Oh, it was such a thin,
delicate thing - reminding him of a spider's web in a hedge. It
stood in the middle of the moonlight, and it seemed as if the
moonlight had nearly melted it away. A step nearer, he saw, with
a start, two little hands at work with it. And then at last, in
the shadow on the other side of the moonlight which came like
silver between, he saw the form to which the hands belonged: a
small withered creature, so old that no age would have seemed too
great to write under her picture, seated on a stool beyond the
spinning wheel, which looked very large beside her, but, as I said,
very thin, like a long-legged spider holding up its own web, which
was the round wheel itself She sat crumpled together, a filmy thing
that it seemed a puff would blow away, more like the body of a fly
the big spider had sucked empty and left hanging in his web, than
anything else I can think of.
When Curdie saw her, he stood still again, a good deal in wonder,
a very little in reverence, a little in doubt, and, I must add, a
little in amusement at the odd look of the old marvel. Her grey
hair mixed with the moonlight so that he could not tell where the
one began and the other ended. Her crooked back bent forward over
her chest, her shoulders nearly swallowed up her head between them,
and her two little hands were just like the grey claws of a hen,
scratching at the thread, which to Curdie was of course invisible
across the moonlight.
Pages:
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39