Though one always suffered, it was sport to the others, and therefore the horn was frequently stuck in the hole, so that the brownie became more and more irritated, not confining his pranks to the children, but making the parents suffer in various ways.
There would be noises in the night, and things that were in daily use would all at once be mislaid, and, after ever so much trouble and worry, found in places where they had already been a dozen times looked for. There could be no doubt this was the brownie’s doing, and there could be still less doubt when the chair was moved back, just at the moment when one of the old couple was going to sit down, and he or she went rolling on the floor, for then a laugh was heard proceeding from the moved chair.
This trick was played them more particularly when they had anything in their hands, such as a cup of tea, which would be emptied in the falling one’s face, and the laughing on such occasions was louder and longer.
At length, unable to bear it, the farmer determined to leave a house where there was no longer any comfort, and, if possible, to let it.
The last load of the furniture was being removed, and the Farmer, following with his wife, said—
“I’m heavy at heart at leaving the old house, where, for years, we were so happy, and perhaps we shall not find the new one half as convenient.”
“The new one will not be half as convenient,” was uttered in a strange, squeaky voice, which seemed to be in an old tub at the back of the cart.
“Oh! oh! are you there?” cried the poor Farmer, “then we may as well turn back.”
“Yes! turn back,” said the squeaky voice.
They did, in fact, turn back, and from that day peace was restored to the house, for the brownie no longer tormented any of its inmates, nor, indeed, gave any signs of being there, excepting by immediately darting the shoe-horn out whenever it was put in the knot-hole.