No More Learning

She began by telling the old woman that she did not
like being in the house alone because of the ghosts and faeries;
and the old woman said, 'There's nothing to be frightened about in
faeries, miss. Many's the time I talked to a woman myself that was
a faery, or something of the sort, and no less and more than mortal
anyhow. She used to come about your grandfather's house--your mother's
grandfather, that is--in my young days. But you'll have heard all about
her. ' My friend said that she had heard about her, but a long time
before, and she wanted to hear about her again; and the old woman went
on, 'Well, dear, the very first time ever I heard word of her coming
about was when your uncle--that is, your mother's uncle--Joseph married,
and building a house for his wife, for he brought her first to his
father's, up at the house by the Lough. My father and us were living
nigh hand to where the new house was to be built, to overlook the men
at their work. My father was a weaver, and brought his looms and all
there into a cottage that was close by. The foundations were marked
out, and the building stones lying about, but the masons had not come
yet; and one day I was standing with my mother fornent the house, when
we sees a smart wee woman coming up the field over the burn to us. I
was a bit of a girl at the time, playing about and sporting myself, but
I mind her as well as if I saw her there now! ' My friend asked how the
woman was dressed, and the old woman said, 'It was a gray cloak she
had on, with a green cashmere skirt and a black silk handkercher tied
round her head, like the country women did use to wear in them times. '
My friend asked, 'How wee was she? ' And the old woman said, 'Well now,
she wasn't wee at all when I think of it, for all we called her the
Wee Woman. She was bigger than many a one, and yet not tall as you
would say. She was like a woman about thirty, brown-haired and round
in the face. She was like Miss Betty, your grandmother's sister, and
Betty was like none of the rest, not like your grandmother, nor any of
them.
She was round and fresh in the face, and she never was married,
and she never would take any man; and we used to say that the Wee
Woman--her being like Betty--was, maybe, one of their own people that had
been took off before she grew to her full height, and for that she was
always following us and warning and foretelling. This time she walks
straight over to where my mother was standing. "Go over to the Lough
this minute! "--ordering her like that--"Go over to the Lough, and tell
Joseph that he must change the foundation of this house to where I'll
show you fornent the thorn-bush. That is where it is to be built, if he
is to have luck and prosperity, so do what I'm telling ye this minute. "
The house was being built on "the path" I suppose--the path used by the
people of faery in their journeys, and my mother brings Joseph down
and shows him, and he changes the foundations, the way he was bid, but
didn't bring it exactly to where was pointed, and the end of that was,
when he come to the house, his own wife lost her life with an accident
that come to a horse that hadn't room to turn right with a harrow
between the bush and the wall. The Wee Woman was queer and angry when
next she come, and says to us, "He didn't do as I bid him, but he'll
see what he'll see. "' My friend asked where the woman came from this
time, and if she was dressed as before, and the woman said, 'Always the
same way, up the field beyant the burn. It was a thin sort of shawl she
had about her in summer, and a cloak about her in winter; and many and
many a time she came, and always it was good advice she was giving to
my mother, and warning her what not to do if she would have good luck.
There was none of the other children of us ever seen her unless me;
but I used to be glad when I seen her coming up the burn, and would run
out and catch her by the hand and the cloak, and call to my mother,
"Here's the Wee Woman! " No man body ever seen her. My father used to
be wanting to, and was angry with my mother and me, thinking we were
telling lies and talking foolish like. And so one day when she had
come, and was sitting by the fireside talking to my mother, I slips out
to the field where he was digging. "Come up," says I, "if ye want to
see her. She's sitting at the fireside now, talking to mother. " So in
he comes with me and looks round angry like and sees nothing, and he up
with a broom that was near hand and hits me a crig with it.