“Do many of the fairies turn into song-birds?” asked Philomène.
“Yes, a good many of them,” replied Master Mustardseed, “and the court musician always turns into a nightingale. As for the fairies who dislike the bother of housekeeping, they become cuckoos, and lay their eggs in other birds’ nests, which saves them a lot of trouble. Brownies become bees and ants, for they cannot bear to be idle, and a court-lady as often as not turns into a butterfly or humming-bird for the sake of the fine clothes.”
“Have you ever heard the Lorelei sing?” inquired Philomène, “I had to leave out the question about her in Sweet William’s examination paper.”
“No,” replied Master Mustardseed decidedly, “I have always avoided the lady. You know, I suppose, what it is that she sings for? The boatmen hear her, and listen and listen, and watch her combing her shimmering hair, and forget to steer their boats, so that they are sucked down into the whirlpools of the Rhine. The gnomes never did mortals a worse turn than when they made that golden comb for her, and when all’s said and done her hair is no prettier than your own godmother’s. But don’t let’s talk about her any more; I know plenty of stories about much nicer people. Perhaps you would like to hear one right away. Stop me if I talk too fast; Moth says it is a failing of mine.”
CHAPTER VII
IN WHICH MASTER MUSTARDSEED TELLS HIS STORY
“In a mean, dingy house in the midst of a great city, there once lived a cobbler and his apprentice, and together with them in that same house there also lived a certain evil and malicious boggart. Now a boggart is just the opposite of a brownie, for while a brownie tidies and sweeps and puts things to rights, a boggart only works mischief and makes confusion. He would break the crockery, and mislay the tools in the workshop, and once he dropped so much salt into the soup that the cobbler lay awake half the night with thirst. Now the cobbler, who was a harsh, unreasonable man, suspected his apprentice of these pranks, and soon took him roughly to task.
“Master,” said the apprentice, “you do me wrong. It is not I who have done you this harm, but a mannikin in tattered clothes and a peaked cap. It must be that we are living under one roof with a boggart, for more than once have I seen him at his tricks when twilight fell.”
But the cobbler would not believe a word of what the apprentice said, for he himself had never set eyes on the boggart, and though one day the apprentice pointed him out, not even then could he catch so much as a glimpse of him. It is true that the cobbler’s yellow cat, who lay stretched upon the hearth, could see the imp plainly enough with her green and glimmering eyes, but then it was not in her power to say so, nor to put in a good word for the apprentice.
“You had better stop making game of me,” said the angry cobbler, each time that a fresh mishap occurred, “for my temper is but a short one, and I am growing tired of your fool’s tricks, and of your fool’s tales too, for that matter, about boggarts and what not, so mark my words, and mend your ways.”
Now one evening as the cobbler sat stitching at a neighbour’s shoes, he said to the apprentice, “I am ready for my supper. Go and get me the flitch of bacon from the corner cupboard.” But when the apprentice opened the cupboard door, the bacon was nowhere to be seen.