"Cluck, cluck, cluck!" mourned the miserable hen-mother—and, "Oh, my ducklings, my ducklings!" cried the Gardener's wife—"Who can have carried off my beautiful ducklings?"
"Rats, maybe," said the Gardener, cruelly, as he walked away. And as he went he heard the squeak of a rat below his wheelbarrow. But he could not catch it, any more than his wife could catch the Aylesbury duck. Of course not. Both were—the Brownie!
Just at this moment the six little people came running into the farmyard. When they had been particularly good, they were sometimes allowed to go with Gardener a-milking, each carrying his or her own mug for a drink of milk, warm from the cow. They scampered after him—a noisy tribe, begging to be taken down to the field, and holding out their six mugs entreatingly.
"What! six cupfuls of milk, when I haven't a drop to spare, and Cook is always wanting more? Ridiculous nonsense! Get along with you; you may come to the field—I can't hinder that—but you'll get no milk to-day. Take your mugs back again to the kitchen."
A noisy tribe, holding out their six mugs entreatingly.
The poor little folks made the best of a bad business, and obeyed; then followed Gardener down to the field, rather dolefully. But it was such a beautiful morning that they soon recovered their spirits. The grass shone with dew, like a sheet of diamonds, the clover smelled so sweet, and two skylarks were singing at one another high up in the sky. Several rabbits darted past, to their great amusement, especially one very large rabbit—brown, not gray—which dodged them in and out, and once nearly threw Gardener down, pail and all, by running across his feet; which set them all laughing, till they came where Dolly, the cow, lay chewing the cud under a large oak-tree.
It was great fun to stir her up, as usual, and lie down, one after the other, in the place where she had lain all night long, making the grass flat, and warm, and perfumy with her sweet breath. She let them do it, and then stood meekly by; for Dolly was the gentlest cow in the world.
But this morning something strange seemed to possess her. She altogether refused to be milked—kicked, plunged, tossed over the pail, which was luckily empty.
"Bless the cow! what's wrong with her? It's surely you children's fault. Stand off, the whole lot of you. Soh, Dolly! good Dolly!"