The Brownies and Other Tales | Page 7

burst out crying."
"What for?" said Johnnie.
"I can't rightly tell you, my dear," said the old lady, "but it gave me
such a turn to see him. And without more ado your grandfather kissed
me. 'How dare you?' said I. 'What do you mean?' 'The Old Owl knows,'
said he. So we never went."
"How stupid!" said Tommy.
"Tell us more about Brownie, please," said Johnnie, "Did he ever live
with anybody else?"
"There are plenty of Brownies," said the old lady, "or used to be in my
mother's young days. Some houses had several." "Oh! I wish ours

would come back!" cried both the boys in chorus. "He'd--
"tidy the room," said Johnnie;
"fetch the turf," said Tommy;
"pick up the chips," said Johnnie;
"sort your scraps," said Tommy;
"and do everything. Oh! I wish he hadn't gone away."
"What's that?" said the Tailor, coming in at this moment.
"It's the Brownie, Father," said Tommy. "We are so sorry he went, and
do so wish we had one."
"What nonsense have you been telling them, Mother?" asked the
Tailor.
"Heighty teighty," said the old lady, bristling. "Nonsense, indeed! As
good men as you, son Thomas, would as soon have jumped off the
crags, as spoken lightly of them, in my mother's young days."
"Well, well," said the Tailor, "I beg their pardon. They never did aught
for me, whatever they did for my forbears; but they're as welcome to
the old place as ever, if they choose to come. There's plenty to do."
"Would you mind our setting a pan of water, Father?" asked Tommy
very gently. "There's no bread-and-milk."
"You may set what you like, my lad," said the Tailor; "and I wish there
were bread-and-milk for your sakes, bairns. You should have it, had I
got it. But go to bed now."
They lugged out a pancheon, and filled it with more dexterity than
usual, and then went off to bed, leaving the knife in one corner, the
wood in another, and a few splashes of water in their track.
There was more room than comfort in the ruined old farm-house, and
the two boys slept on a bed of cut heather, in what had been the old
malt-loft. Johnnie was soon in the land of dreams, growing rosier and
rosier as he slept, a tumbled apple among the grey heather. But not so
lazy Tommy. The idea of a domesticated Brownie had taken full
possession of his mind; and whither Brownie had gone, where he might
be found, and what would induce him to return, were mysteries he
longed to solve. "There's an owl living in the old shed by the mere," he
thought. "It may be the Old Owl herself, and she knows, Granny says.
When Father's gone to bed, and the moon rises, I'll go." Meanwhile he
lay down.
* * * * *

The moon rose like gold, and went up into the heavens like silver,
flooding the moors with a pale ghostly light, taking the colour out of
the heather, and painting black shadows under the stone walls. Tommy
opened his eyes, and ran to the window. "The moon has risen," said he,
and crept softly down the ladder, through the kitchen, where was the
pan of water, but no Brownie, and so out on to the moor. The air was
fresh, not to say chilly; but it was a glorious night, though everything
but the wind and Tommy seemed asleep. The stones, the walls, the
gleaming lanes, were so intensely still; the church tower in the valley
seemed awake and watching, but silent; the houses in the village round
it had all their eyes shut, that is, their window-blinds down; and it
seemed to Tommy as if the very moors had drawn white sheets over
them, and lay sleeping also.
"Hoot! hoot!" said a voice from the fir plantation behind him.
Somebody else was awake, then. "It's the Old Owl," said Tommy; and
there she came, swinging heavily across the moor with a flapping
stately flight, and sailed into the shed by the mere. The old lady moved
faster than she seemed to do, and though Tommy ran hard she was in
the shed some time before him. When he got in, no bird was to be seen,
but he heard a crunching sound from above, and looking up, there sat
the Old Owl, pecking and tearing and munching at some shapeless
black object, and blinking at him--Tommy--with yellow eyes.
"Oh dear!" said Tommy, for he didn't much like it.
The Old Owl dropped the black mass on to the floor; and Tommy did
not care somehow to examine it.
"Come up! come up!" said she hoarsely.
She could speak, then! Beyond all doubt it was the Old Owl, and none
other.