"These men!" cried he, "how weak they are, after all! How greatly they need aid. I can help him now,--even I!" And his ugly little face wrinkled into the first grin it had known for centuries.
He called to mind his long-forgotten skill in herbs, and hunted in the Ancient Wood for certain plants of healing. One he crushed and laid upon the wound to stanch the blood. Others he set out in the ground close under the young man's nose, so that they seemed to be growing naturally there.
Presently the woodman opened his eyes and stared about him dazedly, but the Old Gnome had hidden himself. As he gained strength, the woodman tore a strip of linen and bound it upon his leg. Then, sniffing the aromatic herbs which grew conveniently at hand, he plucked a bunch with which to make a lotion, and with it limped painfully from the wood.
The Old Gnome watched him go with curious eyes. "I wonder if he will return," he said to himself. And he decided not to sleep until he should know how it fared with the young man.
It was not many days thereafter before the woodman returned to the forest. The lotion had been wondrous helpful, and had healed him more quickly than he had dared to hope; for he was eager to be at work again. Limping slightly, for the wound had been a sore one, David began work anew.
Day by day the Old Gnome watched him, half jealously at first. But the more he watched the more he liked the ways of the intruder. The woodman sang at his work; his eyes sparkled and his lips smiled as if with pleasant thoughts.
The Old Gnome found himself smiling too, unseen behind the fern. "I will not sleep yet awhile," he said, "for there is work to do."
In the night when the Ancient Wood was silent he toiled long and heartily at the crafts wherein he was wise. And the woodman tasted the result. For the Old Gnome made the berries to ripen more quickly in that glade. He caused delicious mushrooms to spring up all about. He coaxed a spring of fair water from the bed where it slumbered underground and made it gush into a little basin where David came upon it gladly. He caused medicinal herbs to grow, and certain fragrant plants that drove away the mischievous insects sent by his brother Gnomes. All this the Old One did while David was away; and the young man did not know. But he was very happy and busy. Now, one day the young man finished his woodcutting, and lo! he had made a clearing in the Ancient Wood large enough for a tiny house; but the Gnome did not know this. David looked about him at the spring and the flowers and the berries of the pleasant place which the Old Gnome had prepared, and said, "It is good!" Forthwith of the logs which he had felled he began to build the house itself.
When the Old Gnome saw what David was about to do, indeed he was angry! For he said,--
"Oho! I did not bargain for this. This is my wood! I want no neighbor,--though a merry visitor was not unwelcome. What is to become of my solitude, of my hermitage? And how am I to sleep, with another restless creature living close by forever and ever?"