Pony Billy paced across the meadow in the starlight. The hill of oaks rose dark and black against the sky. On the ground beneath the trees a few lights were twinkling: whether they were glowworms or red-noses is uncertain, as Pony Billy did not go to look! On the outskirts of the wood, under an eller bush, he found the little cart where he had left it. He placed himself between the shafts and pulled – once, twice, again – what a weight! Yet the baggage had all been lifted out, as well as Xarifa and Tuppenny. Pony Billy tugged and pulled till he moved it with a sudden plunge, that took both the cart and himself over the bank into running water. Thousands of oak-apples washed out of the cart-kist [07] and changed into sparkling bubbles. They floated away down Wilfin Beck, dancing and glittering in the starlight. He crossed the ford, and made his way to the smithy, without any further adventure.
CHAPTER XVII
Fairy Horse-shoes
The smithy was all aglow with a roaring fire on the hearth. Sparks were flying. Hot firelight flickered on the rafters overhead. It shone upon a crowd of dogs and horses, and upon the gypsies’ donkey, Cuddy Simpson, who was dozing in a corner. His head drooped; he rested a strained fetlock wearily. Dogs barked; horses stamped; there was even the merry feedle tweedle of a fiddle, to which the collies, Meg, and Fly, and Glen warbled a treble chorus. And through all the din sounded the tap, tap, tap! of Mettle’s little hammer on the anvil, and the creaking of the bellows that another dog was blowing. The dog was Eddy Tinker, the gypsy lurcher; and the hand-hold of the bellows was made of a polished ox-horn. “Welcome, Pony Billy! but wait for Cuddy Simpson. He has cast a foreshoe, and he is lame and weary. Wait till I fit him with fairy shoes that will make him as lish as new legs. That’s why the donkeys never die! They know the road to the fairy smithy!” “I can wait,” said Pony Billy, who was fond of Cuddy Simpson.
THE TAP, TAP, TAP OF METTLE’S LITTLE HAMMER
Creak, creak! went the bellows, keeping time to the tune of Black Nag. Louder still barked the dogs, and the horses stamped on the floor. They talked of the good old days, when roads were made for horses, “None of this tarry asphalt like a level river of glass; none of this treacherous granite where we toil and slip and stumble, dragged backward by our loads. None of these hooting lorries that force us against the wall. Shrieking, oily, smelly monsters! and everybody has one – the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker – even the fisherman and the farmer. Where are the patient horses? Where is butcher’s Ginger? and fishcart Fanny? and baker’s Tommy? Where is the hog-maned mare with the shrapnel marks? Gone, gone – all gone.
“Queeny Cross, I, poor old mare, am the last nag left in a huckster’s cart. But happen you like them, Mettle? you that work amongst iron and nails and bolts?”
“I like them?” snarled Mettle, banging the hammer on the anvil, “Ilike those snorting juggernauts? I hate them as much as you do, old Queen. They run over us dogs; they lame our cattle; they kill our sheep.” (Ragman and Roy growled low.) “Think of the noble horses in the grand old days of the road! Who needed a starting handle? Who required to wind up a thoroughbred? Breed – give me breed!” barked Mettle,“Will-Tom’s team in the Coniston coach for me! Now it’s rattle, rumble, rattle, rattle, shriek, shriek, shriek! Gone are the pleasant jog-trot days of peace. They have ruined the smithies and stolen the roads. Shame upon the Big Folks!” said Mettle, banging on the anvil, “even Mistress Heelis – her that was so fond of ponies – serve her right to lose her clog!” “Where did she lose it, Mettle?” “Nay, that is a mystery! It seemed to have clog danced right away and back. It came home by Hawkshead and it had been to Graythwaite. As to the how—” (here Mettle interrupted his story to throw a shovelful of small coal onto the hearth) – “as to the how she came to lose it, it was this a-way. She had been on a long, long journey in one of these here rattletraps; and when she got home and unpacked her luggage, she left her clogs upon the shelf.” “What shelf was that, Mettle?” “What the Big Folk that ride in motors call a ‘footboard,’ quite appropriate for clogs. When the car went forth next morning there sat the pair of clogs, still upon the footboard. They looked proud.” “One thing surprises me,” interrupted white collie Fan, “does Mistress Heelis really ever take her clogs off? I thought she went to bed in them?” “They were off that day, sure,” said Mettle, leaning on the bellows handle, “I saw them pass the smithy. They grinned at me; their buckles winked. But when the car came home in the afternoon, there was only one clog on the footboard, sitting by itself. The other one had fallen off.” “Which foot’s clog was it, Mettle?” “Her best foot that she puts foremost. She was sad. She inquired all over for her right-foot clog; and she put a notice – LOST, A CLOG – in the window of the village shop. The clog came home again after a while. My word! it had seen some fun. Now it happened this a-way,” continued Mettle, turning the donkey shoe with the tongs, and blowing white flame through the small coal, “it happened this way. The car took the bumpy road through the woods by Eesbridge. The clogs joggled on the footboard; joggled and giggled and nudged each other with their elbows; until – bump, bump, bump! over a rise of the road, they came in sight of Joshy Campbell’s tin-can-dinner-box and his big green gingham umbrella.
THE UMBRELLA MADE A BOW
“Joshy was an old man with a reddish gray beard, who tidied the sides of the roads. Always took out with him his tin-can-dinner-box, and his great big bunchy umbrella. I never saw him use his umbrella; he carried it always rolled up, to keep it out of the rain. All day, while Joshy worked, the umbrella sat by the dyke, bolt upright and serious, with a long, curved, hooky nose. And snuggled up beside it sat the dumpy tin-can-dinner-box. When the clogs saw the umbrella they bounced up with a shout – who-op! The left-foot clog bounced back upon the board and continued to joy-ride; but the right-foot clog bounced right off. It bounced onto the road and ran back – back, back, back! back to old Joshy Campbell’s umbrella. The umbrella made a bow and stepped out of the ditch; the dinner-box made a bob; the clog made a gambol; and away down the road they all ran, hoppitty hop! without ever a stop, stoppitty stop! or the slightest consideration for old Joshy Campbell. They ran and they ran, and they hopped and they hopped. For a mile or two they ran, and it was night before they stopped.” Mettle drew the coal over the donkey shoe with a little col-rake, and plied the bellows.
“Where did they hop to, and stop at, Mettle?” “They hopped as far as the middle of the great wood. It was darkish; but they could see to follow the woodland track. For a long, long way they followed it, winding amongst the bushes; until at length before them in the distance they saw a pool of light. It was silvery, like moonlight; only it was always streaming upwards; up from the ground, not downwards from the sky above. The shining space was level, like the floor of a great pitstead; it shone like a moonlit mere.
“And on that shining floor were dancers – strange dancers they were! Hundreds of filmy glittering dancers, dancing to silvery music; thousands of tinkling, echoing murmurs from silver twigs and withered leaves. And still from the dance floor a white light streamed, and showed the dancing shoes that danced thereon – alone.
