But the people in the house, instead of opening
the door, threw things at him from the windows. They would not
listen to a word he said, but sent him back to Lina with the blood
running down his face. When Lina saw that she leaped up in a fury
and was rushing at the house, into which she would certainly have
broken; but Curdie called her, and made her lie down beside him
while he bethought him what next he should do.
'Lina,' he said, 'the people keep their gates open, but their
houses and their hearts shut.'
As if she knew it was her presence that had brought this trouble
upon him, she rose and went round and round him, purring like a
tigress, and rubbing herself against his legs.
Now there was one little thatched house that stood squeezed in
between two tall gables, and the sides of the two great houses shot
out projecting windows that nearly met across the roof of the
little one, so that it lay in the street like a doll's house. In
this house lived a poor old woman, with a grandchild. And because
she never gossiped or quarrelled, or chaffered in the market, but
went without what she could not afford, the people called her a
witch, and would have done her many an ill turn if they had not
been afraid of her.
Now while Curdie was looking in another direction the door opened,
and out came a little dark-haired, black-eyed, gypsy-looking child,
and toddled across the market place toward the outcasts.
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