‘It is,’ responded the child in her gravest manner. ‘And it is for their sakes more than his own that I am willing he should have his liberty. Ask him if he will consent to do all I told you.’
Joan, looking at the prisoner, repeated what Ninnie-Dinnie had said, and asked him whether he would have his freedom under those conditions.
The Long-Eared muttered something—what, she did not know, but the little maid seemed to understand, and she told her foster-mother that though the conditions were hard, he had promised to keep them if she would set him free from the Magic Pail.
‘Then let us do it at once,’ cried Joan, for the appealing eyes of those three little hares on the doorstep were more than she could endure.
The child came to her side, and offered her shoulder to enable the crippled woman to do her kind deed, and almost before Joan knew it she was at the door, with the Magic Pail gripped firmly in her hand, and found herself saying:
‘I command thee, in the name of my little Ninnie-Dinnie an’ the Magic Pail, never to come on our moors till the five hundred years are up. Remember, if you do, or try to hurt any of the dear Little People, they will compel thee to come into this here Pail, an’ hand ’ee over to somebody who loves the Wee Folk as much as I do, an’ who will cut ’ee all to bits, an’ put ’ee into a great lashing[24] pasty for a miner’s dinner.’[25]
The Skavarnak uttered a terrified howl, and Joan, looking down into the Pail, saw, not a hare, but a dreadful little hobgoblin, with ears as long as his ugly little body.
She dropped the Pail in her fright, and the ugly little creature sped away into the darkness, followed by the three wee hares, or hobgoblins, as no doubt they were.
Ninnie-Dinnie looked very happy when they had gone, and the Pail evidently shared her joy, for it was nearly white, and its embossed characters looked almost as beautiful as the little Pool’s sunbeams.
The child would not go out on the moor for a long time after the Daddy Long-Ears was set free. She said she must stop at home and look after her Mammie Trebisken. But when October came, and the purple heath-bells had changed to tawny brown, and the bracken’s green into orange and bronze, she began once more to give little wistful glances out over the great stretch of moorland.