The Pool of St. Branok by Philippa Carr

their jobs are so dangerous.”
    “Logical reasoning,” he said. “Yes, up here one could believe in some of those stories.”
    “These stones for instance could come suddenly to life. Look at that one. It is rather like a woman’s shape. It’s the one they call the Stone Novice. She was turned out of her convent because she disobeyed the laws of the Church.”
    “I wonder what law?”
    “She had a lover. They say that at certain times if you come up here alone, you can hear her weeping.”
    “I expect it is only the wind.”
    “It could easily be mistaken for weeping.”
    “Tell me more.”
    “There is the story about the mine.”
    “Pencarron’s.”
    “No. No. There are lots of mines in Cornwall. This was somewhere else. It is supposed to have happened years ago. It’s an old Scat Bal now.”
    “I thought Pencarron was that.”
    “Oh no. That is not a Scat Bal. It’s used just as a term of affection. I do hope the knackers understand that. They might be annoyed if they didn’t. This one I am telling you about is a very different matter.”
    “I’m longing to hear more.”
    “It was a tin mine. There was a terrible accident there. Several men were killed. After the accident a lot of people remembered seeing black dogs and white hares hanging around. It was a complete disaster. They said that was the end of Cradley Mine. Those who escaped lost their jobs; there was a great deal of hardship in the neighborhood. People used to say the mine was haunted. They heard strange knockings there at night. There were two men … brothers … miners who had lost their work and lived in great poverty. One night they decided to go into the old mine and see what the knocking meant. This was dangerous for the mine had collapsed once and could do so again. However, one dark night they went in. They crawled along in the direction from which came the knocking, expecting at any moment that the earth would collapse on top of them. They saw a light. They went towards it and there were twenty little men all digging away with tiny shovels. They had tiny pails and these were full of gold. They were knackers.”
    “And gold … in a tin mine?”
    “That’s the story. The two were terrified, and then they lost their fear for the knackers were so small … just the size of a sixpenny doll, they said. The knackers were not angry with the men, because they had been brave to come there in the dead of night. The men just marveled at the sight of the gold they could see in the earth. They said that if they brought proper implements in one night they could mine twenty times as much gold as the knackers were doing in that time. They came to an arrangement with the little men. They would mine the gold and sell it and for every ounce they sold ten per cent should go back to the knackers. This was agreed and every night those two men went to work. In a short time they were very rich. They bought a beautiful house and they lived like gentry and everyone was in awe of them because of their sudden fortune which they said had been left to them by a relation from overseas.”
    “I hope they remembered to surrender the ten per cent.”
    “Oh yes, they did. They never forgot. As soon as a transaction was made the knackers received their due. Well, the men married. They each had a son, and when the boys were old enough they told them the secret of their wealth, and they brought them into the mine so that when they were dead their sons could go on mining gold. So they did and in time the two men died and there were only the sons.”
    “I can guess what’s coming.”
    “What?”
    “They didn’t pay their dues.”
    “That’s right. They said: ‘Why should we? We do the work.’ They never saw the knackers. They just had to take the commission and leave it there. But it was always gone on their next visit. They made up their minds that it was a fantastic story and their fathers must have been mad to throw away so large a proportion of the