"But if you do the work," he shouted, "_Where is the Brownie?_"
"Here!" cried the boys, "and we are very sorry 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-humored 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 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 by-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?" clamored 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'm 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
pocket picked, takes snuff, or allows his washerwoman to use washing
powders. But why do you want to know?"
"I shan'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 pace 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 churchyard, 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.