But lo! no sooner had the chips caught fire than the Brownies came out of them, just the same as on the household hearth!
They skipped out of the fire and all round in the snow, and the sparks flew about them in all directions into the night.
The poor old woman was so glad she could almost have cried for joy because they had not forsaken her on her way. And the Brownies crowded round her, laughed and whistled.
“Oh, dear Brownies,” said the Mother, “I don’t want to be amused just now; help me in my sore distress!”
Then she told the Brownies how her silly son had grown still more bitter against her since even he and all the village had come to know that his wife truly had a serpent’s tongue:
“He has turned me away; help me if you can.”
For a while the Brownies were silent, for a while their little shoes tapped the snow, and they did not know what to advise.
At last Wee Tintilinkie said:
“Let’s go to Stribor, our master. He always knows what to do.”
And at once Wee Tintilinkie shinned up a hawthorn-tree; he whistled on his fingers, and out of the dark and over the stubble-field there came trotting towards them a stag and twelve squirrels!