Famous Stories Every Child Should Know | Page 6

pieces with the hail;
the corn was all killed by a black blight; only in the Treasure Valley, as
usual, all was safe. As it had rain when there was rain nowhere else, so
it had sun when there was sun nowhere else. Everybody came to buy
corn at the farm, and went away pouring maledictions on the Black
Brothers. They asked what they liked, and got it, except from the poor,
who could only beg, and several of whom were starved at their very
door, without the slightest regard or notice.
It was drawing towards winter, and very cold weather, when one day
the two elder brothers had gone out, with their usual warning to little
Gluck, who was left to mind the roast, that he was to let nobody in, and
give nothing out. Gluck sat down quite close to the fire, for it was
raining very hard, and the kitchen walls were by no means dry or
comfortable-looking. He turned and turned, and the roast got nice and
brown. "What a pity," thought Gluck, "my brothers never ask anybody
to dinner. I'm sure, when they've got such a nice piece of mutton as this,
and nobody else has got so much as a piece of dry bread, it would do
their hearts good to have somebody to eat it with them."
Just as he spoke there came a double knock at the house door, yet
heavy and dull, as though the knocker had been tied up--more like a
puff than a knock.
"It must be the wind," said Gluck; "nobody else would venture to
knock double knocks at our door."
No; it wasn't the wind: there it came again very hard, and what was
particularly astounding, the knocker seemed to be in a hurry, and not to
be in the least afraid of the consequences. Gluck went to the window,
opened it, and put his head out to see who it was.
It was the most extraordinary looking little gentleman he had ever seen
in his life. He had a very large nose, slightly brass-coloured; his cheeks
were very round, and very red, and might have warranted a supposition
that he had been blowing a refractory fire for the last eight and forty
hours; his eyes twinkled merrily through long silky eyelashes, his

moustaches curled twice round like a corkscrew on each side of his
mouth, and his hair, of a curious mixed pepper-and-salt colour,
descended far over his shoulders. He was about four-feet-six in height,
and wore a conical pointed cap of nearly the same altitude, decorated
with a black feather some three feet long. His doublet was prolonged
behind into something resembling a violent exaggeration of what is
now termed a "swallow-tail," but was much obscured by the swelling
folds of an enormous black, glossy-looking cloak, which must have
been very much too long in calm weather, as the wind, whistling round
the old house, carried it clear out from the wearer's shoulders to about
four times his own length.
Gluck was so perfectly paralysed by the singular appearance of his
visitor that he remained fixed without uttering a word, until the old
gentleman, having performed another, and a more energetic concerto
on the knocker, turned round to look after his fly-away cloak. In so
doing he caught sight of Gluck's little yellow head jammed in the
window, with its mouth and eyes very wide open indeed.
"Hollo!" said the little gentleman, "that's not the way to answer the
door. I'm wet, let me in."
To do the little gentleman justice, he was wet. His feather hung down
between his legs like a beaten puppy's tail, dripping like an umbrella;
and from the ends of his moustaches the water was running into his
waistcoat pockets, and out again like a mill stream.
"I beg pardon, sir," said Gluck, "I'm very sorry, but I really can't."
"Can't what?" said the old gentleman.
"I can't let you in, sir--I can't indeed; my brothers would beat me to
death, sir, if I thought of such a thing. What do you want, sir?"
"Want?" said the old gentleman, petulantly, "I want fire, and shelter;
and there's your great fire there blazing, crackling, and dancing on the
walls, with nobody to feel it Let me in, I say; I only want to warm
myself."

Gluck had had his head, by this time, so long out of the window that he
began to feel it was really unpleasantly cold, and when he turned, and
saw the beautiful fire rustling and roaring, and throwing long bright
tongues up the chimney, as if it were licking its chops at the savory
smell of the leg of mutton, his heart melted within him that it should be
burning away for nothing. "He does look very wet,"