On a lonely moor lying between Carn Kenidzhek [12] and Bosvavas Carn
lived one Tom Trebisken and Joan his wife. They had been married up
in the teens of years, and had no child, which was a disappointment
to them both, especially to Joan, who suffered from rheumatism,
which had crippled her feet.
Tom had long given up all hope of having a child, but Joan still
believed that one would come to them some day, and it cheered her
dreary hours, as she sat helpless in her armchair, to think of the
advent of the little one, who would gladden their life. Every six days
in seven she spent absolutely alone, for Tom worked as surface-man all
the year round at Ding Dong, a great tin-mine, or bal, at the other
end of their moor, and had to leave for his work early in the morning,
and did not return until late in the evening; so it was not surprising
that she wanted a child, and that she sometimes cried in her heart:
'Aw that I had a little maid of my own to do things for me an' keep
me company when my Tom is away all day at the bal!'
The part of the moor where the Trebiskens lived was three miles or
more from Ding Dong, and two miles from their nearest neighbour. It
was quite out of the beaten track, and a passer by their cottage was
as rare as blackberries in December. They would not have lived there
at all, but that the cottage was their own--or, rather, Joan's. It
had been left to her by will, with the condition that they should
live in it themselves.
The cottage was not an ordinary one; its walls were built of small
blocks of mica and porphyry--much of the porphyry being of that lovely
deep-pink kind, with blotchings of black hornblende, all of which
a long century or more of weather had polished to the smoothness of
glass. Joan said the weather had nothing whatever to do with it, and
that it was done by the dear Little People [13] who, she declared,
lived in the carn near where the cottage stood. But whoever polished
the walls--weather or fairies--the house was a pleasure to look at,
particularly when the sun began to sink behind the moors and shone
full upon its walls; for then all the richness of the porphyry's
rose, all the hornblende's soft blackness, and all the mica's
brilliancy, were brought out of the stone, and intensified until a
less imaginative person than Joan Trebisken would have believed it
was built by enchantment. Even its commonplace roof of brown thatch,
which overspread the small casement windows in shaggy raggedness,
did not take from the burning wonder of the walls. Perhaps it was
because a company of stone-crop had found a dwelling-place there,
and that on the ridge of the roof stood out in red distinctness half
a dozen Pysgy-pows [14]--curious little round-knobbed tiles placed
there by Joan's forebears for the Piskeys to dance on.
Joan, poor soul, seldom saw the outside splendour of their cottage,
as she was powerless to move from her chair without help, and when
her Tom came home, his face was the only thing she wanted to see,
she said. Fortunately, however, her doors and windows opened on to
the moor, and she could therefore command from where she sat a long
stretch of moorland, which, though wild, was none the less beautiful
at every season of the year, but especially in the springtime, when
the yellow broom and golden gorse were in flower.
In spite of its loneliness, Joan loved the moor with all her Celtic
nature, and spent most of her day looking out upon it until the days
shortened and Nisdhu, the Black Month, which the Cornish of our time
call November, drew near.
Nobody dreaded that dark month, with its damp clinging cold, its
fogs and mists, which often veiled the whole landscape, including
the great carns, more than Joan. She said she felt the chill of its
breath before it showed its nose over the head of Carn Kenidzhek, and
was careful to shut her door and hatch and her small casement-windows
before October was half through. She was sorry to do this, and would
not have done so but for the pain in her bones, which was always
worse when November was on its way; for she shut out, she said,
the music of the Small People's voices.
Tom told her it wasn't the voices of the Wee Folk she heard, but the
trickling of a little stream making its way down by the carn on its
way across the moor. But she declared she knew better, and had ears
to distinguish between the tinkle of water and the sweet voices of
the dear Little People, if he had not, and Tom, like a sensible man,
let her hold to her belief.
Joan was a great believer in the fairies, and often declared they were
very friendly towards her--perhaps because her forebears had put the
pysgy-pows on the roof of their cottage for them to dance on. It was
her regret that she had never seen any of the dear little creatures;
but she lived in hope of seeing them some day; perhaps when the
much-cried-for little maid came she should see them then, she said.
It was now towards the end of October and exceedingly cold, and her
door and window being shut, she felt very wisht; [15] and as the
days jogged on to dreary November she became terribly depressed,
so much so that Tom dreaded to leave her sitting all alone by the
chimney-corner with a face as long as a fiddle.
He was one of the kindest husbands in the world, and never went
to his work without doing all that lay in his power to make her
comfortable while he was away. She was generally very appreciative
and grateful for all he did for her; but to-day--the day on which
something happened to alter the whole circumstances of her life--she
grumbled at everything he did, even when he piled dry peat and furze
within her reach, filled the kettle and put it on the brandis, [16]
and placed her dinner on a small table by her side. She would not
even look at him, or say good-bye, when at last he had to go off to
the mine in the dark of the autumnal morning, which made her feel
more sad than ever when he was out of her sight.
A fog of depression hung over her spirits all that long day, and the
weather, as if to share her gloom, was foggy too. She could not see
a yard beyond her window most of the day; and when the mist did lift
for a little while, it took such fantastic forms she was glad when
it again hung down like a curtain.
When the hour for Tom's return at last drew near she grew more
cheerful. She put on the last of the furze he had placed within
reach of her hand, partly to boil the kettle and to light him down
the road leading to their cottage, but chiefly to make her kitchen
cheery-looking to make up for his cold send-off.
She was on the watch now for his step, and her face grew brighter as
she listened. The kettle was crooning on the fire and everything was
warm in cheerful welcome as a step was heard on the hard road outside,
and a hand fumbled at the door-latch.
Joan, being all impatience to see her man, cried out:
'What are 'ee so stupid about, an? Give the door a shove, soas! [17]
'Tis sticked by the damp.'
She had scarcely said this when the door and its hatch opened gently,
and in the doorway stood--not her husband, as she supposed, but the
bent figure of a tiny old woman with a small costan, or bramble-basket,
on her back. Her slight form was enveloped in a cloak the colour of
far-away hills, and her face hidden in the depths of a large bonnet,
such as the mine-maidens wear at their work in the mines.
Joan was too amazed to see a stranger at her door to ask what she
wanted, and before she could get over her surprise, the little
old woman had come into the cottage, stepped noiselessly to the
hearthplace, unslung the costan, and laid it at her feet, singing as
she did so a curious rhyme in a voice so wild and sweet, it reminded
Joan, as she listened, which she did as one in a dream, of moor-birds'
music and rippling streams, and the voices of the Small People who
lived among the carns. The rhyme was as follows:
'I bring thee and leave thee my little mudgeskerry! [18]
My dinky, [19] my dear!
Till the day of that year
When the spells shall be broken--
And this is the token--
By Magic and Pail
And the Skavarnak's [20] wail,
My ninnie, my dinnie, my little mudgeskerry!
'Then we to the carns will away, my pednpaley [21]
My deary, my tweet!
Where the Small People's feet
Tread out the Birth measure,
To give her a treasure
From out of the blue,
When she shall know too
'Tis better to give than to keep my pednpaley.'
The song and its music had hardly died away, when the tiny old
woman spread her hands over the bramble-basket, as if in blessing,
and then stole out of the cottage as noiselessly and mysteriously as
she had come.
Joan was all of a tremble quite five minutes after she had gone,
and when she had somewhat recovered herself, her glance fell on the
costan. At first she was afraid what it contained; but her woman's
curiosity got the better of her fears, and, bending over the rough
basket, she turned over the bracken, laid in careful order on its top,
and saw lying on a bed of dried moss and leaves something that brought
a cry of amazement, mingled with horror, to her lips.
It was a babe, but so tiny and so ugly that she shuddered as she
gazed upon it. It was in a deep sleep, or seemed to be, and its skinny
little face, crinkled all over like a poppy just out of its sheath,
was resting on its claw-like hand.
In all her dreams of a child coming to her home, Joan had never dreamt
of anything so uncanny as this babe, and she told herself that the
little creature in its costan cradle was sent to punish her for her
persistent desire for a child.
Tom arrived just then, and soon knew all that his wife could tell
of the mysterious coming and going of the little old woman in the
bal-bonnet, and of her strange song; and, like Joan, when he looked
into the bramble-basket and saw the bit of ugliness within, he gave
voice to a cry of horror that anything so uncanny should be left on
their hands. In fact, he was so angry that he wanted to take the
basket and all it held on to the moor, and let her who brought it
come and take it away, for have it in his house he would not--no,
not for all the crocks of gold the Little People were said to have
in their keeping.
The night was bitterly cold, and by little moans and sighs coming
from the direction of the Hooting Carn Joan could tell the wind was
about to rise, and would perhaps end in a great storm. And though she
was so much upset at having such an ugly little creature thrust on
them, she was too tender-hearted to wish it to be exposed even for an
hour on their moor on such a night. Besides, the child was helpless,
whosoever child it was, and therefore demanded compassion, and she
begged her husband to allow it to stay in their house until to-morrow.
Tom could seldom refuse his crippled wife anything when her heart was
set upon it, and, though much against his inclination, he yielded to
her entreaties; but he was careful to add that he could only suffer
it to stay until he was ready to start for the bal.
'Whatever the weather then, fair or foul, out it shall go on the
moor!' he cried. 'It is a changeling,' he added, with a solemn shake
of his head, 'and if we was to let it abide along o' we, we should
have nothing but bad luck all the rest of our days.'
Joan, having got her way, did not care to contradict her husband;
for she told herself the song the little old woman had sung pointed to
something quite different. Still, she would not keep the babe longer
than the morrow if he were against it.
When bedtime came, Tom and Joan had quite a dispute as to where the
strange cradle and its stranger occupant should be put for the night,
and as neither of them could decide, and Tom was against its being
taken up into the bed-chamber, Joan declared she would sit up with
it all night, and nothing Tom could say should prevent her. So he
went off to his bed in a huff, muttering loudly that the cheeld,
[22] or 'whatever it was,' had brought misery to them already.
Joan kept to her resolve, and sat in her armchair with the
bramble-basket at her feet until well on towards the dawn, when Tom
came down to see how she was faring, and found, to his surprise,
she was as fresh as a rose just gathered.
'An' I ent sleepy nuther!' she cried in triumph. 'I ent felt so well
since I was took with the rheumatics, and me hands don't look so
twisted, do they?' holding them up. ''Tis my belief 'tis all owing
to that little cheeld down there in the costan.'
As Tom could not gainsay this, he went off to do his morning's work,
and to get Joan's breakfast. By the time he had done this the sun was
rising, and the sky, away in the east, was a miracle of purple and
rose. The night had been wild, but the storm having exhausted itself,
the dawn was all the more beautiful.
The babe was still asleep, and had not moved all night, Joan said, and
Tom fervently hoped it would not until it was safe out on the moor. But
he hoped in vain, for when the sun began to wheel up behind the hills
in the east, and sent a beam of rosy light in at the casement window,
the little creature shuffled in the costan, and when Joan, willing
to give it air, pushed back its covering of bracken, it opened its
eyes and smiled, and that smile transformed its whole face.
'Why, Tom, my man,' she cried, 'the little dear isn't ugly one bit;
an' the little eyes of it are as soft as moor-pools! Do 'ee come and
have a squint at it.'
Tom came, and when he had stared at the babe a minute or more, he
said slowly, as if weighing his words:
'You be right, Joan; but it do make the mystery all the more queer. A
cheeld that can look as ugly as nettles one minute and as pretty as
flowers the next ent for we to keep.'
'Don't 'ee betray thy ignorance where babes is concerned!' cried Joan,
fearful of what his words implied. 'Some do look terrible plain in
their sleep--as this poor dear did--and some do look beautiful. 'Tis
as Nature made 'em--bless their hearts!'
The babe now turned her eyes on Tom, and was gazing on him as if she
wanted to look into his very soul, and then, as if she quite approved
of what she saw there, gave him a fascinating smile, which won his
heart at once.
'You won't take the cheeld out on the moors to-day, Tom, will
'ee?' asked Joan, who was quick to see the change in her man's face.
'We will keep it till I come home from the bal, at any rate,' he said
cautiously. And then the babe, as if to show its gratitude for the
concession, held up both its little arms to him to be taken out of
its costan cradle, whereupon Tom was so delighted at being preferred
before his wife that he could hardly conceal his pride.
'That infant do knaw a thing or two, whatever it be,' said Joan to
herself, with a chuckle. 'And 'tis a somebody, I can tell, by her
little shift and things, which do look as if they was spun out of
spiders' webs by the Small People, so fine an' silky they be!'
There was no question now about the little stranger staying; but,
all the same, Tom went off to the mine with many misgivings, and he
said to himself, as he walked quickly over the moor, that if Joan
were too helpless to do for herself, how was she going to tend a
babe? And that thought troubled him all the day.
But his fears were needless; for when he got home that evening
and looked in at the door, he saw a sight which surprised him, yet
gladdened his heart. Joan was sitting in her elbow-chair, with a face
as bright as a moon in a cloudless sky, cuddling the strange babe,
who was babbling to the kind face looking down into it as it lay in
her arms.
'However did 'ee manage to lift the cheeld on to your lap, Joan?' he
asked, when his wife saw him.
'Aw! we managed somehow or tuther between us,' she answered, with a
happy laugh. 'It was as light as a feather, it was,' chirping to the
babe, 'an' I do think the Small People gave it a hoist on to Mammie
Trebisken's lap! Eh, my handsome?' speaking to the babe. 'An' it
haven't a been a mite o' trouble nuther all this blessed day!' And
then, looking up at Tom with a look he never forgot: 'An' it have
a-lifted the latch of my loneliness, an' I am as happy as a queen!'
Tom was thankful to hear all this, and he thought it was no accident
that had brought such comfort to his poor lonely wife. He had still
greater cause for thankfulness as the days wore on; for as Joan now
had her thoughts taken from herself in having a babe--which, by the
way, was a maiden babe--to think for and to attend to as far as she
was able, she grew better in health, and before winter was over could
go about the house-place 'and do all her little chores her own self,'
she proudly declared. She even swept and sanded her kitchen floor,
and made figgy hoggans [23] for her husband's dinner, which she had
not been able to do since the early years of their marriage.
There were, however, a few things Joan could not do; but as they
were all done for her in some mysterious way, and much better than
she herself could have done, it was more a matter for rejoicing than
regret. Whenever she put her washing out in the backlet [24] to wait
till Tom had time to do it, somebody took it away, and brought it back
washed and dried and ironed--all looking as white as May-blossom and
smelling as sweet as moor-flowers!
She was never certain who did this kindness for her, but in her heart
she believed it was either done by the little old woman who brought
the babe or the Small People.
Several happy years passed away, and the little child--Ninnie-Dinnie,
as they called her--so strangely brought to the moorland cottage and
so strangely left, was now able to return some of her foster-parents'
kindness. This she did by helping in small household duties.
Joan, partly because it was right and partly because she feared the
rheumatism might some day make her helpless again, had brought her
up to be useful.
The child did not at all like work, and, but for Joan's insistence,
would have been a regular little do-nothing. Perhaps she would have
spared the little maid from many a small household duty if the Pail
had allowed it!
In shaking up the moss and leaves in the bramble-basket the evening the
mysterious little woman brought it to the cottage, Tom had found at
the feet of the babe a small dark Pail, which he said must have been
shaped out of a block of black tin left by the Old Men, or ancient
Jews, who, ages before the art of turning black tin into white was
discovered, worked the Cornish tin-mines. It was very crude, and had
nothing remarkable about it save for its look of age and some curious
characters cut under its rim, and which, of course, neither he nor
his wife could read.
They thought the Pail was put into the bramble-basket for the child
to play with, and telling themselves they would give her a better
plaything when she was old enough, they set it on the dresser.
They were soon to learn that the Pail was something more than a child's
toy, and had strange properties of making itself light or dark at will,
thrusting its characters out of the metal in strong relief from its
surface and withdrawing them again!
Tom declared it had in some mysterious way to do with the little
creature's welfare, and that it was a kind of conscience--a Small
People's conscience, perhaps. But Joan said she believed it was
something more than that, if there was any meaning in the words of
the song the dinky old woman in the bal-bonnet had sung.
But, whoever was right, there was no doubt that the Pail showed its
approval or disapproval of whatever Ninnie-Dinnie did! If the little
maid was especially helpful and kind, the Pail became a lovely shade of
silver and gray, and its letters stood out in glittering distinctness;
but if she was lazy, or spoke rudely to her foster-parents, it grew
darker than hornblende, and its characters were hardly visible.
This strange property of the Pail made Joan feel quite creepy when
she first discovered its peculiarity, which she happened to do one
day when Ninnie-Dinnie was very fractious and would do nothing she
was bidden. She got used to it in time, and was even glad it showed
its pleasure, or otherwise, in the manner it did.
She often told her husband that, when the little maid was particularly
kind to her when he was at the bal, the Pail would laugh all over
its sides.
Ninnie-Dinnie was now in her eighth year, counting the year she was
brought to the cottage, and a dear, useful little maid she was; and
no one to beat her anywhere for work, Tom declared, particularly when
her size was considered.
The child was very small, so small that she could still sleep in the
basket cradle she came in--and did too, for the simple reason that
she was wakeful all night if she slept anywhere else.
Both Tom and Joan were sometimes troubled at her size. For she never
seemed to grow bigger or fatter, whatever they gave her to eat,
and they feared she would always be a little Go-by-the-ground. [25]
Joan, however, consoled herself that perhaps she was an off relation
of the dear Little People.
Although Ninnie-Dinnie was exceedingly tiny, she was very sharp,
and asked more questions in a day than they could answer in a
year. She wanted to know the why and wherefore of everything--what
the moor-flowers were made of, and who lived inside the great grey
carns, and what made Carn Kenidzhek hoot--was it the giant who lived
inside it?--and much besides that neither Tom nor Joan could answer,
because they did not know themselves.
Tom said she was wise beyond her years, and all owing to her being
moped in the cottage so much, and that she ought to be out of doors
more. Joan quite agreed with him, and suggested that he should take
her with him sometimes over the moor, only stipulating that she was
not to go as far as the mine-works.
Tom considered this a splendid idea; and so, every now and then,
when Ninnie-Dinnie was willing, she accompanied him part of the way,
and as there was only one road leading back to the cottage, she easily
found her way home alone.
One day, when the child had reached the place where the miner generally
sent her back, she begged to go with him all the way to the bal;
and as he was rather weak where his womenfolk were concerned, he
willingly consented.
When they reached Ding Dong, with its hundreds of busy workers,
the little maid grew very frightened, and fled back across the moor,
in the direction of home, as fast as her legs could take her.
The miner, as he watched her running away, rather reproached himself
for bringing her so far; and he wondered, as he put the tin into the
furnace to be smelted, whether she got home all right.
'So you did take our Ninnie-Dinnie to the bal?' was his wife's
greeting when he got home that evening. 'I've been terribly wisht
[26] without her all day.'
'You don't mean to say the little dear haven't come back?' cried
Tom. 'That is terrible news, sure 'nough! She didn't stop a minute
at the bal, and tore off home like a skainer.' [27]
'I've never clapt eyes on her since she went out with 'ee this
morning!' cried Joan, greatly distressed. 'I do hope nothing has
happened to her. Perhaps she has been an' gone an' tumbled down into
one of the Old Men's workings [28] out there on the moor.'
Tom went as white as a sheet at the bare thought of the possibility,
and he started off at once to look for the child, leaving his poor
wife more troubled than she had ever been since Ninnie-Dinnie came.
He was gone a little over an hour, when, to Joan's thankfulness,
he returned with the child.
He found her, he said, not far from the beaten track, sitting at the
foot of a carn waiting for him to come for her.
She told him she had lost her way, and that as she was sitting on the
griglans, [29] an ugly little man with long ears like a Skavarnak [30]
came up to her, and because she was afraid of him and would not go into
his little house under the carn, he was very angry. She did not know
what would have happened to her if a little old woman in a sunbonnet
had not come along just then, and took her to the place where Tom
found her. She told her to sit where she was till Daddie Trebisken
came to fetch her, which he would be sure to do after sunset. In the
mean-time she was to say her own name backwards seven times if the
Long-Eared came near her again. She also told her that Ninnie-Dinnie,
if she cared to believe it, was her real name spelt backwards with an
'n' left out; and she said she must never go out on the lonely moors
without taking the Pail, made out of old Cornish tin, with her.
It was ever so long before Joan got over her fright about
Ninnie-Dinnie, and for weeks she would not hear of her going out
on the moors. But, as time deadens all things, she got over her
nervousness, and when April came, and the broom and the gorse were
in flower, making the great brown moor yellow-gold, and scenting all
the air with peach-like fragrance, she was willing that the little
maid should go with her husband once more. And Tom willingly took her.
As they were going out of the door, something fell on the Pail
standing on the dresser, and the child, remembering the injunction
of the little old woman about the Pail, turned back to get it.
'What shall I bring 'ee home, Mammie Trebisken?' she asked, looking
at her foster-mother; and Joan, hearing the lark singing faintly in
the distance, replied laughingly:
'You shall bring me home a pailful of lark's music, my dear.'
'You do knaw the little maid can't bring 'ee that,' cried Tom
impatiently. 'I should think she was all the music you wanted now.'
'So she is, bless her!' said his wife. 'I was only joking.'
'Nevertheless, I will bring you home this Pail full of lark's music,'
said Ninnie-Dinnie, with great seriousness; and putting her tiny
hand into Tom's big one, they started off, and Joan watched them out
of sight.
When the miner and the child got about half-way to the mine, scores of
larks were up in the blue air singing, and their little dark bodies
waving to and fro in the rapture of their song, till it seemed to
the miner as if their melody was trickling down all over him, and
Ninnie-Dinnie declared it was.
As they stood listening, one of the larks began to descend, singing
as it came.
'Now is the time if you want to catch the lark's music for Mammie
Trebisken,' laughed Tom, watching the bird's descent. 'There it is,
just over thy soft little head. Up with thy Pail, my dear!'
And Ninnie-Dinnie, with her face as grave as the great boulders
lying amongst the golden-blossomed furze and the feathery fronds of
the Osmunda, lifted the Pail above her head, and as she did so the
strange letters under its rim stood out and glowed like white fire.
'Little lark, little lark, give me thy music!' she chanted in a voice
as clear and sweet as linnets' fluting. 'Little lark, little lark,
give me thy song!' and the small bird twirled down towards her singing
wilder and sweeter as it came, until it hovered over the uplifted Pail.
'The dear little lark has given me its music and its song to make
Mammie Trebisken's heart glad,' said the child, as the lark dropped
on the thyme-scented turf at her feet.
'Pretending, are 'ee, an?' laughed Tom.
'No!' cried Ninnie-Dinnie. 'Listen!'
And the miner, putting his ear close to the Pail, heard, to his
unspeakable amazement, a lark singing quite distinctly, yet rather
faintly, as it were singing far away.
'Jimmerychry! [31] Can it be believed?' he exclaimed. ''Tis magic,
an' I don't half like it. An' I don't think the dear little bird do
nuther,' looking down at the lark, who was trailing its wings on the
ground in that distressful way birds have when their wee nestlings
are in danger. 'Give it back its own, that's a dear little maid.'
'I can't,' said Ninnie-Dinnie. 'Mammie Trebisken can only do that;
and I don't think she will want to, for the song in the Pail will
make all her heart sing.'
She covered the Pail with her pinafore as she spoke, and the little
lark disappeared into a brake of flaming gorse.
There was no time to bandy words, Tom told himself, as he was late for
his work, and he left the child to go back to their cottage without
any more protesting. But he did not feel very comfortable as he strode
on his way to the mine.
It was late in the morning when Ninnie-Dinnie got home, and Joan was
beginning to be troubled at her long absence when she came in.
'Have 'ee brought the lark's music along with 'ee?' she asked, as
the child set the Pail on the red-painted dresser.
'Yes,' said Ninnie-Dinnie; 'and at sundown you will hear it.'
Joan, thinking it was all make-believe, laughed, and said she would
keep her ears open to listen.
When the shadows of the great grey carns stretched over the heather
and the sun sunk over the moor, the Pail began to move slightly on
the dresser, and a sound came out like grass moved gently by the wind,
which at once drew Joan's attention to it. Then, to her amazement, it
shook all over, and there poured forth from it such a gush of melody
that almost took her breath away. It was like lark's music, she said,
with a strain of sweeter, wilder music added to it, and which, somehow,
reminded her of the flute-like voice of the little old woman in the
bal-bonnet, who sang that rude rhyme when she brought them their
dear little Ninnie-Dinnie. She sat in her elbow-chair entranced,
and the queer child sat at her feet, apparently entranced too!
The melody, which at first came from the depths of the Pail, or the
turfy ground, it was hard to say which, rose higher and higher, until
it sounded like a bird singing its heart out in the soft azure of an
evening sky.
Joan never knew how long she listened to that fetterless song;
she only knew she awoke to the fact that the sky's little songster,
the Pail, or whatever it was, had stopped singing, that daylight was
leaving the moor, and that a small dark shadow was slowly stealing
across her window.
'Why, it is a little bird, surely,' she said, speaking to the tiny
maid at her feet. 'The light of our fire have attracted it from its
sleeping-place--poor little thing!'
'P'r'aps it is the little lark come for its music and its song,'
suggested Ninnie-Dinnie, fixing her gaze on the bird, which was now
fluttering against the panes and uttering a tiny note of distress.
'I never thought of that,' said Joan. 'I hope it haven't. I couldn't
give it back its song and its music for the world!'
As she was speaking, the Pail on the dresser was again agitated, and
out of it rushed another entrancing melody, until all the cottage was
full of music, and Joan said it was raining down upon her head from
the oaken beams. But through the melody could be distinctly heard a
little voice, which was the lark's voice:
'Give me back my music! Give me back my song!'
'My Aunt Betsy!' cried Joan. 'Whoever heard of a bird talking before?'
'Are you going to give the little lark what it wants?' asked
Ninnie-Dinnie, watching the bird, which was still fluttering against
the bottle-green pane.
'No!' said Joan decidedly. 'I don't think I ought. It do make my
heart young an' happy again.'
'I was hoping you would like to give back the lark its music and its
song,' said Ninnie-Dinnie.
'Whatever for, cheeld-vean?' [32] Joan asked.
'Because,' answered the child, 'I have been wondering what the lark's
little mate will do if he hasn't his song to sing to her now she is
sitting on her pretty eggs out on the grass.'
'Why, make another song, of course, you foolish little
knaw-nothing!' cried Joan, laying her pain-twisted fingers on the
child's elfin locks.
'It has no music to make a song with; it gave it all to me to take
home to my dear Mammie Trebisken,' said the little maid.
Once more the lark's song came out of the Pail, and Joan said it was
sweeter and wilder and freer than even the second time. As she listened
intently she was carried to her courting days, when she and Tom took
their Sunday walks through the growing corn and flaming poppies to
hear the larks sing. Then as the songster came earthward again and
its music died away into the silence of the years, or into the Pail,
she was too bewildered to say which, there appeared on the threshold
of the door the little lark, which, as she looked at it, trailed its
wings and piped: 'Give me back my music! Give me back my song!' and
its sad cry went right down into her pitiful heart.
'I was a selfish body to want to keep what didn't belong to me,'
she cried, and she told Ninnie-Dinnie to give it back what it wanted.
'I can't give back: you only can do that,' said the little maid. 'I
can only bring you what you ask.'
The wee bird in the doorway again made itself heard: 'Give me back my
music! Give me back my song!' and so distressful was its pleading that
she clutched the child's shoulder and went at once to the dresser,
and, almost before she knew it, she was standing at the door with
the Pail in her hand.
'Take your music and your song, you poor little dear,' she said in
her tenderest voice to the bird; 'and go along home to your mate,
and make her as happy as you have made my heart this day.'
She turned the Pail over on its side as she spoke, and the lark flew
into it; and in a minute or less it was out again and away into the
semi-darkness, singing its own ecstatic song as it went!
Tom came up the road as it flew off; and as she waited there by the
door for him to help her back to her chair, the little old woman's
rhyme came back to her, the last line of which floated through
her brain:
'To give her a treasure
From out of the blue.
When she shall know too
'Tis better to give than to keep my pednpaley!'
A year and four months went by, and Joan was quite helpless again--as
helpless as when the babe was brought to her--and but for that babe,
now to childhood grown, she did not know what she would have done. Her
man was not so young as he was, and had a great deal more to do at the
mine, and therefore less time to devote to woman's work. But thanks
to Ninnie-Dinnie's careful training, his services in this respect
were not required. The little maid now did all the work of the small
cottage, and the cooking too--even to making the hoggans for Tom's
dinner. Besides which, she waited on her dear Mammie Trebisken hand
and foot, and made the poor sufferer's life as happy as possible under
the circumstances. Tom wondered how she did it all, 'and such a dinky
little soul too--not much bigger than a little pednpaley itself,'
he said.
Ninnie-Dinnie did not go out on the moor all this time, and nothing
Joan could say would make her. But when July came, and the blackberry
brambles were in flower, and the great moors began to look beautifully
purple with the bloom of the heather, she cast wistful glances out
of the window, and one bright morning she asked Tom to take her with
him a little way.
Her eye caught the darkening look of the Pail as she was putting on
her sunbonnet, and she thought the look meant she must take it with
her, and she did.
'What shall I bring you home?' she asked, looking over her shoulder
at Joan as she and Tom were going out of the door; and the invalid,
catching sight of a sunbeamed pool lying high on the heath, said,
with a laugh:
'You shall bring me home a pailful of sunbeams from the pool I can
see from my chair.'
'A pack of nonsense!' cried Tom. 'As well ask for the moon. I should
have thought that our Ninnie-Dinnie,' resting his huge hand on the
child's head, 'was all the sunbeam you wanted now.'
'So she is, Tom, when you ent here,' cried the woman, smiling tenderly
at both her dears.
'All the same,' said Ninnie-Dinnie, 'I will bring you home a pailful
of sunbeams if I can.'
When she and Tom reached the pool, they stopped and looked in,
or tried to, for they could not see its bottom for sunbeams, which
rippled all over its surface in tiny waves of light.
'Now is your chance to get that pailful of sunbeams thy foolish old
Mammie Trebisken axed 'ee to get,' said the miner.
'It is,' said Ninnie-Dinnie in her grave old woman's manner; and,
leaning over the pool, she held the Pail over the side and cried:
'Little brown pool, give me thy sunbeams! Little brown pool, give
me thy light!' and, to Tom's amazement (he ought not to have been
astonished at anything by this time), he saw the light leave the pool
and flow into the Pail!
When the moor-pool had given all its sunbeams, and the water was a
darker brown than a sparrow's back, Ninnie-Dinnie stood up and looked
into her Pail, and Tom looked too, and saw nothing.
'It is full of emptiness,' said he, laughing.
'It is full of the dear little Pool's sunbeams to make Mammie
Trebisken's eyes glad,' insisted the child; and covering the Pail
very carefully with her pinafore, she went down towards the cottage,
and Tom watched her until she was hidden behind a great boulder of
granite, and then he too went on his way.
Ninnie-Dinnie did not get home till quite late in the afternoon, and
when Joan asked her where she had been so long, she said a little
Skavarnak would not let her come before, and that he stood in the
path barring the way, till a dinky little woman in a bluish cloak
came over the moor, and then he sped away through a hole in a carn.
'What a funny thing!' said Joan; 'hares generally keep out of folks'
way. He must be different from other little hares.'
'I am sure he must be,' she said, setting the Pail on the dresser.
'Have 'ee brought the sunbeams?' asked Joan, turning her gaze to
the bucket.
'Yes; and by-and-by, when the sun begins to set, you will be able to
see them.'
Joan, thinking her Ninnie-Dinnie was pretending--for she saw when
the child came into the kitchen that the Pail contained nothing--only
laughed.
When the great round sun dropped down to his setting, the crippled
woman, happening to turn her face to the dresser, saw a tongue of
white flame rise out of the Pail, and on its tip burnt a ruby star!
It startled her almost out of her senses at first; but as it did
not grow bigger, but only increased in beauty, she gazed at it with
wondering delight.
As the evening darkened over the moor, and the Hooting Carn was dim
in the distance, the light in the Pail grew exceedingly beautiful,
and took all manner of shapes and colours, and made the room where
Joan sat as lovely as the dear Small People's Country, Ninnie-Dinnie
said--how she knew, it did not occur to her foster-mother to inquire.
''Tis magic!' cried the woman, looking round the room, 'an' I don't
understand it one bit.'
'P'r'aps,' said the child softly, 'it is the dear Little People's
way of showing how grateful they feel for your kindness to your
little Ninnie-Dinnie.'
'I haven't been kinder than I ought,' began Joan; 'and--'tis raining,
surely,' she broke off, as a trickle of water fell on her ear. ''Tis
queer, too! There's no sign of wet weather in the sky.'
The child went to the window and looked out.
'There is a tiny stream of water coming down the road,' she said. 'I
believe 'tis the little brown Pool coming for its sunbeams.'
'Don't be silly!' cried Joan.
'It is,' said the little maid, looking out again, 'and it has made
itself into a dark ring outside our door.'
As she was speaking, a rippling voice broke out:
'Give me back my light! give me back my sunbeams!'
'I won't,' said Joan irritably. 'Why should I, when it is making my
little place look handsome? I haven't seen anything like it in all
my born days!'
'I was hoping you would give back the poor little brown Pool its
shine,' said Ninnie-Dinnie, with a pleading look in her eyes. 'The
little flowers that live in the Pool will die without light, and the
dear little Sundews will have no silver beads to tip their red spikes.'
'Whatever did 'ee bring me home a pailful of sunbeams for, if you
want me to give it away again?' asked the woman still more irritably.
'You asked me to bring you the brown Pool's sunbeams,' said the child
gently. 'I did but do what you asked.'
The light in the Pail was redder and brighter than the red planet
Mars in his rising or the sun in his setting, and all in the room
was a lovely crimson glow, and Joan, as she gazed at the Pail again,
heard the rippling voice outside her door: 'Give me my light! give me
my sunbeams!' and it continued rippling its demand until the woman's
kind heart was troubled.
'Poor little Pool!' she said to herself at last. 'I expect it is
feeling as wisht without its light as I was before my Ninnie-Dinnie
came in the costan. 'Tis wrong to want to keep what will brighten
something else. I don't s'pose even a little moor-pool can be happy
and bear flowers on its bosom without sunbeams and light,' and she
told the child to give back the Pool its own.
'I can't,' said Ninnie-Dinnie. 'Only you can do that. Lean on me,'
offering her tiny arm, 'and I'll help you to get the Pail to give
the dear little Pool its sunbeams.'
Joan was greatly amused that a dinky little maid like her, scarcely
bigger than a large doll, could support a great helpless body like
herself to walk across the floor; and she laughed, and, as she laughed,
the Pool cried again in such a beseeching voice that she unwittingly
put her hand on the child's shoulder, and immediately found herself
at the door, with the Pail in her hand, before she knew!
'I give 'ee back your brightness, dear little Pool,' she said,
'and much obliged I am to 'ee for letting me have it here in
my little room. Now go along home to where you belong, amongst
the griglans.' [33] And the little Pool took its shine and left,
twisting and twirling its way back to its place, shining and rippling
as it went.
'The pool will shine all the more brightly to-morrow for having
given you its sunbeams,' said the child, as she helped Joan back to
her chair.
A few days after Ninnie-Dinnie had brought the pailful of sunbeams, she
again asked to go with Tom over the moors, and Tom willingly took her.
'What impossible thing is Mammie Trebisken going to ask you to bring
back to-day?' said the miner in joke as the child went to the dresser
for the Pail.
'The only thing I should like to have brought home to me to-day is
that nasty little Skavarnak which frightened my Ninnie-Dinnie,' said
Joan. 'If she do catch un an' bring un home in the Pail, I won't be
willing to let him get out of it again in a hurry!'
'Do you really want the Little Long-Eared?' asked the child, with a
curious look in her eyes.
'Of course I do. I s'pose he won't be so easy to get into the Pail
as the lark's music or the pool's sunbeams.'
'Not nearly so easy,' responded Ninnie-Dinnie. 'And even if I can get
him into the Pail, you won't like to keep him, and you must until----'
She did not finish what she was going to say, as Tom was in a hurry
to be off, and they left the invalid greatly wondering whatever the
little maid could mean.
The sun was rising when Tom and his little foster-child reached a
part of the great moor where a road turned towards Ding Dong, and
where they saw a hare sitting on his haunches cleaning his whiskers.
'There is Mister Long-Eared,' whispered Tom. 'Now is your chance
to catch him, my dear;' but the hare had heard the whisper, and he
vanished under the bracken.
'He will be very difficult to get into the Pail,' sighed
Ninnie-Dinnie. 'But he will have to go into it, or the spell won't
be broken.'
'What spell?' asked the miner.
'What! have you forgotten the rhyme the dinky woman sang when she
brought me to Mammie Trevisken--
'By magic and Pail,
And the Skavarnak's wail'?
'I had clean forgotten,' said Tom. 'But I don't s'pose it meant
anything. P'r'aps the little body in the bal-bonnet didn't know what
she was singing.'
The miner went on his way to Ding Dong, and Ninnie-Dinnie seated
herself on a bed of wild thyme close to where the hare had disappeared,
and began calling very gently, but with great persistence:
'Skavarnak! Skavarnak! come into the Magic
Pail! Long-Eared! Long-Eared! come into my Pail!'
But nothing stirred in the bracken.
Long the child called--hours it seemed--until at last there was a
movement under the great fronds of bracken, and out came a woebegone
little hare and went into the Pail!
'You are caught by the magic of the Old Men's Pail at last,' said
Ninnie-Dinnie, with a strange look in her eye; and covering the Pail
with her pinafore, she set her face homeward.
'Have 'ee got the hare?' was Joan's greeting, as the child appeared
in the doorway.
'I have,' she cried, with a ring of triumph in her voice.
'Aw, you poor little thing!' exclaimed Joan, eyeing the hare, who
was gazing at her from over the Pail with a most dejected look in
his dark eyes.
'Please don't pity him,' said Ninnie-Dinnie. 'He isn't really a hare:
he is a dreadful little hobgoblin who has been cruel to all the dear
Little People you love so much.'
'Who told 'ee all that, cheeld?' asked Joan, looking at the little
maid.
'P'r'aps the Wee Folk whispered it to me as I lay asleep in the
costan,' answered the child.
When evening came, a most terrible wail came from the dresser, like
the cry of a hurt child or an animal caught in a gin, which found
its way at once to Joan's feeling heart.
'I can't a-bear to hear that cry,' she said to Ninnie-Dinnie. 'Do
set the poor little creature free, that's a dear.'
'I can't, Mammie Trebisken, and I don't think I want you to, either. It
is good for him to be kept prisoner in the Magic Pail.'
The hare wailed on, and poor Joan had to put her fingers in her ears
to shut out the sound.
Tom came home just then, and, seeing there was a nice fat hare in the
Pail, said he would soon stop his music, and that he would have him
put into a hoggan for his dinner--a threat which so frightened the
poor creature that there was no wail left in him for all that evening,
and, leaning his head on the edge of the Pail, he looked exceedingly
miserable, as I am sure he was.
The hare was kept prisoner in the Pail all that night and all the
next day, and not even Joan gave him a look of pity, for even her
heart was hardened against him.
When evening came again, he once more lifted up his voice in a loud
and prolonged howl, which was almost more than the tender-hearted
woman could bear, and she was about to ask Ninnie-Dinnie to give him
his liberty, when a soft scamper of tiny feet made her turn her gaze
to the open door, and in a minute or less there appeared on the step
three small hares, who, when they saw her pitiful glance on them,
began to cry:
'Give us back our Daddy Skavarnak! Give us back our Daddy Long-Ears!'
'Hearken to that,' cried Joan, turning to Ninnie-Dinnie, who was
preparing Tom's supper. 'I wonder you, of all people, can bear to
hear it. Do 'ee give the little Skavarnaks their poor daddy.'
'You know I haven't the power,' said the little maid quietly, 'and
I am afraid I shouldn't be very willing if I had.'
'But you wanted me to give the lark his music and his song and the pool
its beams,' remonstrated Joan, as Ninnie-Dinnie shook her head. 'Why
ever don't 'ee want the hare to be given back to his children?'
'I told you the Long-Eared had been very cruel to the dear Wee
Folk. He was terribly cruel to one poor Little Skillywidden [34] in
particular, and its mammie, to save it from further cruelty, had to
hide it somewhere until he was caught in the Magic Pail. You see,' as
Joan lifted up her pain-twisted hands in amazement, 'when he was taken
prisoner by the Pail and brought into a good woman's cottage he became
powerless to do the dear Little People any more harm, and all the
spells that he threw over them became weak as money-spiders' threads.'
'What a wicked little creature he must have been!' cried Joan
indignantly, shaking her head at the hare, who looked thoroughly
ashamed of himself, and lolled his head over the edge of the Pail. 'But
who told 'ee about the wicked Skavarnak an' his doings?' turning to
the child, and giving her a searching look.
Ninnie-Dinnie did not answer, but a peculiar look came into her eyes
and a smile played about her lips.
'I'm beginning to think our Ninnie-Dinnie is one of the Wee Folk her
own self,' said Joan to herself, still gazing at the quaint little
figure, with its dark, unfathomable eyes, and its elfin locks framing
the gentle little face, 'an' that she is the Skillywidden its mammie
hid for safety in a cottage. She is a dear little soul, whoever she is,
an' I wouldn't part with her now--no, not for a bal full o' diamonds.'
As these thoughts travelled through her mind, the three little hares
on the doorstep wailed out their entreaty again: 'Give us back our
Daddy Skavarnak! Give us back our Daddy Long-Ears!' and the hare in
the Magic Pail lifted his head and looked beseechingly at the child,
who, however, took no notice of him.
The three little hares continued to cry on, and although it worried
Joan's kind heart to hear it, she steeled herself against them on
account of their daddy's cruelty, but into Ninnie-Dinnie's eyes there
stole a wondrous pity.
'Poor little things!' she whispered to herself; and then, looking up
at her foster-mother, she said softly: 'You may let the Long-Eared
free if you like.'
'But I don't like,' said Joan severely. 'Why should I, when he have
a-been so unkind to the dear Little People?'
'I would like you to give him his liberty if he will promise to go
away from our moor and never come back any more for five hundred
years,' continued the child, who apparently had not noticed the
interruption. 'If he does not keep his promise after he is set free,
he will run the terrible risk of again being taken prisoner in the
Magic Pail and having Daddy Trebisken's threat carried out upon him.'
'What threat?' asked Joan. 'Aw, I remember now--his being put into
a hoggan for my Tom's dinner. He is too bad for my good Tom to make
a meal of,' shaking her head at the hare in the Pail. 'He will have
to be made into a pasty, as a warning to all evil-intending Long-Ears.'
The poor animal in the Pail could not have looked more wretched if
he was to be made into a pasty there and then, and he cried in his
terror, and the three little hares on the doorstep lifted up their
small voices in sympathy.
The latter's wails were more than Joan's tender heart could stand.
'Poor little things!' she cried, looking first at the small Long-Ears
and then at Ninnie-Dinnie. 'If he will promise to do what you want him,
I'll set him free. 'Tis hard they should suffer for their wicked old
daddy's wrongdoing.'
'It is,' responded the child in her gravest manner. 'And it is for
their sakes more than his own that I am willing he should have his
liberty. Ask him if he will consent to do all I told you.'
Joan, looking at the prisoner, repeated what Ninnie-Dinnie had said,
and asked him whether he would have his freedom under those conditions.
The Long-Eared muttered something--what, she did not know, but the
little maid seemed to understand, and she told her foster-mother that
though the conditions were hard, he had promised to keep them if she
would set him free from the Magic Pail.
'Then let us do it at once,' cried Joan, for the appealing eyes of
those three little hares on the doorstep were more than she could
endure.
The child came to her side, and offered her shoulder to enable the
crippled woman to do her kind deed, and almost before Joan knew it
she was at the door, with the Magic Pail gripped firmly in her hand,
and found herself saying:
'I command thee, in the name of my little Ninnie-Dinnie an' the
Magic Pail, never to come on our moors till the five hundred years
are up. Remember, if you do, or try to hurt any of the dear Little
People, they will compel thee to come into this here Pail, an' hand
'ee over to somebody who loves the Wee Folk as much as I do, an'
who will cut 'ee all to bits, an' put 'ee into a great lashing [35]
pasty for a miner's dinner.' [36]
The Skavarnak uttered a terrified howl, and Joan, looking down into
the Pail, saw, not a hare, but a dreadful little hobgoblin, with ears
as long as his ugly little body.
She dropped the Pail in her fright, and the ugly little creature sped
away into the darkness, followed by the three wee hares, or hobgoblins,
as no doubt they were.
Ninnie-Dinnie looked very happy when they had gone, and the Pail
evidently shared her joy, for it was nearly white, and its embossed
characters looked almost as beautiful as the little Pool's sunbeams.
The child would not go out on the moor for a long time after the Daddy
Long-Ears was set free. She said she must stop at home and look after
her Mammie Trebisken. But when October came, and the purple heath-bells
had changed to tawny brown, and the bracken's green into orange and
bronze, she began once more to give little wistful glances out over
the great stretch of moorland.
One day--the very day of the same month she was brought to the cottage
in the bramble-basket ten years before--Tom, noticing the longing
glances, begged her to go with him a little way, and Ninnie-Dinnie,
after asking the crippled woman if she could spare her, got ready
to go.
'I thought you wouldn't want to take the Pail along with you now the
Long-Eared can't hurt 'ee any more,' said Joan, as the child went to
the dresser for the Pail.
'And yet I must take it,' she replied. 'What shall I bring you home?'
'Thyself, my beauty!' cried the woman. 'I'm safe, I reckon, in wanting
to have only my Ninnie-Dinnie brought back to me. She is better than
all the lark's music an' the Pool's shine, isn't she?' appealing to
Tom, who nodded his head. 'An' we don't want no Daddy Skavarnak here
no more, do we?'
'I should think not,' cried the miner.
'Mammie Trebisken's request was a downright sensible one this time,
wasn't it?' he remarked to the little maid as they walked away from
the cottage.
Ninnie-Dinnie did not answer, which somehow troubled him, and he
looked at her curiously.
When the miner and the child had reached the place where she had
caught the hare, they stopped and looked about them.
The sun had risen, and was making everything beautiful on the moor--the
little pools and all. It was a perfect morning for so late in the
autumn. The dwarf furze, now in blossom, was burning like gorse in
springtime round the bases of the great grey carns; the bramble-vines
were more beautiful than jewels, as they trailed in all their richness
of colour over the boulders, and the gossamers lay thick on the turf
and brown heather, and shone softly, as only gossamer can. Everything
was very still, and there was not wind enough to stir even the blades
of grass, nor was there anything on the wing save a seagull floating
along on the blue air, and a few gorgeous Red Admirals hovering over
their beloved nettles.
For ever so long Tom and the quaint little maid stood still, taking
in all the wild, yet soft, beauty of the moors, until the latter
broke the silence:
'I must hasten on to the bal now, my dear. You can stay here or go
back to Mammie Trebisken, jest as thee hast a mind to.'
'Yes,' she said, with a start.
He glanced over his shoulder as he turned to go on his way, and,
to his consternation, saw her put the Pail to her feet, and begin
to speak in the same flute-like voice she had spoken to the Lark,
the Pool, and the Hare, and the words were spoken to herself!
'Ninnie-Dinnie, give me thyself! Ninnie-Dinnie, give me thyself!' and
the next minute he saw the little figure disappear into the Pail,
which started at a rapid speed down towards his cottage.
He was too upset to go on to Ding Ding after that, and trembling like
an aspen leaf, he followed in the track of the Pail; but whether he
was Piskey-led, or what, he could not get home until dark, and when
he got there, he found his wife sitting alone.
Three or four hours after Tom and Ninnie-Dinnie had left, Joan heard
a little noise outside the cottage, so she told her husband when
she related to him this strange story, and, looking up, saw, to her
unspeakable amazement, the Pail a-walking down the road all by itself,
as if it had legs, to the step of her door; and in another moment it
had crossed the threshold and come to the fireplace where she was
sitting gazing with all the eyes in her head at it coming! When it
reached her feet it stopped, and looking into it she saw a very tiny
Ninnie-Dinnie looking up at her with eyes full of love and pleading.
'Please, Mammie Trebisken, give me back myself!' she piped. 'Please,
Mammie Trebisken, give me back myself!' and Joan took up the Pail in
her crooked hands, and turning it over on its side, she cried:
'Ninnie-Dinnie, I give thee back thyself; an' come out of the Pail at
once!' And Ninnie-Dinnie came out and stood before her, looking just
as she had looked when she set out with Tom in the dawn. 'Whatever
did 'ee let the Pail get hold of 'ee for?' asked Joan, when the child
set the Pail in its place.
'Because you asked me to bring me back myself,' she said. 'And now
I will sit at your feet and kiss your dear hands straight.'
Ninnie-Dinnie was very quiet the rest of the day, and when it drew
towards evening and Tom's return, she asked if she might bring the
costan to the hearthplace, as she felt so tired and sleepy.
Joan said she might, but was afraid it was too heavy for a dinky
little maid like her to carry.
The child said she would manage to bring it somehow, and she did;
and when she had shaken up the moss and leaves in the costan she got
into it, lay down, and was soon in a deep slumber.
Joan kept very quiet, so as not to disturb the poor little thing,
and when she looked into the bramble-basket half an hour later, she
saw something lying there that made her rub her eyes to see if she
were dreaming.
In the place where Ninnie-Dinnie had lain down there was the most
beautiful little creature it was possible to conceive. 'Its face,' as
Joan afterwards told her husband, 'was ever so much sweeter to look at
than a wild-rose, and its hair was softer and more silky than anything
she had ever seen, even the head of the tom-tit; and as for its mouth,
it was far too tender and lovely even for her kissing. It had different
clothes on, too, from what their little dear wore.' Joan said she could
not tell what they were, only they were all goldy, like furze blossom.
Before she could get over her surprise at this little tiny thing in
the bramble-basket, she heard a step outside, and thinking it was
Tom come back from the mine, she looked up, and there in the doorway
stood the same little bent old woman, her face hidden in a bal-bonnet,
who had brought the child ten years before.
Before she could ask her what she wanted, the dinky woman had glided
like moor-mist over to the hearthplace, and was bending over the
basket and singing:
'Give me my Ninnie, my dear little mudgeskerry;
The time is now up
For sweet-mead and cup,
For the Small People's dance
And the Nightrider's prance,
The flute and the song,
The horn and the dong,
To welcome my dinnie, my little mudgeskerry!
'Give back my own dinky, my little pednpaley;
The music's begun,
The frolic and fun,
The big stars are alight,
The full moon shines bright,
The fairy lamps gleam,
The Wee Folk all sing,
"Come away to the feast, dear little pednpaley."'
'I can't give back my dear little Ninnie-Dinnie!' cried Joan, breaking
in on the song, as it suddenly dawned upon her for what purpose the
little old woman had come. 'Please don't ask me to do that. I have
given back whatever else was asked of me gladly; but I can't--aw,
I can't--part with that dear little thing down there in the costan.'
The strange little body took no notice of the interruption, but went
on singing; and as she sang, the beautiful little creature in the
bramble-basket opened its eyes and looked up at Joan with tender
entreaty in them. That they were Ninnie-Dinnie's own little eyes
looking up at her Joan did not for a moment doubt; and she could but
see they grew more wistful as the queer little woman sang on:
'Oh, seek not to hinder my own little Ninnie,
For Magic and Pail,
And the Long-Eared's wail,
The free song of the Lark,
And the light in the dark,
The dinky herself--
The wee little elf!--
Have broken the spell o'er the dear little Ninnie!'
The Ninnie-Dinnie in the bramble-basket gave the crippled woman
another look of entreaty as the voice of the singer died away. She
understood that look so well, for she had appealed to her heart in
that very same way when she had asked her to give back the Lark his
music, the Pool its beams, and it made her feel now, as she felt
then, that it was exceedingly selfish of her to want to keep what
was not really her own, however desirable. And when the child, or
whatever it was, met her gaze again she conquered her selfishness and
resolved to give her back, whatever it cost her--'even,' she said,
'if it breaks my heart-strings.' And as the odd little woman in the
mine-maiden's bonnet paused for a moment as if awaiting her will,
in all the impetuosity of her generous nature she cried out:
'I give 'ee back your dinky, your little Mudgeskerry, your little
Pednpaley, and whatever else you do call the little dear that you
brought me ten years ago. I feel I've no mortal right to keep what
don't belong to me, though I thought she did by this time. Take her
if you must, an' thank 'ee kindly for the loan of her all these years.'
Joan's voice trembled as she uttered the last word, and the eyes of
the lovely little Ninnie-Dinnie spoke their sympathy as she kept her
gaze on her, and the funny little woman who had the voice of youth and
the figure of old age showed hers in her voice, for she sang sweeter
than before. It was an unfettered song, as unfettered as a lark's in
the golden dawn:
'To the carns we will hasten, my little pednpaley.
Then let us away
That a birdie may
Fly down from th' Sky's Blue Nest
Above the shining West,
To the heart that's true,
To the heart that knew
'Twas better to give than to keep my pednpaley.'
As she was singing, Joan saw her glance over her shoulder at the Pail,
which was all one shine on the dresser, and which, as she looked, left
the dresser and came towards the fireplace and hopped into the costan!
As the last words of the song died away into the silence of the
fire-lighted room, the little old woman in the bal-bonnet lifted the
bramble-basket on to her back and glided out of the cottage as she
had entered it; and the crippled woman, as she followed her with her
eyes, saw hundreds and hundreds of dear Little People coming down
the moor to meet her, singing and dancing as they came, and waving
little white lights tipped with red stars, very much like the one
that had shone from the Pail. When they came to where she stood they
formed a ring around the quaint bent little figure with the costan
on her back; and then she disappeared, and Joan saw in the centre of
the ring, as the Wee Folk twirled in their dance, two tiny Little
People more beautiful than all the rest--one of which she was sure
was her Ninnie-Dinnie and the other the fairy who, in the form of a
little old woman in a blue-grey cloak and a mine-maiden's bonnet, had
brought her to her cottage that never-to-be-forgotten autumn evening.
Joan missed Ninnie-Dinnie dreadfully at first; but from the evening
she gave her back, the rheumatism left her, and she was as well and
strong as she was in the first years of her married life. And when
autumn came round again, a dear little soft head of her own came to
nestle close to her heart, and to make Tom and herself glad the rest
of their days. But dear as this little Ninnie-Dinnie was, lovely as
they thought her, they did not love her one bit more than that other
Ninnie-Dinnie, the Skillywidden of the dear Little People, who were
her friends for ever after.