‘Have ’ee got the hare?’ was Joan’s greeting, as the child appeared in the doorway.
‘I have,’ she cried, with a ring of triumph in her voice.
‘Aw, you poor little thing!’ exclaimed Joan, eyeing the hare, who was gazing at her from over the Pail with a most dejected look in his dark eyes.
‘Please don’t pity him,’ said Ninnie-Dinnie. ‘He isn’t really a hare: he is a dreadful little hobgoblin who has been cruel to all the dear Little People you love so much.’
‘Who told ’ee all that, cheeld?’ asked Joan, looking at the little maid.
‘P’r’aps the Wee Folk whispered it to me as I lay asleep in the costan,’ answered the child.
When evening came, a most terrible wail came from the dresser, like the cry of a hurt child or an animal caught in a gin, which found its way at once to Joan’s feeling heart.
‘I can’t a-bear to hear that cry,’ she said to Ninnie-Dinnie. ‘Do set the poor little creature free, that’s a dear.’
‘I can’t, Mammie Trebisken, and I don’t think I want you to, either. It is good for him to be kept prisoner in the Magic Pail.’
The hare wailed on, and poor Joan had to put her fingers in her ears to shut out the sound.