“What’s that?” said the Tailor coming in at this moment.
“It’s the Brownie, Father,” said Tommy. “We are so sorry he went, and do so wish we had one.”
“What nonsense have you been telling them, Mother?” asked the Tailor.
“Heighty teighty,” said the old lady, bristling. “Nonsense, indeed! As good men as you, Son Thomas, would as soon have jumped off the crags, as spoken lightly of them, in my mother’s young days.”
“Well, well,” said the Tailor, “I beg their pardon. They never did aught for me, whatever they did for my forbears; but they’re as welcome to the old place as ever, if they choose to come. There’s plenty to do.”
“Would you mind our setting a pan of water, Father?” asked Tommy very gently. “There’s no bread and milk.”
“You may set what you like, my lad,” said the Tailor; “and I wish there were bread and milk for your sakes, Bairns. You should have it, had I got it. But go to bed now.”
They lugged out a pancheon, and filled it with more dexterity than usual, and then went off to bed, leaving the knife in one corner, the wood in another, and a few splashes of water in their track.
There was more room than comfort in the ruined old farm-house, and the two boys slept on a bed of cut heather, in what had been the old malt loft. Johnnie was soon in the land of dreams, growing rosier and rosier as he slept, a tumbled apple among the gray heather. But not so lazy Tommy. The idea of a domesticated Brownie had taken full possession of his mind; and whither Brownie had gone, where he might be found, and what would induce him to return, were mysteries he longed to solve. “There’s an owl living in the old shed by the mere,” he thought. “It may be the Old Owl herself, and she knows, Granny says. When father’s gone to bed, and the moon rises I’ll go.” Meanwhile he lay down.
* * * * * *