Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/226

 1 88 Collectanea.

it stopped rushing round, and just ran after the man as was going to kill it — and Mrs. Smith she come by just at the minute." " And did they kill the pig ? " I asked. " No, in course," she said, "it was quite well after that."

" Mrs. Smith seems to have been very kind to animals," I remarked. " Well you see, Miss," she said, " if a pig was hurt, it hurt her too: if they cut a pig on the nose, the mark came on her face. There was another woman as wanted to kill a pig as was took bad, so Mrs. Smith she took some meal and she says to the woman, ' I owe you this,' she says ; and if the woman had answered she would not have been able to kill that pig. The children they used to have all sorts of jokes with her; sometimes they would stick pins into her footmark and she would turn round and ask them what they were a-doing of."

"I have been told she had imps," I said, "did you ever

see any?" "No," said Mrs. D, "I didn't, but other

people have." I asked her to tell me something about them. "After Mrs. Smith died mother laid her out. There was a chest of drawers in the room and such a squeaking and a hollering going on inside it like a lot of rats, but when mother looked in there was nothing inside it. Before she died she said to mother, ' When I am dead don't you make a peep-show of me, Sarah,' but mother she did, and I went and so did lots of others. My sister Mary she saw an imp once; she was on her way to the mill and something jumped out on her, a black thing ; it wasn't exactly a dog nor a rat, it looked more like a frog ; the thing jumped on her and Mary she screeched something awful and ran for dear life. Mother heard she had been bitten by a mad dog, so she sent a message down she had better go to the doctor. But Mary said, no, it wasn't a dog as had jumped on her, it had the look of a frog. Mrs. Smith came to see mother. ' Is it true,' she says, ' as your darter's been bitten by a dog ? ' ' No,' says mother, ' it was a frog that jumped on her.' 'Ah,' says Mrs. Smith, 'it would have been a pity if she had killed it.' You see. Miss, if she had killed it, that would have hurt herT

" Did anybody else see the imps ? " I asked.