Tom came home just then, and, seeing there was a nice fat hare in the Pail, said he would soon stop his music, and that he would have him put into a hoggan for his dinner—a threat which so frightened the poor creature that there was no wail left in him for all that evening, and, leaning his head on the edge of the Pail, he looked exceedingly miserable, as I am sure he was.
The hare was kept prisoner in the Pail all that night and all the next day, and not even Joan gave him a look of pity, for even her heart was hardened against him.
When evening came again, he once more lifted up his voice in a loud and prolonged howl, which was almost more than the tender-hearted woman could bear, and she was about to ask Ninnie-Dinnie to give him his liberty, when a soft scamper of tiny feet made her turn her gaze to the open door, and in a minute or less there appeared on the step three small hares, who, when they saw her pitiful glance on them, began to cry:
‘Give us back our Daddy Skavarnak! Give us back our Daddy Long-Ears!’
‘Hearken to that,’ cried Joan, turning to Ninnie-Dinnie, who was preparing Tom’s supper. ‘I wonder you, of all people, can bear to hear it. Do ’ee give the little Skavarnaks their poor daddy.’
‘You know I haven’t the power,’ said the little maid quietly, ‘and I am afraid I shouldn’t be very willing if I had.’
‘But you wanted me to give the lark his music and his song and the pool its beams,’ remonstrated Joan, as Ninnie-Dinnie shook her head. ‘Why ever don’t ’ee want the hare to be given back to his children?’
‘I told you the Long-Eared had been very cruel to the dear Wee Folk. He was terribly cruel to one poor Little Skillywidden[23] in particular, and its mammie, to save it from further cruelty, had to hide it somewhere until he was caught in the Magic Pail. You see,’ as Joan lifted up her pain-twisted hands in amazement, ‘when he was taken prisoner by the Pail and brought into a good woman’s cottage he became powerless to do the dear Little People any more harm, and all the spells that he threw over them became weak as money-spiders’ threads.’
‘What a wicked little creature he must have been!’ cried Joan indignantly, shaking her head at the hare, who looked thoroughly ashamed of himself, and lolled his head over the edge of the Pail. ‘But who told ’ee about the wicked Skavarnak an’ his doings?’ turning to the child, and giving her a searching look.
Ninnie-Dinnie did not answer, but a peculiar look came into her eyes and a smile played about her lips.