Now Tommy was a lazy boy. He thought that if only he could find a brownie that would do his work he would save himself a great deal of trouble. So that night, while little Johnnie lay sound asleep beside him, in the loft of the kitchen, as rosy and rosier than an apple, he lay broad awake, thinking of his grandmother’s story. “There’s an owl living in the old shed by the lake,” 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 and ask her.”
By and by the moon rose like gold and went up into the heavens like silver, flooding the fields with a pale ghostly light. Tom crept softly down the ladder and stole out. 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; and it seemed to Tommy as if the very fields had drawn white sheets over them, and lay sleeping also.
“Hoot! hoot!” said a voice from the fir wood 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 lake. The old lady moved faster than she appeared 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 sound from above, and there sat the Old Owl, blinking at him—Tommy—with yellow eyes.
“Come up, come up!” said she hoarsely. She could speak then! Beyond all doubt it was the Old Owl, and none other.
“Come up here! come up here!” said the Old Owl.
Tommy had often climbed up for fun to the beam that ran across the shed where the Old Owl sat. He climbed up now, and sat face to face with her, and thought her eyes looked as if they were made of flame.
“Now, what do you want?” said the Owl.
“Please,” said Tommy, “can you tell me where to find the brownies, and how to get one to come and live with us?”
“Oohoo!” said the Owl, “that’s it, is it? I know of two brownies.”