"I think we had better go home and tell mother every thing," said one of them. "Besides, we ought to see what has become of poor Gardener. He was very wet."

"Yes, but oh, how funny he looked!" And they all burst out laughing at the recollection of the figure he cut, scrambling out through the ice with his trowsers dripping up to the knees, and the water running out of his boots, making a little pool, wherever he stepped.

"And it freezes so hard, that by the time he gets home his clothes will be as stiff as a board. His wife will have to put him to the fire to thaw before he can get out of them."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The ice suddenly broke, and in he popped.]

Again the little people burst into shouts of laughter. Although they laughed, they were a little sorry for the poor old Gardener, and hoped no great harm had come to him, but that he had got safe home and been dried by his own warm fire.

The frosty mist was beginning already to rise, and the sun, though still high up in the sky, looked like a ball of red-hot iron as the six children went homeward across the fields--merry enough still, but not quite so merry as they had been a few hours before.

"Let's hope mother won't be vexed with us," said they, "but will let us come back again to-morrow. It wasn't our fault that Gardener tumbled in."

As somebody said this, they all heard quite distinctly, "Ha, ha, ha!"

and "Ho, ho, ho!" and a sound of little steps pattering behind.

But whatever they thought, n.o.body ventured to say that it was the fault of the Brownie.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

ADVENTURE THE SIXTH AND LAST

BROWNIE AND THE CLOTHES

TILL the next time; but when there is a Brownie in the house, no one can say that any of his tricks will be the last. For there's no stopping a Brownie, and no getting rid of him either. This one had followed the family from house to house, generation after generation--never any older, and sometimes seeming even to grow younger by the tricks he played. In fact, though he looked like an old man, he was a perpetual child.

To the children he never did any harm, quite the contrary. And his chief misdoings were against those who vexed the children. But he gradually made friends with several of his grown up enemies. Cook, for instance, who had ceased to be lazy at night and late in the morning, found no more black footmarks on her white table cloth. And Brownie found his basin of milk waiting for him, night after night, behind the coal-cellar door.

Bill, too, got on well enough with his pony, and Jess was taken no more night-rides. No ducks were lost; and Dolly gave her milk quite comfortably to whoever milked her. Alas! this was either Bill or the Gardener's wife now. After that adventure on the ice, poor Gardener very seldom appeared; when he did, it was on two crutches, for he had had rheumatism in his feet, and could not stir outside his cottage door.

Bill, therefore, had double work; which was probably all the better for Bill.

The garden had to take care of itself; but this being winter-time, it did not much signify. Besides, Brownie seldom went into the garden, except in summer; during the hard weather he preferred to stop in his coal-cellar. It might not have been a lively place, but it was warm, and he liked it.

He had company there, too; for when the cat had more kittens--the kitten he used to tease being grown up now--they were all put in a hamper in the coal-cellar; and of cold nights Brownie used to jump in beside them, and be as warm and as cozy as a kitten himself. The little things never were heard to mew; so it may be supposed they liked his society. And the old mother-cat evidently bore him no malice for the whipping she had got by mistake; so Brownie must have found means of coaxing her over. One thing you may be sure of--all the while she and her kittens were in his coal-cellar, he took care never to turn himself into a mouse.

He was spending the winter, on the whole, very comfortably, without much trouble either to himself or his neighbors, when one day, the coal-cellar being nearly empty, two men, and a great wagon-load of coals behind them, came to the door, Gardener's wife following.

"My man says you're to give the cellar a good cleaning out before you put any more in," said she, in her sharp voice; "and don't be lazy about it. It'll not take you ten minutes, for it's nearly all coal-dust, except that one big lump in the corner--you might clear that out too."

"Stop, it's the Brownie's lump! better not meddle with it," whispered the little scullery-maid.

"Don't you meddle with matters that can't concern you," said the Gardener's wife, who had been thinking what a nice help it would be to her fire. To be sure, it was not her lump of coal, but she thought she might take it; the mistress would never miss it, or the Brownie either.

He must be a very silly old Brownie to live under a lump of coal.

So she argued with herself, and made the men lift it. "You must lift it, you see, if you are to sweep the coal-cellar out clean. And you may as well put it on the barrow, and I'll wheel it out of your way."

This she said in quite a civil voice, lest they should tell of her, and stood by while it was being done. It was done without any thing happening, except that a large rat ran out of the coal-cellar door, bouncing against her feet, and frightening her so much that she nearly tumbled down.

"See what nonsense it is to talk of Brownies living in a coal-cellar.

Nothing lives there but rats, and I'll have them poisoned pretty soon, and get rid of them."

But she was rather frightened all the same, for the rat had been such a very big rat, and had looked at her, as it darted past, with such wild, bright, mischievous eyes--brown eyes, of course--that she all but jumped with surprise.

However, she had got her lump of coal, and was wheeling it quietly away, n.o.body seeing, to her cottage at the bottom of the garden. She was a hard-worked woman, and her husband's illness made things harder for her.

Still, she was not quite easy at taking what did not belong to her.

"I don't suppose any body will miss the coal," she repeated. "I dare say the mistress would have given it to me if I had asked her; and as for its being the Brownie's lump--fudge! Bless us! what's that?"

For the barrow began to creak dreadfully, and every creak sounded like the cry of a child, just as if the wheel were going over its leg and crushing its poor little bones.

"What a horrid noise! I must grease the barrow. If only I knew where they keep the grease-box. All goes wrong, now my old man's laid up. Oh, dear! oh dear!"

For suddenly the barrow had tilted over, though there was not a single stone near, and the big coal was tumbled on to the ground, where it broke into a thousand pieces. Gathering it up again was hopeless, and it made such a mess on the gravel-walk, that the old woman was thankful her misfortune happened behind the privet hedge, where n.o.body was likely to come.

"I'll take a broom and sweep it up to-morrow. n.o.body goes near the orchard now, except me when I hang out the clothes; so I need say nothing about it to the old man or any body. But ah! deary me, what a beautiful lot of coal I've lost!"

She stood and looked at it mournfully, and then went into her cottage, where she found two or three of the little children keeping Gardener company. They did not dislike to do this now; but he was so much kinder than he used to be--so quiet and patient, though he suffered very much.

And he had never once reproached them for what they always remembered--how it was ever since he was on the ice with them that he had got the rheumatism.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Suddenly the barrow had tilted over.]

So, one or other of them made a point of going to see him every day, and telling him all the funny things they could think of--indeed, it was a contest among them who should first make Gardener laugh. They did not succeed in doing that exactly; but they managed to make him smile; and he was always gentle and grateful to them; so that they sometimes thought it was rather nice his being ill.

But his wife was not pleasant; she grumbled all day long, and snapped at him and his visitors; being especially snappish this day, because she had lost her big coal.

"I can't have you children come bothering here," said she, crossly. "I want to wring out my clothes, and hang them to dry. Be off with you!"

"Let us stop a little--just to tell Gardener this one curious thing about Dolly and the pig--and then we'll help you to take your clothes to the orchard; we can carry your basket between us--we can, indeed."

That was the last thing the woman wished; for she knew the that the children would be sure to see the mess on the gravel-walk--and they were such inquisitive children--they noticed every thing. They would want to know all about it, and how the bits of coal came there. It was very a awkward position. But people who take other people's property often do find themselves in awkward positions.

"Thank you, young gentlemen," said she, quite politely; "but indeed the basket is too heavy for you. However, you may stop and gossip a little longer with my old man. He likes it."

And, while they were shut up with Gardener in his bedroom, off she went, carrying the basket on her head, and hung her clothes carefully out--the big things on lines between the fruit trees, and the little things, such as stockings and pocket handkerchiefs, stuck on the gooseberry-bushes, or spread upon the clean green gra.s.s.

"Such a fine day as it is! they'll dry directly," said she, cheerfully, to herself. "Plenty of sun, and not a breath of wind to blow them about.

I'll leave them for an hour or two, and come and fetch them in before it grows dark. Then I shall get all my folding done by bedtime, and have a clear day for ironing to-morrow."

But when she did fetch them in, having bundled them all together in the dusk of the evening, never was such a sight as those clothes! They were all twisted in the oddest way--the stockings turned inside out, with the heels and toes tucked into the legs; the sleeves of the shirts tied together in double knots, the pocket-handkerchiefs made into round b.a.l.l.s, so tight that if you had pelted a person with them they would have given very hard blows indeed. And the whole looked as if, instead of lying quietly on the gra.s.s and bushes, they had been dragged through heaps of mud and then stamped upon, so that there was not a clean inch upon them from end to end.

"What a horrid mess!" cried the Gardener's wife, who had been at first very angry, and then very frightened. "But I know what it is; that nasty Boxer has got loose again. It's he that has done it."

"Boxer wouldn't tie shirt-sleeves in double knots, or make b.a.l.l.s of pocket-handkerchiefs," Gardener was heard to answer, solemnly.