Lob Lie-By-The-Fire, The Brownies and Other Tales

by Juliana Horatia Ewing

Now the little by-lane was very badly lighted, and there were some queer-looking people loitering about, and one of them shouted something at him, and Timothy felt frightened, and walked on pretty fast. And then he heard footsteps behind him, and walked faster, and still the footsteps followed him, and at last he ran. Then they ran too, and he did not dare to look behind. And the footsteps followed him all down the by-lane and into the main street and up to the door of the lady’s house, where Tim pulled the bell and turned to face his pursuer.

But nothing was to be seen save Timothy’s little old leather shoes, which stood beside him on the steps.

“Your shoes, sir?” said the very polite footman who opened the door. And he carried the shoes inside, and Tim was obliged to put them on and leave the pumps with the footman, for (as he said) “they’ll be coming up stairs, and making a fool of me in the ball-room.”

Tim had no reason to regret the exchange. Other people are not nearly so much interested in one’s appearance as one is oneself; and then they danced so beautifully that every little girl in the room wanted Tim for her partner, and he was perfectly at home, even in the Lancers. He went down twice to supper, and had lots of gooseberry-fool; and they were just about to dance Sir Roger de Coverley, when the clock struck ten.

Tim knew he ought to go, but a very nice little girl wanted to dance with him, and Sir Roger is the best of fun, and he thought he would just stay till it was over. But though he secured his partner and began, the shoes made dancing more a pain than a pleasure to him. They pinched him, they twitched him, they baulked his glissades, and once when he should have gone down the room they fairly turned him around and carried him off towards the door. The other dancers complained, and Tim kicked off the shoes in a pet, and resolved to dance it out in his socks.

But when the shoes were gone, Tim found how much the credit of his dancing was due to them. He could not remember the figure. He swung the little lady round when he should have bowed, and bowed when he should have taken her hand, and led the long line of boys the wrong way, and never made a triumphal arch at all. The boys scolded and squabbled, the little ladies said he had had too much gooseberry-fool, and at last Timothy left them and went down stairs. Here he got the little pumps from the footman and started home. He ran to make up for lost time, and as he turned out of the first street he saw the leather shoes running before him, the copper tips shining in the lamplight.

And when he reached his own door the little shoes were waiting on the threshold.

THE SNOW STORM.

When Timothy went back to school in the beginning of the year, the snow lay deep upon the moors. The boys made colossal snow men and buried things deep under drifts, for the dog Bernardus to fetch out. On the ice Timothy’s shoes were invaluable. He was the best skater and slider in the school, and when he was going triumphantly down a long slide with his arms folded and his friends cheering, Tim was very glad he had not given away his shoes.

One Saturday the Usher took him and Bramble minor for a long walk over the hills. They had tea with a friendly farmer, whose hospitality would hardly let them go. So they were later than they had intended, and about the time that they set out to return a little snow began to fall. It was small snow, and fell very quietly. But though it fell so quietly, it was wonderful how soon the walls and gates got covered; and though the flakes were small they were so dense that in a short time no one could see more than a few yards in front of him. The Usher thought it was desirable to get home as quickly as possible, and he proposed to take a short cut across the moors, instead of following the high road all the way. So they climbed a wall, and ploughed their way through the untrodden snow, and their hands and feet grew bitterly painful and then numb, and the soft snow lodged in their necks and drifted on to their eyelashes and into their ears, and at last Timothy fairly cried. For he said, that besides the biting of the frost his shoes pinched and pulled his feet.