Hoodie required no further bidding.
"Well," she said, "all night long the goblins went sailing about in the star, and sometimes they saw very funny things. They were up so high that they could look down and see everything, you know. They could see the big ponds up in the sky where the rain is made, and the _awful_ big windmills up there where the wind blows from, and the cannons that b.u.m the thunder down."
"Could they----?" began Duke, timidly, and then he stopped.
"Could they what?" said Hoodie, rather snappishly. "If peoples interrumpt, I wish they"d finish their interrumpting, and not stop in the middle."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "If peoples interrumpt, I wish they"d finish their interrumpting, and not stop in the middle."]
"I didn"t like to say it," said Duke. "I only wanted to know if they could see right into the middle of the sky where the angels are."
"No," said Hoodie, decidedly, "they couldn"t. They was goblins; they wasn"t angels at all, so they didn"t want to see angels. It isn"t that kind of story, Duke--I"ll tell you one like that another day--Sunday perhaps. Now I want to go on about the goblins. What they liked best was to peep into the windows and look at people, and play them tricks sometimes. They was awful fond of playing tricks; goblins always is. But sometimes they gets tricks played them, and that"s what my story"s about. There was a window up in a house that they wanted to look in at, but they couldn"t ever get quite high enough up, "cos the window was at the top of the house, you see. It was the window of a witch, but the goblins didn"t know that. She was a witch that lived all alone, and there wasn"t anything she cared for except playing tricks, she was always playing tricks. She knowed the goblins wanted to peep in at her window, she knowed everything, "cos that"s what it means to be a witch, that and playing tricks. And she set herself to play a trick on the goblins--a reg"lar good trick, "cos she didn"t see what they was always wanting to peep in at her window for."
Hoodie paused for a moment to take breath.
"I _wonder_ what the trick was," whispered Duke and Hec under their breath, evidently very much impressed.
"Yes, you may wonder," said Hoodie, majestically. "You"d never guess.
Not in a milliond guesses. Well then, one night when the goblins was twisting and turning theirselves about on the very edge of the star, trying to peep in at the window, all of a suddent the witch"s house turned right round, so that the window came to the side instead of up at the top, and one of the goblins gave a great jump and screamed out to the other--
""I say, brother, we can see into the witch"s house now.""
"But you said the goblins didn"t know it was a witch that lived there,"
said Maudie.
"Well, they didn"t know _at first_, but when they saw the house turned round, of course they knowed it must be a witch that lived there. n.o.body else could turn their house round," said Hoodie, composedly. "And so they both _screamed_, they were so pleased, and all the time the witch was settling about the trick she"d play them. Now I must tell you what the trick was. The witch wasn"t all a bad witch--she was a little good too, and there was a little girl lived in the room next to her that liked her very much, "cos the witch was very good to her and used to tell her funny stories. And that was why the witch didn"t want the goblins to peep into her room, "cos she thought perhaps they"d steal away the little girl for a trick, for she was very often in the witch"s room, and goblins is _awful_ fond of stealing children and taking them up into the stars to live with them, so she--the witch, I mean--was sure that they"d try to steal her little girl once they saw her. So when the little girl came to see her that night, she made her go to bed in a nice little bed she"d made for her, and told her she was to be quite still, for perhaps a" ogre was coming to see her. The little girl was a little frightened but not very, for she knowed the witch would take care of her even though she knowed the witch had got very funny friends, ogres you know, and black cats that was really fairies, and all creatures like that--it"s rather a dedful story, isn"t it?--but you needn"t be frightened, Duke and Hec, it"ll come unfrightening soon. And so the little girl got into the little bed and cuddled herself up just like the witch had told her. And the goblins came sailing and sailing up on the star; they was working it like, to make it go quick you know, like a boat with men oaring it you know, and they was oaring and oaring so hard, they was as hot as hot. And at last they got the star right up to the edge of the window, but they made a little noise and the little girl was startled and jumped up in bed, just what the witch had not wanted her to do, and the goblins when they saw her forgot all about the witch and called out, "Oh what a nice little girl to steal," and they were _just_ going to jump in and catch her up and steal her, when--what _do_ you think?--the witch jumped out of the corner where she had been watching them and caught hold of them fast, one in each hand, and put them--where _do_ you think?--one into each of the little girl"s eyes!
And they couldn"t ever get out again, for there"s a fine little gla.s.s lid in people"s eyes that n.o.body could open but a witch, and she shut it down on them tight, and there they were; they couldn"t do anything but peep out, and there they were for always, peeping out."
"But didn"t it hurt the little girl?" asked Maudie. "It would hurt dreadfully to have the least thing put in your eye."
"Oh no," said Hoodie, "it didn"t hurt her--not a bit--she just thought a fly had tickled her eyes, and she winkled them, and the witch said to her, "You may come out of bed now, my dear. The ogre won"t be coming to-night." And so the little girl got out of bed, and when she came up to the witch, the witch looked at her and laughed, and the little girl couldn"t think what she was laughing at, and she never knowed about the goblins being in her eyes till one day when her little brother was playing with her, he peeped in her face and said, "I see two goblins in your eyes.""
"That was me," exclaimed Duke. "It was one day I looked in Hoodie"s eyes and I saw two goblings in "zem, I did. Hoodie"s made the story about me."
"I hasn"t," said Hoodie, indignantly. "I"ve got stories enough without making them about silly little boys like you. Of course you saw the goblins in mine eyes--there"s goblins in every little girl"s eyes ever since the witch put them into her little girl"s. It"s comed to be the fashion, and now you know how it was, and that"s the end of the story."
"Thank you for telling it, Hoodie," said Magdalen. "We"re all very much obliged to you, and another day I hope you"ll tell us some more. Now Duke and Hec, are your stories ready?"
Hec looked exceedingly solemn.
"I only know one," he said; "Duke knows lots."
"Well, which of you is going to begin?"
"Hec," said Duke.
"Duke," said Hec.
"Mine isn"t ready," said Duke. "Hec, you begin. If you only know one it must be always ready."
"Mine"s only about a little dog," began Hec, modestly. "It was a little dog that had only three legs."
"Only three legs!" exclaimed Magdalen. "My dear Hec, are you sure you haven"t made a mistake?"
"Sure," said Hec, "the housemaid had broke its leg off a long time ago, when she was dusting the mantelpiece, so the Mamma gave it to the little boy because it was spoilt for the drawing-room. And the little boy was very fond of it--it was made of hard stuff, you know, all white and shiny, and it had blue eyes. It was _very_ pretty. Martin told me the story. She knowed the little boy. And one day the little boy lostened the little dog. He always had it on the nursery table at breakfast and dinner and tea; and he used to "atend to feed it. Sometimes he put it on the edge of his plate, and sometimes if he "atended it was "firsty he put it on the edge of the milk-jug. And one day he lostened it. It was there at the beginning of tea he was sure, but at the end it wasn"t there. And he looked and looked and looked but he couldn"t find it; and the nurse looked and looked, but she couldn"t find it. So the little boy cried. He cried dedfully, but he couldn"t find it. And the nurse was vexed "cos he wouldn"t stop crying. She wasn"t as kind as Martin. So he had to go to bed crying, and the next morning when he got up he cried again for his little doggie. And his Mamma said she would buy him another, but he didn"t care for that. He said he wouldn"t like any but his own dear doggie with only three legs. Well, that day they had rice-pudding for dinner. The little boy kept crying even when he was eating his dinner, and they zeally didn"t know what to do with him. But what do you think came? He put some pudding in his mouf, and there was some"sing hard. He thought it was a stone, and he feeled to see what it was, and it was his little dog that had been cooked in the pudding--aczhally cooked in the pudding."
"Like Tom Thumb," said Magdalen. "Yes, it was very funny. But it must have been a very little dog, Hec, to go in the little boy"s mouth?"
"Oh yes, littler than Martin"s fimble. She showed me," said Hec. "It was quite a little wee doggie. And Martin said it had got into the pudding, "cos it had been on the edge of the milk-jug and had felled in, and so it went down to the kitchen in the milk-jug, and the cook had put the milk that was over, to make a pudding. The little boy was so dedfully glad, you can"t fancy. He never lostened the little dog again, Martin said, and he said he would keep it till he was a big man. That"s all my story."
"Thank you, dear. You"ve told it very nicely. Hasn"t he?" said Miss King.
"_Very_ nicely," said Maudie.
But Hoodie tossed her head rather contemptuously.
"_I_ like stories that peoples make out of their own heads," she said.
"So do I," said Duke. "I"ve been making mine while Hec was telling his; I didn"t need to listen, for I"ve heard the story of the little dog before. Now, I"ll tell you mine. Onst there was a ogre that lived in a castle, and the castle was on the top of a big, big hill--such a awfully big hill that n.o.body could ever get up it--not the biggest person that ever was made couldn"t get up it."
"How did the ogre get up it then?" said Hoodie.
"He didn"t. He"d always been there and he had a" ogre"s wife to cook his dinner, and he had a--a--oh yes, I know, he had a awful big billiard-table, and he used to use little boys" heads for the b.a.l.l.s,"
continued Duke, his eyes wandering round the room for inspiration as he proceeded. "And," he went on, as he caught sight of a large mirror at the end of the room, "he was so big he couldn"t get any plates big enough for him to eat off, so he used to have big looking-gla.s.ses for plates, and--and--he had a coal-box for a salt-cellar, and when he had a" egg for breakfast he had the shovel for a" egg spoon, and--and--the white muslin curtains was his pocket-hankerwitches, and----" here Duke came to a dead stop, but another gaze round the room provided fresh material, "and," he proceeded energetically, "the Venetian blind sticks was his matches, and his ogre"s wife used to wash his hankerwitches in a lake, and that was his basin; and for soup she used a--oh I don"t know what she had for soup--never mind that. But she had beautiful big earrings," his eyes at this moment happening to catch sight of Magdalen"s side-face, "beautiful big earrings made of two shiny gla.s.s and goldy things for candles, like that one hanging up there, and----"
"You"re just making a rubbish story, Duke," said Maudie. "You just put in whatever you see. I don"t call that a proper story at all. Is it, Cousin Magdalen?"
"You"re very unkind, Maudie," said Duke, dolefully, before Magdalen had time to reply. "It isn"t a rubbish story. I was just going to tell you about one day when the ogre was very hungry----"
"Well, what did he do?"
"Well," repeated Duke, somewhat mollified, "one day when the ogre was very hungry, he couldn"t find nothing to eat, and he said to his wife, "Ogre"s wife, I"ll eat _you_, if you don"t get me somefin to eat too-dreckly." And his ogre"s wife cried, and she said she"d go to the green-baker"s and see if she couldn"t get somefin for he to eat."
"Go to the _where_, Duke?" said Magdalen, looking up from her work.
"To the green-baker"s, that"s where they sell apples and pears and p"ums," said Duke.
Maudie burst out laughing.
"He means the green-_grocer"s_," she said. "Oh, Duke, how funny you are!"
"And how could the ogre"s wife go and buy him things at shops if they were up on the top of a hill so big that n.o.body could get down?"
"Oh," replied Duke, ""cos there was andnother hill just a very little way off that they could get on quite easily, like steps, and there was lots of shops on the nother hill--all kinds."
"All shops for ogreses?" inquired Hec timidly.
"No, in course not. Shops for proper people. But when the ogre"s wife went to buy somefin for him to eat she had to buy a whole shop-ful--lots and lots--but I zink I"ve toldened you enough for to-day. I must make some more up first."