The gnome did not speak to her, but said to the ploughman, “So you have brought your wife. That is a good thing, if you wish me to remain with you. So now tell her to take down her hands and let me see this face you make such a fuss about. I have my knife all ready.”
And the ploughman saw that she had in her hand a tiny knife, which did not look as if it could hurt any one.
“Wife, wife,” groaned the ploughman, “what shall we do?”
Then the wife looked up out of her swollen eyes, and was just going to speak, when the gnome gave a shriek. “What?” she cried, “that face! Do you mean to say that is what you think so pretty, and that I am going to change my beautiful, dry, black skin for that swollen red mass? No, indeed. You must be mad. It is a good thing that I saw it in time. I shall leave the house at once.”
“Nay,” cried the ploughman, “but it is you who are breaking your compact this time.”
But the gnome made no reply, but scuttled down through the hole as fast as it could, and the ploughman and his wife burst out laughing for joy. And that was the last they ever saw of it, and it must have gone right away, but they knew it had left some of its luck behind it, as they both lived happily for the rest of their days.
THE END
Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bungay.