“St. John and all the Holy Evangelists! St. Mary and all the Holy Virgins!—what’s that? It’s—it’s—a fairy—it’s—it’s—a brownie!” exclaimed Miss Joe, bursting out into a profuse perspiration.
Miss Joe was neither cowardly nor superstitious, yet when the little elf, with its wild eyes and streaming hair, glided down the tree with the swiftness and celerity of a monkey down a mainmast, and leaped, with a yell of malice and delight, upon the mule, behind her, Miss Joe opened her throat with a prolonged shriek, that might have waked the dead.
And at the same time the mule dashed, plunging and kicking, forward.
The elf stuck its little hands into Miss Joe’s fat sides, and, as the good lady herself afterward said, clung there like a craw-fish or a crab. The mule plunged madly on.
Miss Joe, delirious with terrors, real and imaginary, lost all power of controlling the animal, dropped the reins, and must have fallen off, had not the bit been seized by a strong hand, and the mule forced back upon her haunches.
“That’s Godfather!” cried the elf, in human words and tones, and Miss Joe, looking up, recognized in her deliverer General Garnet.
The sprite leaped from the saddle to the bosom of General Garnet, and clung there in her crab-like fashion, her little head rubbed, rooted, under his chin, her little arms around his neck, and her little figure almost veiled by her long hair, screaming with her inarticulate tones of affection and delight.
Miss Joe dismounted from the now stationary mule, and began in an eager voice to pour forth her surprise, gratitude, and wonder.
General Garnet, with a look of vexation, tinged with amusement, tried to shake off his little encumbrance. But it was like trying to get rid of a chestnut burr; for if he succeeded in pulling her off from one place, she would stick at another, screaming with wild delight and elfish perversity, clinging to him, rooting her little head into him.
“Come, Netty! Come, come! this will not do; release me. Goodness, child, are your hands and feet furnished with claws?” exclaimed General Garnet, trying to tear off the little human bramble.