We’ll make it all right
Before we come back.”)
Permission to take the cart was never refused, for it was always returned in perfect order, and, if any injury was done to the metal-work during the nocturnal journey, it was found the next day carefully repaired with pure silver. But what use was made of it is unknown. Some pretend that a sound of wheels was sometimes heard in the dead of night rolling over the cliffs at Pleinmont, where no horse could have found a footing.[104]
[104] From John de Garis, Esq., and Mrs. Savidan.
“Le Petit Colin.”
Fairies have sometimes been known to enter into the service of mankind, but by what motives they were actuated in so doing is not clear. A certain “Mess”[105] Dumaresq, of “Les Grands Moulins,” once engaged as a farm servant a boy who offered himself. No one knew whence he came, nor did he appear to have any relations. He was extremely lively, active, and attentive to his duties, but so small that he acquired and was known by no other name than that of “P’tit Colin.” One morning as Dumaresq was returning from St. Saviour’s, he was astonished, on passing the haunted hill known as “La Roque où le Coq Chante,” to hear himself called by name. He stopped his horse and looked round, but could see no one. Thinking that his imagination must have deceived him, he began to move on, but was again arrested by the voice. A second time he stopped and looked round, but with no more success than the first. Beginning to feel alarmed, he pushed his horse forward, but was a third time stopped by the voice. He now summoned up all his courage and asked who it was that called, and what was required of him. The voice immediately answered,—
“Go home directly and tell P’tit Colin that Grand Colin is dead.”
Wondering what could be the meaning of this, he made the best of his way home, and, on his arrival, sent for Le Petit Colin, to whom he communicated what had befallen him. The boy replied, “What! Is Le Grand Colin dead? Then I must leave you,” and immediately turned round to depart.
“Stop,” said Mess Dumaresq, “I must pay you your wages.”