"I think it most unlikely," replied Michael. "No such idea was in my mind. Besides," he went on, growing rather indignant, "Ysenda is just the girl to put a stop to anything unfair. She is as kind and generous as a woman can be. We all know of her goodness in any case of poverty or distress that she hears of. No, all I meant was that she may know something of Uncle Peter's dealings with the 'good people'; she is just the sort of sweet maiden that the fairies love."
"Maybe," said Giles, who was not very ready to believe in anything he could not see with his own eyes, "maybe she herself is the only fairy in the matter. Maybe she provides the feast."
"Impossible," said Hodge and Mike, and so it was.
"Anyway," persisted Giles, "I daresay it's she who tells him of the misfortunes and accidents he gets to know of so quickly."
"On the contrary," replied Michael, "she has told me herself that it has often been Uncle Peter who has been her informant in such matters, and that he has employed her to carry assistance to the sufferers. There was that great fire last winter at Olden Wood. She happened to see him the very same morning while it was still blazing, five miles off, and no one hereabouts knew of it! And the letter from over the sea telling of Widow Martha's son's death, reducing her to poverty, for he'd been a good son, always sending her money. Why," Mike went on very solemnly, "he knew what was in that letter before it had reached Martha's hands!"
There was no reply to this. Even Giles was much impressed, and all three started when just at that moment there came a tap at the door, for it was getting late, and being far on in the autumn the evening grew dark very early.
The cousins looked at each other half timorously, for even the bravest of men—and they were by no means cowards—may be momentarily frightened by anything uncanny.
The tap was repeated.
Michael got up and opened the door cautiously. What he expected to see he could not have said, but a witch astride on a gander, or a goblin with scarlet ears as big as a donkey's and a long tail, would scarcely have surprised him!
Instead—how different!—there stood two small figures—children evidently, and as a very plaintive little voice reached him, he threw open the door more widely, so that the light from within fell on the new-comers, and he perceived that they were a boy and girl, apparently about twelve or fourteen years old, poorly though decently clad, each carrying a bundle, and with pale, travel-tired faces.