Shortways was exactly as Tom had left it, for it was the sort of village
that only changes once in a hundred years, when the Missus at the
Garland Inn hangs up red curtains in place of chintz ones, and behind
the flat little shop-window you see brandy-balls in the bottles instead
of lollipops. It did, however, occur to Tom, as he walked down the
street, that a good many new people had come into the place while he was
away, for he didn’t see a single face he remembered. He stopped at the
shop to buy two ounces of brandy-balls, and the woman behind the counter
wasn’t Goody Green anymore, but somebody quite different. She weighed
out the brandy-balls and handed them to Tom, and he felt in his pocket
and found he hadn’t any money. So he said “Wait a bit,” and looked in
the Enchanter’s book, and fiddled with one of the brandy-balls from the
packet, and said something the woman couldn’t catch; and the brandy-ball
turned into a sixpenny bit, and Tom gave it to the woman, who gave him
fourpence change, as her sweets were a penny an ounce, with four to the
ounce. But as Tom had used one of the brandy-balls to turn into
sixpence, there were only seven left in the packet, so she gave him
another one out of the bottle as a makeweight, and he put it into his
cheek and went down the lane that led to his Grandfather’s Lodge by the
river. This, too, was just as Tom had left it; the barndoor fowls were
still picking about the grass, and the green bucket was lying on its
side in the pond, but a tall, gaunt old woman he didn’t know at all,
about as old as sixty-five Tom thought, was hanging out the washing on
the line.
Tom walked through the gate up to the Lodge, for he wanted to find his
Grandfather and his elder sister, but the old woman called “Hi!” in such
a sharp voice that he stopped.
“If ye’ve brought them groceries at last,” said the old woman, “ye can
just fetch ’em here for me to count, and _I’ll_ take ’em in.”
“I haven’t brought any groceries,” said Tom. “What sort were you
wanting?”
“What sort, indeed!” said the old woman irritably. “Where’s my
coffee-beans, I’d like to know, and where’s my oatmeal, and my salt? And
what have ye done with the lump sugar, and the castor sugar, and the
yaller soap, and the candles? Lost ’em on the road, I suppose!”
“Wait a bit,” said Tom Cobble, and he sat down and opened his book; and
after a short read he began to fiddle with the twigs and the stones and
the leaves and anything else that happened to be handy, and soon he had
seven nice fat parcels done up in blue silk paper with silver stars on
it, which he gave to the gaunt old woman. She handled them suspiciously.
“What’s this here?” she asked.
“Lump sugar, I think,” said Tom.
[Illustration:
_The candles were just one candle that grew longer and longer._
]
She opened the parcel, and it was lump sugar, but it was all in one
lump, and shaped like a duck, which quacked three times at the old woman
and then laid a little lump of sugar in the palm of her hand. The old
woman tossed her head, and undid another packet, and this was
coffee-beans. They looked all right, but as she opened the packet a
little more they rose up like a cloud of bees and swarmed on the low
branch of a plum-tree close at hand. The old woman sniffed and fetched a
skep, and shook the coffee into it, and set it on the bench with the
other hives, where, instead of humming, it made a comfortable grinding
sound, and smelt very good. The other parcels all had some peculiarity:
the oatmeal was like gold-dust, but Tom said it would cook all right,
and the yellow soap was striped with all the seven colours of the
rainbow, and had a lovely poem in seven verses engraved one on each
stripe, and the salt tasted like castor sugar, and the castor sugar like
salt, and the candles were just one candle that grew longer and longer
as the old woman pulled it out of the parcel, so that she never got to
the end of it. When she had pulled out twenty yards or so she put it
down, and set her hands on her hips, and looked at Tom and said,
“A nice grocer’s boy _you_ are.”
“I’m not a grocer’s boy at all,” said Tom Cobble.
“Then what have ye come for?” said the exasperated old woman.
“To see my Grandad and my big sister,” said he.
“Nobody lives here but me and my son,” said she. “What was your
Grandad’s name?”
“Barnaby Cobble,” said Tom.
The old woman looked at him very hard. “And what’s your big sister’s
name?”
“Molly Cobble,” said Tom, “but she’s going to marry William Jenks when
he gives up poaching.”
The old woman looked at him harder still and said, “Oh, indeed! and
what’s _your_ name?”
“Tom Cobble,” said Tom Cobble.
Then the old woman looked at him hardest of all, and said, “Tom Cobble
who was stole by the fairies?”
“Seven years ago,” said Tom.
“Seventy,” said the old woman.
Then she took her hands from her hips, and pegged an apron on the line,
and said, “Well, you’ve come back now, and there’s no help for it. Your
Grandad died fifty year back, and your sister Molly forty year back, and
I’m your niece her daughter, and I keep the Duke’s Lodge. My father
William Jenks turned keeper, and died thirty year back, and twenty year
back my husband Bob Drake died. Sally Drake’s my name. My son’s name’s
Jack, and he’s the Duke’s Head Keeper. Now, uncle, just take them things
into the kitchen and put ’em away in the cupboard, and cut that candle
up into sensible sizes, and don’t start pulling on it any more for
mercy’s sake.”
Tom did as his niece told him, and later on his great-nephew Jack, a
sturdy man of five-and-thirty, came in, and was told by old Sally that
her young uncle had just come back from the fairies and would live with
them now, and the sooner they settled down together the better.
[Illustration: Black and white illustration depicting a person fishing
from the roof of a house, while children and a cow are below, with
"Chapter IV" written in a ribbon.]