Cross Purposes and The Shadows | Page 3

little man, while
vaunting his umbrellas to the skies, was asking such absurdly small
prices for them, that no one would venture to buy one. He had opened
and laid them all out at full stretch on the market-place--about
five-and-twenty of them, stick downwards, like little tents--and he
stood beside, haranguing the people. But he would not allow one of the
crowd to touch his umbrellas. As soon as his eye fell upon Richard, he
changed his tone, and said, "Well, as nobody seems inclined to buy, I
think, my dear umbrellas, we had better be going home." Whereupon
the umbrellas got up, with some difficulty, and began hobbling away.
The people stared at each other with open mouths, for they saw that
what they had taken for a lot of umbrellas, was in reality a flock of
black geese. A great turkey-cock went gobbling behind them, driving
them all down a lane towards the forest. Richard thought with himself,
"There is more in this than I can account for. But an umbrella that
could lay eggs would be a very jolly umbrella." So by the time the
people were beginning to laugh at each other, Richard was half-way
down the lane at the heels of the geese. There he stooped and caught
one of them, but instead of a goose he had a huge hedgehog in his
hands, which he dropped in dismay; whereupon it waddled away a
goose as before, and the whole of them began cackling and hissing in a
way that he could not mistake. For the turkey-cock, he gobbled and
gabbled and choked himself and got right again in the most ridiculous
manner. In fact, he seemed sometimes to forget that he was a turkey,
and laughed like a fool. All at once, with a simultaneous long-necked
hiss, they flew into the wood, and the turkey after them. But Richard
soon got up with them again, and found them all hanging by their feet
from the trees, in two rows, one on each side of the path, while the
turkey was walking on. Him Richard followed; but the moment he
reached the middle of the suspended geese, from every side arose the
most frightful hisses, and their necks grew longer and longer, till there
were nearly thirty broad bills close to his head, blowing in his face, in

his ears, and at the back of his neck. But the turkey, looking round and
seeing what was going on, turned and walked back. When he reached
the place, he looked up at the first and gobbled at him in the wildest
manner. That goose grew silent and dropped from the tree. Then he
went to the next, and the next, and so on, till he had gobbled them all
off the trees, one after another. But when Richard expected to see them
go after the turkey, there was nothing there but a flock of huge
mushrooms and puff-balls.
"I have had enough of this," thought Richard. "I will go home again."
"Go home, Richard," said a voice close to him.
Looking down, he saw, instead of the turkey, the most comical-looking
little man he had ever seen.
"Go home, Master Richard," repeated he, grinning.
"Not for your bidding," answered Richard.
"Come on, then, Master Richard."
"Nor that either, without a good reason."
"I will give you such an umbrella for your mother."
"I don't take presents from strangers."
"Bless you, I'm no stranger here! Oh, no! not at all." And he set off in
the manner usual with him, rolling every way at once.
Richard could not help laughing and following. At length Toadstool
plumped into a great hole full of water. "Served him right!" thought
Richard. "Served him right!" bawled the goblin, crawling out again,
and shaking the water from him like a spaniel. "This is the very place I
wanted, only I rolled too fast." However, he went on rolling again
faster than before, though it was now uphill, till he came to the top of a
considerable height, on which grew a number of palm-trees.

"Have you a knife, Richard?" said the goblin, stopping all at once, as if
he had been walking quietly along, just like other people.
Richard pulled out a pocket-knife and gave it to the creature, who
instantly cut a deep gash in one of the trees. Then he bounded to
another and did the same, and so on till he had gashed them all. Richard,
following him, saw that a little stream, clearer than the clearest water,
began to flow from each, increasing in size the longer it flowed. Before
he had reached the last there was quite a tinkling and rustling of the
little rills that ran down the stems of the palms. This grew and grew, till
Richard