"The maids caught sight of him one night, my dear, and his coat was so ragged, that they got a new suit, and a linen shirt for him, and laid them by the bread-and-milk bowl. But when Brownie saw the things, he put them on, and dancing round the kitchen, sang,
'What have we here? Hemten hamten!
Here will I never more tread nor stampen,'
and so danced through the door, and never came back again."
"O Grandmother! But why not? Didn't he like the new clothes?"
"The Old Owl knows, my dear; I don't."
"Who's the Old Owl, Granny?"
"I don't exactly know, my dear. It's what my mother used to say when we asked anything that puzzled her. It was said that the Old Owl was Nanny Besom (a witch, my dear!), who took the shape of a bird, but couldn't change her voice, and that's why the owl sits silent all day for fear she should betray herself by speaking, and has no singing voice like other birds. Many people used to go and consult the Old Owl at moon-rise, in my young days."
"Did you ever go, Granny?"
"Once, very nearly, my dear."
"Oh! tell us, Granny dear.—There are no Corpse-candles, Johnnie; it's only moonlight," he added consolingly, as Johnnie crept closer to his knee, and pricked his little red ears.