The Brownies and Other Tales by Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing


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Page 19

"And about the Owl?" clamoured the children, rather resentful of the
Doctor's pausing to take breath.

"Of course," he continued, "the Tailor heard the whole story, and being
both anxious to thank the Old Owl for her friendly offices, and also
rather curious to see and hear her, he went with the boys one night at
moon-rise to the shed by the mere. It was earlier in the evening than
when Tommy went, for before daylight had vanished, and at the first
appearance of the moon, the impatient Tailor was at the place. There
they found the Owl looking very solemn and stately on the beam. She was
sitting among the shadows with her shoulders up, and she fixed her eyes
so steadily on the Tailor, that he felt quite overpowered. He made her
a civil bow, however, and said,

"I'm much obliged to you, Ma'am, for your good advice to my Tommy."

The Owl blinked sharply, as if she grudged shutting her eyes for an
instant, and then stared on, but not a word spoke she.

"I don't mean to intrude, Ma'am," said the Tailor, "but I was wishful
to pay my respects and gratitude."

Still the Owl gazed in determined silence.

"Don't you remember me?" said Tommy pitifully. "I did everything you
told me. Won't you even say good-bye?" and he went up towards her.

The Owl's eyes contracted, she shuddered a few tufts of fluff into the
shed, shook her wings, and shouting "Oohoo!" at the top of her voice,
flew out upon the moor. The Tailor and his sons rushed out to watch
her. They could see her clearly against the green twilight sky,
flapping rapidly away with her round face to the pale moon. "Good-bye!"
they shouted as she disappeared; first the departing owl, then a
shadowy body with flapping sails, then two wings beating the same
measured time, then two moving lines still to the old tune, then a
stroke, a fancy, and then--the green sky and the pale moon, but the Old
Owl was gone.

"Did she never come back?" asked Tiny in subdued tones, for the Doctor
had paused again.

"No," said he; "at least not to the shed by the mere. Tommy saw many
owls after this in the course of his life; but as none of them would
speak, and as most of them were addicted to the unconventional customs
of staring and winking, he could not distinguish his friend, if she
were among them. And now I think that is all."

"Is that the very very end?" asked Tiny.

"The very very end," said the Doctor.

"I suppose there might be more and more ends," speculated
Deordie--"about whether the Brownies had any children when they grew
into farmers, and whether the children were Brownies, and whether
_they_ had other Brownies, and so on and on." And Deordie rocked
himself among the geraniums, in the luxurious imagining of an endless
fairy tale.

"You insatiable rascal!" said the Doctor. "Not another word. Jump up,
for I am going to see you home. I have to be off early to-morrow."

"Where?" said Deordie.

"Never mind. I shall be away all day, and I want to be at home in good
time in the evening, for I mean to attack that crop of groundsel
between the sweet-pea hedges. You know, no Brownies come to my
homestead!"

And the Doctor's mouth twitched a little till he fixed it into a stiff
smile.

The children tried hard to extract some more ends out of him on the way
to the Rectory; but he declined to pursue the history of the Trout
family through indefinite generations. It was decided on all hands,
however, that Tommy Trout was evidently one and the same with the Tommy
Trout who pulled the cat out of the well, because "it was just a sort
of thing for a Brownie to do, you know!" and that Johnnie Green (who,
of course, was not Johnnie Trout) was some unworthy village
acquaintance, and "a thorough Boggart."

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Tue 18th Mar 2025, 23:48