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Updated: May 25, 2025
What Mother Cockleshell knew, she did not guess; what Mother Cockleshell intended to do, she could not think; but she was satisfied that Chaldea would in some way pay for her triumph. And the downfall of the girl was evidently connected with the unravelling of the murder mystery. In a witchly way, as the old woman would have said herself, she intended to adjust matters.
"The child treated me like the devil's calls her," said Gentilla Stanley, shaking her head angrily. "And I have no trust in her, for a witchly wrong 'un she is. When she goes donkey-wise to Wanbury, I says to a chal, says I, quick-like, 'Follow and watch her games! So the chal runs secret, behind hedges, and comes on the child at the railway line making for Lundra.
"Hell, do you mean?" asked Miss Greeby in her bluff way. "The Crooked Land we Romany calls it," insisted the old woman. "And the child will go there, for her witchly doings." "She's too good-looking to lose as a model, at all events," said Lambert, hitching his shoulders. "I shall leave you to have your fortune told, Clara, and follow Chaldea to pacify her."
Ever since you left Lundra the child has set him and others to spy on you. She makes mischief, does the child in her witchly way." "Ask him," said Agnes, indicating the dwarf, "if he knows who murdered my late husband?" Gentilla asked the question and translated the reply. "He knows nothing, but the child knows much.
"I've a good mind to take you to the police, and then you'd be forced to say what you know," said Miss Greeby crossly, for the vague hints irritated her not a little. The old woman cackled in evident enjoyment. "Do that, and the pot will boil over, ma'am. I wish to help the angel rani who nursed me when I was sick, and I have debts to pay to Chaldea. Both I do in my own witchly way."
'Wrinkles, says you in your cunning way, and flaunts your brazen smoothness. I spit on you for a fool." The old woman suited her action to the word. "Every wrinkle is the mark of lessons learned, and them is wisdom which the Romans take from my mouth." "Hear the witchly hag," cried Chaldea in her turn. "She and her musty wisdom that puts the Romans under the feet of the Gentiles.
That would be too witchly." Miss Greeby mused. "I have heard something about these gypsy superstitions before," she remarked meditatively. "Avo! Avo! They are in a book written by a great Romany Rye. Leland is the name of that rye, a gypsy Lee with Gentile land. He added land to the lea as he was told by one of our people.
But it was amazing that Gentilla should know this, and Miss Greeby wonderingly asked her how she came by such knowledge. The respectable widow chuckled. "I have witchly ways, ma'am, and the golden rye has talked many a time to me in my tent, when I told him of the Gorgious lady's goodness to me when ill. They love aye, that is sure but the money divides their hearts, and that is foolish.
"Cross Mother Cockleshell's hand with silver and she'll tell the coming years truly." "Why do they call you Mother Cockleshell?" demanded Miss Greeby, waiving the question of fortune-telling for the time being. "Bless your wisdom, it was them fishermen at Grimsby who did so. I walked the beaches for years and told charms and gave witchly spells for fine weather.
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