Chương Chương 38 · The Cauld Lad Of Hilton

At Hilton Hall, long years ago, there lived a Brownie that was the

contrariest Brownie you ever knew. At night, after the servants had

gone to bed, it would turn everything topsy-turvy, put sugar in the

salt-cellars, pepper into the beer, and was up to all kinds of pranks.

It would throw the chairs down, put tables on their backs, rake out

fires, and do as much mischief as could be. But sometimes it would be in

a good temper, and then!--“What's a Brownie?” you say. Oh, it's a kind

of a sort of a Bogle, but it isn't so cruel as a Redcap! What! you don't

know what's a Bogle or a Redcap! Ah, me! what's the world a-coming to?

Of course a Brownie is a funny little thing, half man, half goblin, with

pointed ears and hairy hide. When you bury a treasure, you scatter over

it blood drops of a newly slain kid or lamb, or, better still, bury the

animal with the treasure, and a Brownie will watch over it for you, and

frighten everybody else away.

Where was I? Well, as I was a-saying, the Brownie at Hilton Hall would

play at mischief, but if the servants laid out for it a bowl of cream,

or a knuckle cake spread with honey, it would clear away things for

them, and make everything tidy in the kitchen. One night, however, when

the servants had stopped up late, they heard a noise in the kitchen,

and, peeping in, saw the Brownie swinging to and fro on the Jack chain,

and saying:

“Woe's me! woe's me!

The acorn's not yet

Fallen from the tree,

That's to grow the wood,

That's to make the cradle,

That's to rock the bairn,

That's to grow to the man,

That's to lay me.

Woe's me! woe's me!”

So they took pity on the poor Brownie, and asked the nearest henwife

what they should do to send it away. “That's easy enough,” said the

henwife, and told them that a Brownie that's paid for its service, in

aught that's not perishable, goes away at once. So they made a cloak of

Lincoln green, with a hood to it, and put it by the hearth and watched.

They saw the Brownie come up, and seeing the hood and cloak, put them

on, and frisk about, dancing on one leg and saying:

“I've taken your cloak, I've taken your hood;

The Cauld Lad of Hilton will do no more good.”

And with that it vanished, and was never seen or heard of afterwards.