kind. They argued the point no more, but started off, rather
downhearted. But soon they regained their spirits, for it was a bright,
clear, frosty day--the sun shining, though not enough to melt the ice,
and just sufficient to lie like a thin sprinkling over the grass, and
turn the brown branches into white ones. The little people danced along
to keep themselves warm, carrying between them a basket which held their
lunch. A very harmless lunch it was--just a large brown loaf and a lump
of cheese, and a knife to cut it with. Tossing the basket about in their
fun, they managed to tumble the knife out, and were having a search for
it in the long grass, when Gardener came up, grumpily enough.
"To think of trusting you children with one of the table-knives and a
basket! what a fool Cook must be! I'll tell her so; and if they're lost
she'll blame me: give me the things."
He put the knife angrily in one pocket. "Perhaps it will cut a hole in
it," said one of the children, in rather a pleased tone than otherwise;
then he turned the lunch all out on the grass and crammed it in the
other pocket, hiding the basket behind a hedge.
"I'm sure I'll not be at the trouble of carrying it," said he, when the
children cried out at this; "and you shan't carry it either, for you'll
knock it about and spoil it. And as for your lunch getting warm in my
pocket, why, so much the better this cold day."
It was not a lively joke, and they knew the pocket was very dirty;
indeed, the little girls had seen him stuff a dead rat into it only the
day before. They looked ready to cry; but there was no help for them,
except going back and complaining to their mother, and they did not like
to do that. Besides, they knew that, though Gardener was cross, he was
trustworthy, and she would never let them go down to the lake without
him.
So they followed him, trying to be as good as they could--though it was
difficult work. One of them proposed pelting him with snowballs, as they
pelted each other. But at the first--which fell in his neck--he turned
round so furiously, that they never sent a second, but walked behind him
as meek as mice.
As they went, they heard little steps pattering after them.
"Perhaps it is the Brownie to play with us--I wish he would," whispered
the youngest girl to the eldest boy, whose hand she generally held; and
then the little pattering steps sounded again, traveling through the
snow, but they saw nobody--so they said nothing.
The children would have liked to go straight to the ice; but Gardener
insisted on taking them a mile round, to look at an extraordinary animal
which a farmer there had just got--sent by his brother in Australia. The
two old men stood gossiping so long that the children wearied
extremely. Every minute seemed an hour till they got on the ice.
At last one of them pulled Gardener's coat-tails, and whispered that
they were quite ready to go.
"Then I'm not," and he waited ever so much longer, and got a drink of
hot cider, which made him quite lively for a little while.
But by the time they reached the lake, he was as cross as ever. He
struck the ice with his stick, but made no attempt to see if it really
did bear--though he would not allow the children to go one step upon it
till he had tried.
"I know it doesn't bear, and you'll just have to go home again--a good
thing too--saves me from losing a day's work."
"Try, only try; Bill said it bore," implored the boys, and looked
wistfully at the two beautiful slides--just as Bill said, one up and one
down--stretching all across the lake; "of course it bears, or Bill could
not have made these slides."
"Bill's an ass!" said the Gardener, and put his heavy foot cautiously on
the ice. Just then there was seen jumping across it a creature which
certainly had never been seen on ice before. It made the most
extraordinary bounds on its long hind legs, with its little fore legs
tucked up in front of it as if it wanted to carry a muff; and its long,
stiff tail sticking out straight behind, to balance it itself with
apparently. The children at first started with surprise, and then burst
out laughing, for it was the funniest creature, and had the funniest way
of getting along, that they had ever seen in their lives.
"It's the kangaroo!" said Gardener, in great excitement. "It has got
loose--and it's sure to be lost--and what a way Mr. Giles will be in! I
must go and tell him. Or stop, I'll try and catch it."
But in vain--it darted once or twice across the ice, dodging him, as it
were; and once coming so close that he nearly caught it by the tail--to
the children's great delight--then it vanished entirely.
"I must go and tell Mr. Giles directly," said Gardener, and then
stopped. For he had promised not to leave the children; and it was such
a wild-goose chase, after an escaped kangaroo. But he might get half a
crown as a reward, and he was sure of another glass of cider.
"You just stop quiet here, and I'll be back in five minutes," said he to
the children. "You may go a little way on the ice--I think it's sound
enough; only mind you don't tumble in, for there'll be nobody to pull
you out."
"Oh no," said the children, clapping their hands. They did not care for
tumbling in, and were quite glad there was nobody there to pull them
out. They hoped Gardener would stop a very long time away--only, as some
one suggested when he was seen hurrying across the snowy field, he had
taken away their lunch in his pocket, too.
Off they darted, the three elder boys, with a good run; the biggest of
the girls followed after them; and soon the whole four were skimming one
after the other, as fast as a railway train, across the slippery ice.
And, like a railway train, they had a collision, and all came tumbling
one over the other, with great screaming and laughing, to the high bank
on the other side. The two younger ones stood mournfully watching the
others from the opposite bank--when there stood beside them a small
brown man.
"Ho-ho! little people," said he, coming between them and taking hold of
a hand of each. His was so warm and theirs so cold, that it was quite
comfortable. And then, somehow, they found in their mouths a nice
lozenge--I think it was peppermint, but am not sure; which comforted
them still more.
"Did you want me to play with you?" cried the Brownie; "then here I am.
What shall we do? Have a turn on the ice together?"
No sooner said than done. The two children felt themselves floating
along--it was more like floating than running--with Brownie between
them; up the lake, and down the lake, and across the lake, not at all
interfering with the sliders--indeed, it was a great deal better than
sliding. Rosy and breathless, their toes so nice and warm, and their
hands feeling like mince-pies just taken out of the oven--the little
ones came to a standstill.
The elder ones stopped their sliding, and looked toward Brownie with
entreating eyes. He swung himself up to a willow bough, and then turned
head over heels on to the ice.
"Halloo! you don't mean to say you big ones want a race too! Well, come
along--if the two eldest will give a slide to the little ones."
He watched them take a tiny sister between them, and slide her up one
slide and down another, screaming with delight. Then he took the two
middle children in either hand.
"One, two, three, and away!" Off they started--scudding along as light
as feathers and as fast as steam-engines, over the smooth, black ice, so
clear that they could see the bits of stick and water-grasses frozen in
it, and even the little fishes swimming far down below--if they had only
looked long enough.
When all had had their fair turns, they began to be frightfully hungry.
[Illustration: The two little children felt themselves floating
along--with Brownie between them--Page 64]
"Catch a fish for dinner, and I'll lend you a hook," said Brownie. At
which they all laughed, and then looked rather grave. Pulling a cold,
raw live fish from under the ice and eating it was not a pleasant idea
of dinner. "Well, what would you like to have? Let the little one
choose."
She said, after thinking a minute, that she should like a currant-cake.
"And I'd give all you a bit of it--a very large bit--I would indeed!"
added she, almost with the tears in her eyes--she was so very hungry.
"Do it, then!" said the Brownie, in his little squeaking voice.
Immediately the stone that the little girl was sitting on--a round, hard
stone, and so cold!--turned into a nice hot cake--so hot that she jumped
up directly. As soon as she saw what it was, she clapped her hands for
joy.
"Oh, what a beautiful, beautiful cake! only we haven't got a knife to
cut it."
The boys felt in all their pockets, but somehow their knives never were
there when they were wanted.
"Look! you've got one in your hand!" said Brownie to the little one; and
that minute a bit of stick she held turned into a bread-knife--silver,
with an ivory handle--big enough and sharp enough, without being too
sharp. For the youngest girl was not allowed to use sharp knives, though
she liked cutting things excessively, especially cakes.
"That will do. Sit you down and carve the dinner. Fair shares and don't
let any body eat too much. Now begin, ma'am," said the Brownie, quite
politely, as if she had been ever so old.
Oh, how proud the little girl was. How bravely she set to work, and cut
five of the biggest slices you ever saw, and gave them to her brothers
and sisters, and was just going to take the sixth slice for herself,
when she remembered the Brownie.
"I beg your pardon," said she, as politely as he, though she was such a
very little girl, and turned round to the wee brown man. But he was
nowhere to be seen. The slices of cake in the children's hands remained
cake, and uncommonly good it was, and such substantial eating that it
did nearly the same as dinner; but the cake itself turned suddenly to a
stone again, and the knife into a bit of stick.
For there was the Gardener coming clumping along by the bank of the
lake, and growling as he went.
"Have you got the kangaroo?" shouted the children, determined to be
civil, if possible.
"This place is bewitched, I think," said he, "The kangaroo was fast
asleep in the cow-shed. What! how dare you laugh at me?"
But they hadn't laughed at all. And they found it no laughing matter,
poor children, when Gardener came on the ice, and began to scold them
and order them about. He was perfectly savage with crossness; for the
people at Giles's Farm had laughed at him very much, and he did not like
to be laughed at--and at the top of the field he had by chance met his
mistress, and she asked him severely how he could think of leaving the
children alone.
Altogether, his conscience pricked him a good deal, and when people's
consciences prick them, sometimes they get angry with other people,
which is very silly, and only makes matters worse.
"What have you been doing all this time?" said he.
"All this five minutes?" said the oldest boy, mischievously; for
Gardener was only to be away five minutes, and he had staid a full
hour. Also, when he fumbled in his pocket for the children's lunch--to
stop their tongues, perhaps--he found it was not there.
They set up a great outcry; for, in spite of the cake, they could have
eaten a little more. Indeed, the frost had such an effect upon all their
appetites, that they felt not unlike that celebrated gentleman of whom
it is told that
"He ate a cow, and ate a calf,
He ate an ox, and ate a half;
He ate a church, he ate the steeple,
He ate the priest, and all the people,
And said he hadn't had enough then."
"We're so hungry, so very hungry! Couldn't you go back again and fetch
us some dinner?" cried they, entreatingly.
"Not I, indeed. You may go back to dinner yourselves. You shall, indeed,
for I want my dinner too. Two hours is plenty long enough to stop on the
ice."
"It isn't two hours--it's only one."
"Well, one will do better than more. You're all right now--and you might
soon tumble in, or break your legs on the slide. So come away home."
It wasn't kind of Gardener, and I don't wonder the children felt it
hard; indeed, the eldest boy resisted stoutly.
"Mother said we might stop all day, and we will stop all day. You may go
home if you like."
"I won't, and you shall!" said Gardener, smacking a whip that he carried
in his hand. "Stop till I catch you, and I'll give you this about your
back, my fine gentleman."
And he tried to follow, but the little fellow darted across the ice,
objecting to be either caught or whipped. It may have been rather
naughty, but I am afraid it was great fun dodging the Gardener up and
down; he being too timid to go on the slippery ice, and sometimes
getting so close that the whip nearly touched the lad.
"Bless us! there's the kangaroo again!" said he, starting. Just as he
had caught the boy, and lifted the whip, the creature was seen
hop-hopping from bank to bank. "I can't surely be mistaken this time; I
must catch it."
Which seemed quite easy, for it limped as if it was lame, or as if the
frost had bitten its toes, poor beast! Gardener went after it, walking
cautiously on the slippery, crackling ice, and never minding whether or
not he walked on the slides, though they called out to him that his
nailed boots would spoil them.
But whether it was that ice which bears a boy will not bear a man, or
whether at each lame step of the kangaroo there came a great crack, is
more than I can tell. However, just as Gardener reached the middle of
the lake, the ice suddenly broke, and in he popped.--The kangaroo too,
apparently, for it was not seen afterward.
What a hullaballoo the poor man made! Not that he was drowning--the lake
was too shallow to drown any body, but he got terribly wet, and the
water was very cold. He soon scrambled out, the boys helping him; and
then he hobbled home as fast as he could, not even saying thank you, or
taking the least notice of them.
Indeed, nobody took notice of them--nobody came to fetch them, and they
might have staid sliding the whole afternoon. Only somehow they did not
feel quite easy in their minds. And though the hole in the ice closed up
immediately, and it seemed as firm as ever, still they did not like to
slide upon it again.
"I think we had better go home and tell mother every thing," said one of
them. "Besides, we ought to see what has become of poor Gardener. He was
very wet."
"Yes, but oh, how funny he looked!" And they all burst out laughing at
the recollection of the figure he cut, scrambling out through the ice
with his trowsers dripping up to the knees, and the water running out of
his boots, making a little pool, wherever he stepped.
"And it freezes so hard, that by the time he gets home his clothes will
be as stiff as a board. His wife will have to put him to the fire to
thaw before he can get out of them."
[Illustration: The ice suddenly broke, and in he popped.]
Again the little people burst into shouts of laughter. Although they
laughed, they were a little sorry for the poor old Gardener, and hoped
no great harm had come to him, but that he had got safe home and been
dried by his own warm fire.
The frosty mist was beginning already to rise, and the sun, though still
high up in the sky, looked like a ball of red-hot iron as the six
children went homeward across the fields--merry enough still, but not
quite so merry as they had been a few hours before.
"Let's hope mother won't be vexed with us," said they, "but will let us
come back again to-morrow. It wasn't our fault that Gardener tumbled
in."
As somebody said this, they all heard quite distinctly, "Ha, ha, ha!"
and "Ho, ho, ho!" and a sound of little steps pattering behind.
But whatever they thought, nobody ventured to say that it was the fault
of the Brownie.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
ADVENTURE THE SIXTH AND LAST
BROWNIE AND THE CLOTHES
TILL the next time; but when there is a Brownie in the house, no one can
say that any of his tricks will be the last. For there's no stopping a
Brownie, and no getting rid of him either. This one had followed the
family from house to house, generation after generation--never any
older, and sometimes seeming even to grow younger by the tricks he
played. In fact, though he looked like an old man, he was a perpetual
child.
To the children he never did any harm, quite the contrary. And his chief
misdoings were against those who vexed the children. But he gradually
made friends with several of his grown up enemies. Cook, for instance,
who had ceased to be lazy at night and late in the morning, found no
more black footmarks on her white table cloth. And Brownie found his
basin of milk waiting for him, night after night, behind the coal-cellar
door.
Bill, too, got on well enough with his pony, and Jess was taken no more
night-rides. No ducks were lost; and Dolly gave her milk quite
comfortably to whoever milked her. Alas! this was either Bill or the
Gardener's wife now. After that adventure on the ice, poor Gardener very
seldom appeared; when he did, it was on two crutches, for he had had
rheumatism in his feet, and could not stir outside his cottage door.
Bill, therefore, had double work; which was probably all the better for
Bill.
The garden had to take care of itself; but this being winter-time, it
did not much signify. Besides, Brownie seldom went into the garden,
except in summer; during the hard weather he preferred to stop in his
coal-cellar. It might not have been a lively place, but it was warm, and
he liked it.
He had company there, too; for when the cat had more kittens--the kitten
he used to tease being grown up now--they were all put in a hamper in
the coal-cellar; and of cold nights Brownie used to jump in beside them,
and be as warm and as cozy as a kitten himself. The little things never
were heard to mew; so it may be supposed they liked his society. And the
old mother-cat evidently bore him no malice for the whipping she had got
by mistake; so Brownie must have found means of coaxing her over. One
thing you may be sure of--all the while she and her kittens were in his
coal-cellar, he took care never to turn himself into a mouse.
He was spending the winter, on the whole, very comfortably, without much
trouble either to himself or his neighbors, when one day, the
coal-cellar being nearly empty, two men, and a great wagon-load of coals
behind them, came to the door, Gardener's wife following.
"My man says you're to give the cellar a good cleaning out before you
put any more in," said she, in her sharp voice; "and don't be lazy about
it. It'll not take you ten minutes, for it's nearly all coal-dust,
except that one big lump in the corner--you might clear that out too."
"Stop, it's the Brownie's lump! better not meddle with it," whispered
the little scullery-maid.
"Don't you meddle with matters that can't concern you," said the
Gardener's wife, who had been thinking what a nice help it would be to
her fire. To be sure, it was not her lump of coal, but she thought she
might take it; the mistress would never miss it, or the Brownie either.
He must be a very silly old Brownie to live under a lump of coal.
So she argued with herself, and made the men lift it. "You must lift it,
you see, if you are to sweep the coal-cellar out clean. And you may as
well put it on the barrow, and I'll wheel it out of your way."
This she said in quite a civil voice, lest they should tell of her, and
stood by while it was being done. It was done without any thing
happening, except that a large rat ran out of the coal-cellar door,
bouncing against her feet, and frightening her so much that she nearly
tumbled down.
"See what nonsense it is to talk of Brownies living in a coal-cellar.
Nothing lives there but rats, and I'll have them poisoned pretty soon,
and get rid of them."
But she was rather frightened all the same, for the rat had been such a
very big rat, and had looked at her, as it darted past, with such wild,
bright, mischievous eyes--brown eyes, of course--that she all but jumped
with surprise.
However, she had got her lump of coal, and was wheeling it quietly away,
nobody seeing, to her cottage at the bottom of the garden. She was a
hard-worked woman, and her husband's illness made things harder for her.
Still, she was not quite easy at taking what did not belong to her.
"I don't suppose any body will miss the coal," she repeated. "I dare say
the mistress would have given it to me if I had asked her; and as for
its being the Brownie's lump--fudge! Bless us! what's that?"
For the barrow began to creak dreadfully, and every creak sounded like
the cry of a child, just as if the wheel were going over its leg and
crushing its poor little bones.
"What a horrid noise! I must grease the barrow. If only I knew where
they keep the grease-box. All goes wrong, now my old man's laid up. Oh,
dear! oh dear!"
For suddenly the barrow had tilted over, though there was not a single
stone near, and the big coal was tumbled on to the ground, where it
broke into a thousand pieces. Gathering it up again was hopeless, and it
made such a mess on the gravel-walk, that the old woman was thankful her
misfortune happened behind the privet hedge, where nobody was likely to
come.
"I'll take a broom and sweep it up to-morrow. Nobody goes near the
orchard now, except me when I hang out the clothes; so I need say
nothing about it to the old man or any body. But ah! deary me, what a
beautiful lot of coal I've lost!"
She stood and looked at it mournfully, and then went into her cottage,
where she found two or three of the little children keeping Gardener
company. They did not dislike to do this now; but he was so much kinder
than he used to be--so quiet and patient, though he suffered very much.
And he had never once reproached them for what they always
remembered--how it was ever since he was on the ice with them that he
had got the rheumatism.
[Illustration: Suddenly the barrow had tilted over.]
So, one or other of them made a point of going to see him every day, and
telling him all the funny things they could think of--indeed, it was a
contest among them who should first make Gardener laugh. They did not
succeed in doing that exactly; but they managed to make him smile; and
he was always gentle and grateful to them; so that they sometimes
thought it was rather nice his being ill.
But his wife was not pleasant; she grumbled all day long, and snapped at
him and his visitors; being especially snappish this day, because she
had lost her big coal.
"I can't have you children come bothering here," said she, crossly. "I
want to wring out my clothes, and hang them to dry. Be off with you!"
"Let us stop a little--just to tell Gardener this one curious thing
about Dolly and the pig--and then we'll help you to take your clothes to
the orchard; we can carry your basket between us--we can, indeed."
That was the last thing the woman wished; for she knew the that the
children would be sure to see the mess on the gravel-walk--and they
were such inquisitive children--they noticed every thing. They would
want to know all about it, and how the bits of coal came there. It was
very a awkward position. But people who take other people's property
often do find themselves in awkward positions.
"Thank you, young gentlemen," said she, quite politely; "but indeed the
basket is too heavy for you. However, you may stop and gossip a little
longer with my old man. He likes it."
And, while they were shut up with Gardener in his bedroom, off she went,
carrying the basket on her head, and hung her clothes carefully out--the
big things on lines between the fruit trees, and the little things, such
as stockings and pocket handkerchiefs, stuck on the gooseberry-bushes,
or spread upon the clean green grass.
"Such a fine day as it is! they'll dry directly," said she, cheerfully,
to herself. "Plenty of sun, and not a breath of wind to blow them about.
I'll leave them for an hour or two, and come and fetch them in before it
grows dark. Then I shall get all my folding done by bedtime, and have a
clear day for ironing to-morrow."
But when she did fetch them in, having bundled them all together in the
dusk of the evening, never was such a sight as those clothes! They were
all twisted in the oddest way--the stockings turned inside out, with the
heels and toes tucked into the legs; the sleeves of the shirts tied
together in double knots, the pocket-handkerchiefs made into round
balls, so tight that if you had pelted a person with them they would
have given very hard blows indeed. And the whole looked as if, instead
of lying quietly on the grass and bushes, they had been dragged through
heaps of mud and then stamped upon, so that there was not a clean inch
upon them from end to end.