thought, "the old lady's asleep, it's a shame to wake her, I'll tell
those idle rascally lads, they'll be more pleased than they deserve. It
was Tommy after all that set the water and caught him." "Boys! boys!"
he shouted at the foot of the ladder, "the Brownie has come!--and if he
hasn't found my measure!" he added on returning to the kitchen; "this
is as good as a day's work to me."
There was great excitement in the small household that day. The boys
kept their own counsel. The old Grandmother was triumphant, and tried
not to seem surprised. The Tailor made no such vain effort, and
remained till bed-time in a state of fresh and unconcealed amazement.
"I've often heard of the Good People," he broke out towards the end of
the evening. "And I've heard folk say they've known those that have
seen them capering round the grey rocks on the moor at midnight: but
this is wonderful! To come and do the work for a pan of cold water! Who
could have believed it?"
"You might have believed it if you'd believed me, son Thomas," said the
old lady tossily. "I told you so. But young people always know better
than their elders!"
"I didn't see him," said the Tailor, beginning his story afresh; "but I
thought as I came in I heard a sort of laughing and rustling."
"My mother said they often heard him playing and laughing about the
house," said the old lady. "I told you so."
"Well, he sha'n't want for a bowl of bread-and-milk to-morrow, anyhow,"
said the Tailor, "if I have to stick to Farmer Swede's waistcoat till
midnight."
But the waistcoat was finished by bed-time, and the Tailor set the
bread-and-milk-himself, and went to rest.
"I say," said Tommy, when both the boys were in bed, "the Old Owl was
right, and we must stick to it. But I'll tell you what I don't like,
and that is Father thinking we're idle still. I wish he knew we were
the Brownies."
"So do I," said Johnnie; and he sighed.
"I tell you what," said Tommy, with the decisiveness of elder
brotherhood, "we'll keep quiet for a bit for fear we should leave off;
but when we've gone on a good while, I shall tell him. It was only the
Old Owl's grandmother's great-grandmother who said it was to be kept
secret, and the Old Owl herself said grandmothers were not always in
the right."
"No more they are," said Johnnie; "look at Granny about this."
"I know," said Tommy. "She's in a regular muddle."
"So she is," said Johnnie. "But that's rather fun, I think."
And they went to sleep.
Day after day went by, and still the Brownies "stuck to it," and did
their work. It is no such very hard matter after all to get up early
when one is young and light-hearted, and sleeps upon heather in a loft
without window-blinds, and with so many broken window-panes that the
air comes freely in. In old times the boys used to play at tents among
the heather, while the Tailor did the house-work; now they came down
and did it for him.
Size is not everything, even in this material existence. One has heard
of dwarfs who were quite as clever (not to say as powerful) as giants,
and I do not fancy that Fairy Godmothers are ever very large. It is
wonderful what a comfort Brownies may be in the house that is fortunate
enough to hold them! The Tailor's Brownies were the joy of his life;
and day after day they seemed to grow more and more ingenious in
finding little things to do for his good.
Now-a-days Granny never picked a scrap for herself. One day's shearings
were all neatly arranged the next morning, and laid by her
knitting-pins; and the Tailor's tape and shears were no more absent
without leave.
One day a message came to him to offer him two or three days' tailoring
in a farm-house some miles up the valley. This was pleasant and
advantageous sort of work; good food, sure pay, and a cheerful change;
but he did not know how he could leave his family, unless, indeed, the
Brownie might be relied upon to "keep the house together," as they say.
The boys were sure that he would, and they promised to set his water,
and to give as little trouble as possible; so, finally, the Tailor took
up his shears and went up the valley, where the green banks sloped up
into purple moor, or broke into sandy rocks, crowned with nodding oak
fern. On to the prosperous old farm, where he spent a very pleasant
time, sitting level with the window geraniums on a table set apart for
him, stitching and gossiping, gossiping and stitching, and feeling
secure of honest payment when his work was done. The mistress of the
house was a kind good creature, and loved a chat; and though the Tailor
kept his own secret as to the Brownies, he felt rather curious to know
if the Good People had any hand in the comfort of this flourishing
household, and watched his opportunity to make a few careless inquiries
on the subject.
"Brownies?" laughed the dame. "Ay, Master, I have heard of them. When I
was a girl, in service at the old hall, on Cowberry Edge, I heard a
good deal of one they said had lived there in former times. He did
house-work as well as a woman, and a good deal quicker, they said. One
night one of the young ladies (that were then, they're all dead now)
hid herself in a cupboard, to see what he was like."
"And what was he like?" inquired the Tailor, as composedly as he was
able.
"A little fellow, they said," answered the Farmer's wife, knitting
calmly on. "Like a dwarf, you know, with a largish head for his body.
Not taller than--why, my Bill, or your eldest boy, perhaps. And he was
dressed in rags, with an old cloak on, and stamping with passion at a
cobweb he couldn't get at with his broom. They've very uncertain
tempers, they say. Tears one minute, and laughing the next."
"You never had one here, I suppose?" said the Tailor.
"Not we," she answered; "and I think I'd rather not. They're not canny
after all; and my master and me have always been used to work, and
we've sons and daughters to help us, and that's better than meddling
with the Fairies, to my mind. No! no!" she added, laughing, "if we had
had one you'd have heard of it, whoever didn't, for I should have had
some decent clothes made for him. I couldn't stand rags and old cloaks,
messing and moth-catching, in my house."
"They say it's not lucky to give them clothes, though," said the
Tailor; "they don't like it."
"Tell me!" said the dame, "as if any one that liked a tidy room
wouldn't like tidy clothes, if they could get them. No! no! when we
have one, you shall take his measure, I promise you."
And this was all the Tailor got out of her on the subject. When his
work was finished, the Farmer paid him at once; and the good dame added
half a cheese, and a bottle-green coat.
"That has been laid by for being too small for the master now he's so
stout," she said; "but except for a stain or two it's good enough, and
will cut up like new for one of the lads."
The Tailor thanked them, and said farewell, and went home. Down the
valley, where the river, wandering between the green banks and the
sandy rocks, was caught by giant mosses, and bands of fairy fern, and
there choked and struggled, and at last barely escaped with an
existence, and ran away in a diminished stream. On up the purple hills
to the old ruined house. As he came in at the gate he was struck by
some idea of change, and looking again, he saw that the garden had been
weeded, and was comparatively tidy. The truth is, that Tommy and
Johnnie had taken advantage of the Tailor's absence to do some
Brownie's work in the daytime.
"It's that Blessed Brownie!" said the Tailor. "Has he been as usual?"
he asked, when he was in the house.
"To be sure," said the old lady; "all has been well, son Thomas."
"I'll tell you what it is," said the Tailor, after a pause. "I'm a
needy man, but I hope I'm not ungrateful. I can never repay the Brownie
for what he has done for me and mine; but the mistress up yonder has
given me a bottle-green coat that will cut up as good as new; and as
sure as there's a Brownie in this house, I'll make him a suit of it."
"You'll _what_?" shrieked the old lady. "Son Thomas, son Thomas, you're
mad! Do what you please for the Brownies, but never make them clothes."
"There's nothing they want more," said the Tailor, "by all accounts.
They're all in rags, as well they may be, doing so much work."
"If you make clothes for this Brownie, he'll go for good," said the
Grandmother, in a voice of awful warning.
"Well, I don't know," said her son. "The mistress up at the farm is
clever enough, I can tell you; and as she said to me, fancy any one
that likes a tidy room not liking a tidy coat!" For the Tailor, like
most men, was apt to think well of the wisdom of womankind in other
houses.
"Well, well," said the old lady, "go your own way. I'm an old woman,
and my time is not long. It doesn't matter much to me. But it was new
clothes that drove the Brownie out before, and Trout's luck went with
him."
"I know, Mother," said the Tailor, "and I've been thinking of it all
the way home; and I can tell you why it was. Depend upon it, _the
clothes didn't fit_. But I'll tell you what I mean to do. I shall
measure them by Tommy--they say the Brownies are about his size--and if
ever I turned out a well-made coat and waistcoat, they shall be his."
"Please yourself," said the old lady, and she would say no more.
"I think you're quite right, Father," said Tommy, "and if I can, I'll
help you to make them."
Next day the father and son set to work, and Tommy contrived to make
himself so useful, that the Tailor hardly knew how he got through so
much work.
"It's not like the same thing," he broke out at last, "to have some one
a bit helpful about you; both for the tailoring and for company's sake.
I've not done such a pleasant morning's work since your poor mother
died. I'll tell you what it is, Tommy," he added, "if you were always
like this, I shouldn't much care whether Brownie stayed or went. I'd
give up his help to have yours."
"I'll be back directly," said Tommy, who burst out of the room in
search of his brother.
"I've come away," he said, squatting down, "because I can't bear it. I
very nearly let it all out, and I shall soon. I wish the things weren't
going to come to me," he added, kicking a stone in front of him. "I
wish he'd measured you, Johnnie."
"I'm very glad he didn't," said Johnnie. "I wish he'd kept them
himself."
"Bottle-green, with brass buttons," murmured Tommy, and therewith fell
into a reverie.
The next night the suit was finished, and laid by the bread-and-milk.
"We shall see," said the old lady, in a withering tone. There is not
much real prophetic wisdom in this truism, but it sounds very awful,
and the Tailor went to bed somewhat depressed.
Next morning the Brownies came down as usual.
"Don't they look splendid?" said Tommy, feeling the cloth. "When we've
tidied the place I shall put them on."
But long before the place was tidy, he could wait no longer, and
dressed up.
"Look at me!" he shouted; "bottle-green and brass buttons! Oh, Johnnie,
I wish you had some."
"It's a good thing there are two Brownies," said Johnnie, laughing,
"and one of them in rags still. I shall do the work this morning." And
he went flourishing round with a broom, while Tommy jumped madly about
in his new suit. "Hurrah!" he shouted, "I feel just like the Brownie.
What was it Granny said he sang when he got his clothes? Oh, I know--
'What have we here? Hemten hamten!
Here will I never more tread nor stampen.'"
And on he danced, regardless of the clouds of dust raised by Johnnie,
as he drove the broom indiscriminately over the floor, to the tune of
his own laughter.
It was laughter which roused the Tailor that morning, laughter coming
through the floor from the kitchen below. He scrambled on his things
and stole down-stairs.
"It's the Brownie," he thought; "I must look, if it's for the last
time."
At the door he paused and listened. The laughter was mixed with
singing, and he heard the words--
"What have we here? Hemten hamten!
Here will I never more tread nor stampen."
He pushed in, and this was the sight that met his eyes.
The kitchen in its primeval condition of chaos, the untidy particulars
of which were the less apparent, as everything was more or less
obscured by the clouds of dust, where Johnnie reigned triumphant, like
a witch with her broomstick; and, to crown all, Tommy capering and
singing in the Brownie's bottle-green suit, brass buttons and all.
"What's this?" shouted the astonished Tailor, when he could find breath
to speak.
"It's the Brownies," sang the boys; and on they danced, for they had
worked themselves up into a state of excitement from which it was not
easy to settle down.
"Where _is_ Brownie?" shouted the father.
"He's here," said Tommy; "we are the Brownies."
"Can't you stop that fooling?" cried the Tailor, angrily. "This is past
a joke. Where is the real Brownie, I say?"
"We are the only Brownies, really, Father," said Tommy, coming to a
full stop, and feeling strongly tempted to run down from laughing to
crying. "Ask the Old Owl. It's true, really."
The Tailor saw the boy was in earnest, and passed his hand over his
forehead.
"I suppose I'm getting old," he said; "I can't see daylight through
this. If you are the Brownie, who has been tidying the kitchen lately?"
"We have," said they.
"But who found my measure?"
"I did," said Johnnie.
"And who sorts your grandmother's scraps?"
"We do," said they.
"And who sets breakfast, and puts my things in order?"
"We do," said they.
"But when do you do it?" asked the Tailor.
"Before you come down," said they.
"But I always have to call you," said the Tailor.
"We get back to bed again," said the boys.
"But how was it you never did it before?" asked the Tailor doubtfully.
"We were idle, we were idle," said Tommy.
The Tailor's voice rose to a pitch of desperation--
"But if you did the work," he shouted, "_where is the Brownie?_"
"Here!" cried the boys, "and we are very sorry that we were Boggarts so
long."
With which the father and sons fell into each other's arms and fairly
wept.
* * * * *
It will be believed that to explain all this to the Grandmother was not
the work of a moment. She understood it all at last, however, and the
Tailor could not restrain a little good-humoured triumph on the
subject. Before he went to work he settled her down in the window with
her knitting, and kissed her.
"What do you think of it all, Mother?" he inquired.
"Bairns are a blessing," said the old lady tartly, "_I told you so._"
* * * * *
"That's not the end, is it?" asked one of the boys in a tone of dismay,
for the Doctor had paused here.
"Yes, it is," said he.
"But couldn't you make a little more end?" asked Deordie, "to tell us
what became of them all?"
"I don't see what there is to tell," said the Doctor.
"Why, there's whether they ever saw the Old Owl again, and whether
Tommy and Johnnie went on being Brownies," said the children.
The Doctor laughed.
"Well, be quiet for five minutes," he said.
"We'll be as quiet as mice," said the children.
And as quiet as mice they were. Very like mice, indeed. Very like mice
behind a wainscot at night, when you have just thrown something to
frighten them away. Death-like stillness for a few seconds, and then
all the rustling and scuffling you please. So the children sat holding
their breath for a moment or two, and then shuffling feet and smothered
bursts of laughter testified to their impatience, and to the difficulty
of understanding the process of story-making as displayed by the
Doctor, who sat pulling his beard, and staring at his boots, as he made
up "a little more end."
"Well," he said, sitting up suddenly, "the Brownies went on with their
work in spite of the bottle-green suit, and Trout's luck returned to
the old house once more. Before long Tommy began to work for the
farmers, and Baby grew up into a Brownie, and made (as girls are apt to
make) the best house-sprite of all. For, in the Brownie's habits of
self-denial, thoughtfulness, consideration, and the art of little
kindnesses, boys are, I am afraid, as a general rule, somewhat
behindhand with their sisters. Whether this altogether proceeds from
constitutional deficiency on these points in the masculine character,
or is one result among many of the code of bye-laws which obtains in
men's moral education from the cradle, is a question on which everybody
has their own opinion. For the present the young gentlemen may
appropriate whichever theory they prefer, and we will go back to the
story. The Tailor lived to see his boy-Brownies become men, with all
the cares of a prosperous farm on their hands, and his girl-Brownie
carry her fairy talents into another home. For these Brownies--young
ladies!--are much desired as wives, whereas a man might as well marry
an old witch as a young Boggartess."
"And about the Owl?" clamoured the children, rather resentful of the
Doctor's pausing to take breath.
"Of course," he continued, "the Tailor heard the whole story, and being
both anxious to thank the Old Owl for her friendly offices, and also
rather curious to see and hear her, he went with the boys one night at
moon-rise to the shed by the mere. It was earlier in the evening than
when Tommy went, for before daylight had vanished, and at the first
appearance of the moon, the impatient Tailor was at the place. There
they found the Owl looking very solemn and stately on the beam. She was
sitting among the shadows with her shoulders up, and she fixed her eyes
so steadily on the Tailor, that he felt quite overpowered. He made her
a civil bow, however, and said,
"I'm much obliged to you, Ma'am, for your good advice to my Tommy."
The Owl blinked sharply, as if she grudged shutting her eyes for an
instant, and then stared on, but not a word spoke she.
"I don't mean to intrude, Ma'am," said the Tailor, "but I was wishful
to pay my respects and gratitude."
Still the Owl gazed in determined silence.
"Don't you remember me?" said Tommy pitifully. "I did everything you
told me. Won't you even say good-bye?" and he went up towards her.
The Owl's eyes contracted, she shuddered a few tufts of fluff into the
shed, shook her wings, and shouting "Oohoo!" at the top of her voice,
flew out upon the moor. The Tailor and his sons rushed out to watch
her. They could see her clearly against the green twilight sky,
flapping rapidly away with her round face to the pale moon. "Good-bye!"
they shouted as she disappeared; first the departing owl, then a
shadowy body with flapping sails, then two wings beating the same
measured time, then two moving lines still to the old tune, then a
stroke, a fancy, and then--the green sky and the pale moon, but the Old
Owl was gone.
"Did she never come back?" asked Tiny in subdued tones, for the Doctor
had paused again.
"No," said he; "at least not to the shed by the mere. Tommy saw many
owls after this in the course of his life; but as none of them would
speak, and as most of them were addicted to the unconventional customs
of staring and winking, he could not distinguish his friend, if she
were among them. And now I think that is all."
"Is that the very very end?" asked Tiny.
"The very very end," said the Doctor.
"I suppose there might be more and more ends," speculated
Deordie--"about whether the Brownies had any children when they grew
into farmers, and whether the children were Brownies, and whether
_they_ had other Brownies, and so on and on." And Deordie rocked
himself among the geraniums, in the luxurious imagining of an endless
fairy tale.
"You insatiable rascal!" said the Doctor. "Not another word. Jump up,
for I am going to see you home. I have to be off early to-morrow."
"Where?" said Deordie.
"Never mind. I shall be away all day, and I want to be at home in good
time in the evening, for I mean to attack that crop of groundsel
between the sweet-pea hedges. You know, no Brownies come to my
homestead!"
And the Doctor's mouth twitched a little till he fixed it into a stiff
smile.
The children tried hard to extract some more ends out of him on the way
to the Rectory; but he declined to pursue the history of the Trout
family through indefinite generations. It was decided on all hands,
however, that Tommy Trout was evidently one and the same with the Tommy
Trout who pulled the cat out of the well, because "it was just a sort
of thing for a Brownie to do, you know!" and that Johnnie Green (who,
of course, was not Johnnie Trout) was some unworthy village
acquaintance, and "a thorough Boggart."
"Doctor!" said Tiny, as they stood by the garden-gate, "how long do you
think gentlemen's pocket-handkerchiefs take to wear out?"
"That, my dear Madam," said the Doctor, "must depend, like other
terrestrial matters, upon circumstances; whether the gentleman bought
fine cambric, or coarse cotton with pink portraits of the reigning
Sovereign, to commence with; whether he catches many colds, has his
pockets picked, takes snuff, or allows his washerwoman to use washing
powders. But why do you want to know?"
"I sha'n't tell you that," said Tiny, who was spoilt by the Doctor, and
consequently tyrannized in proportion; "but I will tell you what I mean
to do. I mean to tell Mother that when Father wants any more
pocket-handkerchiefs hemmed, she had better put them by the bath in the
nursery, and perhaps some Brownie will come and do them."
"Kiss my fluffy face!" said the Doctor in sepulchral tones.
"The owl is too high up," said Tiny, tossing her head.
The Doctor lifted her four feet or so, obtained his kiss, and set her
down again.
"You're not fluffy at all," said she in a tone of the utmost contempt;
"you're tickly and bristly. Puss is more fluffy, and Father is scrubby
and scratchy, because he shaves."
"And which of the three styles do you prefer?" said the Doctor.
"Not tickly and bristly," said Tiny with firmness; and she strutted up
the walk for a space or two, and then turned round to laugh over her
shoulder.
"Good-night!" shouted her victim, shaking his fist after her.
The other children took a noisy farewell, and they all raced into the
house to give joint versions of the fairy tale, first to the parents in
the drawing-room, and then to Nurse in the nursery.
The Doctor went home also, with his poodle at his heels, but not by the
way he came. He went out of his way, which was odd; but then the Doctor
was "a little odd," and moreover this was always the end of his evening
walk. Through the church-yard, where spreading cedars and stiff yews
rose from the velvet grass, and where among tombstones and crosses of
various devices lay one of older and uglier date, by which he stayed.
It was framed by a border of the most brilliant flowers, and it would
seem as if the Doctor must have been the gardener, for he picked off
some dead ones, and put them absently in his pocket. Then he looked
round as if to see that he was alone. Not a soul was to be seen, and
the moonlight and shadow lay quietly side by side, as the dead do in
their graves. The Doctor stooped down and took off his hat.
"Good-night, Marcia," he said in a low quiet voice. "Good-night, my
darling!" The dog licked his hand, but there was no voice to answer,
nor any that regarded.
Poor foolish Doctor! Most foolish to speak to the departed with his
face earthwards. But we are weak mortals, the best of us; and this man
(one of the very best) raised his head at last, and went home like a
lonely owl with his face to the moon and the sky.
A BORROWED BROWNIE.
"I can't imagine," said the Rector, walking into the drawing-room the
following afternoon; "I can't imagine where Tiny is. I want her to
drive to the other end of the parish with me."
"There she comes," said his wife, looking out of the window, "by the
garden-gate, with a great basket; what has she been after?"
The Rector went out to discover, and met his daughter looking decidedly
earthy, and seemingly much exhausted by the weight of a basketful of
groundsel plants.
"Where have you been?" said he.
"In the Doctor's garden," said Tiny triumphantly; "and look what I have
done! I've weeded his sweet-peas, and brought away the groundsel; so
when he gets home to-night he'll think a Brownie has been in the
garden, for Mrs. Pickles has promised not to tell him."
"But look here!" said the Rector, affecting a great appearance of
severity, "you're my Brownie, not his. Supposing Tommy Trout had gone
and weeded Farmer Swede's garden, and brought back his weeds to go to
seed on the Tailor's flower-beds, how do you think he would have liked
it?"
Tiny looked rather crestfallen. When one has fairly carried through a
splendid benevolence of this kind, it is trying to find oneself in the
wrong. She crept up to the Rector, however, and put her golden head
upon his arm.