“I do not know where she is,” answered Uncle Billy. “But come home with me, and play with my children, until your Mammy finds you.”
“Very well,” said the Spriggan. “I love to ride goats over the rocks, and to have milk and blackberries for supper. Will you give me some?”
“Yes, my son,” said Uncle Billy; and with that he picked up the Spriggan gently, and carried him home.
Well, you should have seen the children! They were so happy to own a Spriggan! They set the little fellow on the hearth, and he played with them as if he had known them always. Uncle Billy and his wife were delighted, and the children shouted for joy, when the pretty little man capered and jumped about. They called him Bobby Spriggan. Twice a day they gave him a wee mug of milk and a few blackberries, and now and then some haws for a change.
In the mornings, while Uncle Billy’s wife and the children were doing the housework, Bobby Spriggan sat perched on the faggots in the wood-corner, and sang and chirped away like a Robin Redbreast.
When the hearth was swept, and the kitchen made tidy, and Uncle Billy’s wife was knitting, Bobby would dance for hours on the hearthstone. The faster her needles clicked, the faster he danced and spun around and around. And the children laughed and clapped their hands, and danced with him.
A week or so after Bobby Spriggan had been found, Uncle Billy had to leave home. As he wished to keep the little fellow safe and sound until he told where the crocks of Cornish gold were hidden, Uncle Billy shut him up with the youngest children in the barn, and put a strong padlock on the door.
“Now stay in the barn and play,” called Uncle Billy to the children. “And don’t try to get out, or when I come home you’ll get a walloping,” said he, and then went away.
The children laughed a part of the time, and a part of the time they cried, for they did not like to be locked in the barn. But Bobby Spriggan was as merry as a cricket. He danced and sang, and peeped through the cracks in the wall at the men who were working in the fields. And when the men went to dinner, up jumped Bobby and unbarred a window.
“Come along, children!” he cried. “Now for a game of hide-and-seek in the furze!”