"Serve 'em right, the little plagues," snarled Spite, "if the old rock did get loose, and break all their necks in the avalanche. Only, that would make a gap in my burrow, and—well, it isn't pleasant to think of the consequences."
Moreover, MacWhirlie and the restless youngsters who were mounted on the herbage that grew above and around the Pixie's cave, were continually tramping over the moss around the door, rocking to and fro on the overhanging heather sprays till the roots fairly shook, and scrambling up and down the little slope and over the flap itself. No wonder that Spite's heart seemed to jump into his throat occasionally.
However, the door of the cave was so cunningly disguised and fitted into the bank, that Spite was not discovered. He was well satisfied, for all that, when the meeting was dismissed and the last of the Brownies disappeared. He pushed open the flap, peeped out, then crawled slowly into the light, crept down the slope and entered the vacant meeting place. He was hungry; the labors and excitement through which he had passed had quite exhausted him. He therefore crouched behind a toadstool stem, and, after waiting patiently a while, sprang upon and devoured a hapless fly and beetle that chanced to straggle that way. Then he wiped his jaws with his hairy claw, rubbed his cheeks and head quite in the fashion of pussy washing her face,[I] stretched a few silken threads from the stem to the ground, and turned away.
"There," he said, "I leave those few lines to show that I have been here, and that Spite the Spy is sharper than all the Brownies. Now for home! King Cobweb will be interested in what I have to tell. As for Parson Wille and his Brownies, perhaps they shall not escape us quite so readily."
Spite gained great applause by this adventure, and when it was resolved to send out to the New World some one to watch the motions of Parson Wille, and do all the harm possible to his kind Brownie guardians, who but Spite the Spy should be chosen? "You need take but few companions," said King Cobweb; "there are plenty of our folk in that country. I shall send a letter with you to my cousin, King Cobweaver, and you can muster a goodly company in America."
Fig. 15.—"Having Overspun Themselves."
Now what should Spite do, but make his way straight to the old chest. He discovered that in one corner the joints of the planks had sprung open a little. "That will do bravely, I think!" He crept into the crack to try if it fitted his size.
"Very good indeed," he exclaimed, and then ran to report.