Part 6

'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.

THE WITCH IN THE WELL

Once upon a time seven little maids of Padstow Town met together in Beck Lane to play a game called 'The Witch in the Well.' As they stood waiting for the child who was to act the witch, an old woman dressed in a steeple-hat and chintz petticoat came down the lane towards them.

'What are you doing here, my pretty maids?' she asked.

'Waiting for our witch,' answered the children, wondering who this strange-looking, oddly-dressed old woman could be. 'We are going to play "Witch in the Well."'

'Are you?' said the queer old body. 'I used to play that nice game when I was young like you, and should love to play it once again before I die. The little maid who was to have been your witch tumbled down on the cobble-stones in the market-place and hurt herself as she was coming hither,' she added, as they stared at her in amazement, 'and won't be able to play with you to-day. Will you let me be your witch instead of your little friend?'

'If you like, ma'am,' answered one of the children, after a hasty glance at her companions for consent.

'Thank you,' cried the old woman. 'It will be the most exciting game you ever played in all your life;' and, lifting her petticoats as if to display her high-heeled shoes and red stockings, she hobbled across the road to a well under a Gothic arch.

When the old crone had taken her seat inside the ancient well--and which was called the Witch's Well--Betty, the child who was to play the Mother in the game, took the other six little maids to a tumble-down cottage opposite the well, and the game began.

The Little Mother told her children--who were called after the six working days of the week--that she was going down to Padstow Town to sell her eggs, and that they must not leave the cottage, as the Witch o' the Well was about.

'Mind the old witch doesn't come and carry you away,' the wee maids said one to another when the Little Mother had gone.

As they were saying this, the old woman in the chintz petticoat and steeple-hat came to the door, and looked over the hatch.

'May I come in and light my pipe?' she asked.

'Iss, ma'am,' said Tuesday, unfastening the hatch; and when the old crone had come in and lighted her pipe, she crooked her lean old arm round Monday and took her away.

'Where is Monday?' asked the Little Mother when she had come back to her cottage, quick to see that one of her children was gone.

'An old woman came to light her pipe and took her away,' said Tuesday.

'It was the old Witch o' the Well,' cried the Little Mother. 'I'll go and see what she has done with her.'

And across the road to the well she went, and, stooping down and looking in, she saw an old woman sitting in the back of the well smoking a pipe.

'Where is my little maid Monday?' she demanded sternly.