"Oh, my toe!" he called out in evident pain. "Drat that gout, I've got it again!" and he began to groan sadly.
His niece got up, put her knitting down upon the table and came across the room to him, but after another groan or two, the pain seemed to subside, and he dozed off again. Presently he started once more and turned in his chair.
"Rats in the barn, did you say, Jane?" he muttered rather than said; "can't be—don't bother—keep quiet, there's a good girl," and all was silent again for a few moments, until Sprightly, again producing the pincers and applying them to the same toe, pressed them with both hands as hard as ever he could. The roar which now burst from the farmer's lips really frightened Evelyn, who fancied for the moment that he must discover that some hand, mortal or elfin, had inflicted the injury upon him.
Not a bit of it: the elves were certainly invisible, and the old man attributed everything to the gout, and vowed it was the worst pain he had ever had in the whole course of his life.
Meanwhile the two elves were laughing ready to split their sides, and, somehow or other, Evelyn felt very much inclined to do the same. It was no laughing matter, however, for Farmer Grubbins. He rose from his chair, not in the best of tempers, nor using the choicest language, and declared that he should go to bed and try if a good night would put matters right with him.
As he spoke, the two elves roared again with laughter, and made the most extraordinary grimaces at the old man, which seemed to Evelyn all the more ridiculous from the knowledge that he could not see and was perfectly unconscious of them.
Then he slowly ascended the stairs, upon which Sprightly and his companion beckoned to Evelyn, and they all followed the farmer, treading very lightly, and still laughing as he muttered expressions by no means complimentary to the gout.
When he reached his bedroom he speedily undressed and turned into bed, having first carefully placed upon his head an old red night-cap, in which he presented an appearance so ludicrous as greatly to increase the amusement of his unseen guests. His niece just looked in, and asked if he wanted anything, and being told that she need not trouble herself about him, quickly took the hint, and retired for the night.
Then began the real fun of the little fairies. As soon as the old man had made himself comfortable, and a drowsy comfortable feeling began to steal over him, they were at him again. First one of them tickled his nostrils with a feather until he was obliged to rub his nose violently, which woke him up at the critical moment when he was just about to go off into a quiet sleep. Then the same thing happened to his right ear; then it was his left, and then his nostrils again. Then they left him alone for a few moments until he was really just asleep, when Sprightly said in his ear, quite close, and in a voice that was almost above a whisper,
"That man has lighted the match—close to the stacks in the rick-yard. Fire!"