"I'm afraid my friends want you, Gabriel," said the goblin.
"Under favor, sir," replied the horror-stricken sexton, "I don't think
they can; they don't know me, sir; I don't think the gentlemen have ever
seen me."
"Oh! yes, they have. We know the man who struck the boy in the envious
malice of his heart because the boy could be merry and he could not."
Here the goblin gave a loud, shrill laugh which the echoes returned
twenty-fold.
"I--I am afraid I must leave you, sir," said the sexton, making an
effort to move.
"Leave us!" said the goblin; "ho! ho! ho!"
As the goblin laughed he suddenly darted toward Gabriel, laid his hand
upon his collar, and sank with him through the earth. And when he had
had time to fetch his breath he found himself in what appeared to be a
large cavern, surrounded on all sides by goblins ugly and grim.
"And now," said the king of the goblins, seated in the centre of the
room on an elevated seat--his friend of the churchyard--"show the man of
misery and gloom a few of the pictures from our great storehouses."
As the goblin said this a cloud rolled gradually away and disclosed a
small and scantily furnished but neat apartment. Little children were
gathered round a bright fire, clinging to their mother's gown, or
gamboling round her chair. A frugal meal was spread upon the table and
an elbow-chair was placed near the fire. Soon the father entered and the
children ran to meet him. As he sat down to his meal the mother sat by
his side and all seemed happiness and comfort.
"What do you think of that?" said the goblin.
Gabriel murmured something about its being very pretty.
"Show him some more," said the goblin.
Many a time the cloud went and came, and many a lesson it taught to
Gabriel Grubb. He saw that men who worked hard and earned their scanty
bread were cheerful and happy. And he came to the conclusion it was a
very respectable sort of a world after all. No sooner had he formed it
than the cloud closed over the last picture seemed to settle on his
senses and lull him to repose. One by one the goblins faded from his
sight, and as the last one disappeared he sank to sleep.
The day had broken when he awoke, and found himself lying on the flat
gravestone, with the wicker-bottle empty by his side. He got on his
feet as well as he could, and brushing the frost off his coat, turned
his face toward the town.
But he was an altered man, he had learned lessons of gentleness and
good-nature by his strange adventures in the goblin's cavern.