There were no others to whom he could have talked about it. The
miners were a mingled company - some good, some not so good, some
rather bad - none of them so bad or so good as they might have
been; Curdie liked most of them, and was a favourite with all; but
they knew very little about the upper world, and what might or
might not take place there. They knew silver from copper ore; they
understood the underground ways of things, and they could look very
wise with their lanterns in their hands searching after this or
that sign of ore, or for some mark to guide their way in the
hollows of the earth; but as to great-great-grandmothers, they
would have mocked Curdie all the rest of his life for the absurdity
of not being absolutely certain that the solemn belief of his
father and mother was nothing but ridiculous nonsense. Why, to
them the very word 'great-great-grandmother' would have been a
week's laughter! I am not sure that they were able quite to
believe there were such persons as great-great-grandmothers; they
had never seen one. They were not companions to give the best of
help toward progress, and as Curdie grew, he grew at this time
faster in body than in mind - with the usual consequence, that he
was getting rather stupid - one of the chief signs of which was
that he believed less and less in things he had never seen.
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