Joan said she might, but was afraid it was too heavy for a dinky little maid like her to carry.
The child said she would manage to bring it somehow, and she did; and when she had shaken up the moss and leaves in the costan she got into it, lay down, and was soon in a deep slumber.
Joan kept very quiet, so as not to disturb the poor little thing, and when she looked into the bramble-basket half an hour later, she saw something lying there that made her rub her eyes to see if she were dreaming.
In the place where Ninnie-Dinnie had lain down there was the most beautiful little creature it was possible to conceive. ‘Its face,’ as Joan afterwards told her husband, ‘was ever so much sweeter to look at than a wild-rose, and its hair was softer and more silky than anything she had ever seen, even the head of the tom-tit; and as for its mouth, it was far too tender and lovely even for her kissing. It had different clothes on, too, from what their little dear wore.’ Joan said she could not tell what they were, only they were all goldy, like furze blossom.
Before she could get over her surprise at this little tiny thing in the bramble-basket, she heard a step outside, and thinking it was Tom come back from the mine, she looked up, and there in the doorway stood the same little bent old woman, her face hidden in a bal-bonnet, who had brought the child ten years before.
Before she could ask her what she wanted, the dinky woman had glided like moor-mist over to the hearthplace, and was bending over the basket and singing:
‘Give me my Ninnie, my dear little mudgeskerry;
The time is now up
For sweet-mead and cup,
For the Small People’s dance