Colin obeyed at once, and found the old woman seated with her spindle and distaff, just as he had seen her when he was a boy on the moor above his father’s cottage.
“How do you do, mother?” he said.
“I am always quite well. Never ask me that question.”
“Well, then I won’t any more,” returned Colin. “But I thought you lived in Scotland?”
“I don’t live anywhere; but those that will do as I tell them, will always find me when they want me.”
“Do you see yet, mother?”
“See! I always see so well that it is not worth while to burn eyelight. So I let them go out. They were expensive.”
Where her eyes should have been, there was nothing but wrinkles.
“What do you want?” she resumed.
“I want my child. The fairies have got him.”
“I know that.”
“And they have taken out his eyes.”
“I can make him see without them.”
“And they’ve cut off his ears,” said Colin.
“He can hear without them.”
“And they’ve salted down his cheek and his chin.”
“Now I don’t believe that,” said the old woman.