A moment later Mr. Ingleby said,
“Now, the ruins of this cottage ought to interest you, Edwin.”
“Why? Is it one of ours?”
“No, but the old woman who lived in it in my day was always supposed to be a witch. Mendip people were always great believers in witchcraft. I shouldn’t wonder if your aunt believes in ‘ill-wishing’ to this day. I suppose she was really a harmless old body. The story was that a daughter of hers, with whom she had quarrelled, married a small dairy farmer down by Axcombe, and no sooner had she gone to live with him than the poor man’s cows went dry. His business failed. He had to sell his stock. He was ruined, and took to drink; and in all the public-houses for miles round he used to rail against his mother-in-law, and say that she was responsible for the whole business. She was a lonely old creature, very poor and dirty, and when we were children and going up to the Holloway we used to cover our eyes and run for fear we should catch sight of her. No one even knew when she died. They found her, I heard, when she had been dead for a week or ten days.”
Edwin shivered. These hill-people, it seemed, were hard and cruel. No doubt he must have some of their stony cruelty in his own being somewhere.
At last they reached the farm at the top of the Holloway. It was a poor building, only a little more hospitable than the ruins in the valley. Mr. Ingleby knocked at the door, and a sturdy, middle-aged man with an iron hook in place of his right hand lifted the latch and stared at them.
“You don’t know me, Isaac?” said Mr. Ingleby.
“Noa. . . . I can’t say I do know ’ee.”
“I’m John Ingleby.”
“John Ingleby! . . . Well, and I’m proud to see ’ee, John. Do ’ee step inside and see mother. I can’t shake hands with ’ee the way I was used to. I lost en in a mowin’-machine five years back. Come in then.”