, behind the door, and the rustier the nails I used the better. I was to throw a cloth over it, so that anybody should not notice it. Then I was to put an open penknife inside a book of common prayer and place this under the child's pillow at night. She promised me that in a week the child should be well and playing with the others. Before I left she told me to wish, but I had not any wish ready, and I didn't want to do Mrs. Rigg any harm, so I only wished that if it were she, she should have to come to me before the week was out. I did not tell ' the old woman ' what my wish was, nor did I name it to anyone until after it had come to pass.

" On going away I asked her what she would expect. She said