“You may say that, Ellen,” said Mrs. Sullivan, “and good cause I have to be in grief, for there was my own fine child whipped off from me out of his cradle, without as much as by your leave, or ask your pardon, and an ugly dony bit of a shrivelled-up fairy put in his place: no wonder then that you see me in grief, Ellen.”
“Small blame to you, Mrs. Sullivan,” said Ellen Leah; “but are you sure ’tis a fairy?”
“Sure!” echoed Mrs. Sullivan, “sure enough am I to my sorrow, and can I doubt my own two eyes? Every mother’s soul must feel for me!”
“Will you take an old woman’s advice?” said Ellen Leah, fixing her wild and mysterious gaze upon the unhappy mother; and, after a pause, she added, “but may be you’ll call it foolish?”
“Can you get me back my child,—my own child, Ellen?” said Mrs. Sullivan with great energy.
“If you do as I bid you,” returned Ellen Leah, “you’ll know.” Mrs. Sullivan was silent in expectation, and Ellen continued. “Put down the big pot, full of water, on the fire, and make it boil like mad; then get a dozen new-laid eggs, break them, and keep the shells, but throw away the rest; when that is done, put the shells in the pot of boiling water, and you will soon know whether it is your own boy or a fairy. If you find that it is a fairy in the cradle, take the red-hot poker and cram it down his ugly throat, and you will not have much trouble with him after that, I promise you.”
Home went Mrs. Sullivan, and did as Ellen Leah desired. She put the pot in the fire, and plenty of turf under it, and set the water boiling at such a rate that if ever water was red hot—it surely was.
The child was lying for a wonder quite easy and quiet in the cradle, every now and then cocking his eye, that would twinkle as keen as a star in a frosty night, over at the great fire, and the big pot upon it; and he looked on with great attention at Mrs. Sullivan breaking the eggs, and putting down the egg-shells to boil. At last he asked, with the voice of a very old man, “What are you doing, mammy?”
Mrs. Sullivan’s heart, as she said herself, was up in her mouth ready to choke her, at hearing the child speak. But she contrived to put the poker in the fire, and to answer, without making any wonder at the words, “I’m brewing, a vick” (my son).
“And what are you brewing, mammy?” said the little imp, whose supernatural gift of speech now proved beyond question that he was a fairy substitute.