Part 4 (1/2)
The Brownies were just as hearty in their love, and by close watching, hard working and brave battling they had well nigh driven their enemies from the place. Only once in a while a few, more daring and cunning than the rest, would break through the boundaries and make a foray upon the forbidden grounds.
Among the most successful of these leaders of mischief was Spite the Spy. He was a great sneak, shrewd and sly, and well deserved his name.
He was a coward in the main, and loved best to do his mischief in an underhand way. But for all that, he was so full of malice that he could be quite venturesome rather than miss a chance to work harm to those whom he hated. Thus it came that in spite of his natural cowardice he had a fair reputation for boldness. It was this miserable fellow who crawled into the tabernacle as the voices of the Brownies died away among the gra.s.ses.
How came he therein? Having chanced to hear of the proposed a.s.sembly to consider the interest of the Manse folk, he set himself to spy out the proceedings. How should he do that without being discovered? ”Let me think!” he said. He climbed up a tall weed that grew on the border of the Manse farm, swung himself by a thread of silk from a leaf, and hung there awhile, head downward, while he meditated.
”Ha! I have it!” he cried. He pulled himself up again hand over hand, scampered down the weed and plunged into the thick forest of gra.s.ses. He went swiftly, though cautiously, for a while. Then he ascended a tall spear of timothy, perched himself atop of the bearded head and reconnoitered.
”Yes, there it is,” he said to himself. ”I see the brown hat of the toadstool tent; and--let me see--yes, sure enough, there is the Black Pebble under which cousin Atypus used to have her nest. Any Brownies about? No, the coast's quite clear. But, caution, old fellow! you are pretty sly, but you may be caught after all. And they'd make short work of Spite if they got hold of him once, I warrant.” At this he chuckled, puffed out his eyes, and swelled up his round pouch as though it were a fine thing to be quite deserving of the Brownies' anger.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 13.--”Silken Snares in Which They Catch Their Enemies.”]
Spite was not long in making his way to the Black Pebble which was at the outer edge of the Brownies' meeting place, and was imbedded in a little bank of sandy earth at the base of which the toadstools grew. He began to scratch in the surrounding soil. His claws soon struck something that gave him pleasure. It was a bit of silken tissue.
”Ha! I am in luck! Here is the door of the burrow. Now we shall see, brother Brownies, and hear too; and if there's any mischief agoing Spite the Spy will have his spinner in it.”
Spite had come upon the door of a cave or tunnel. When a few more grains of sand had been thrown aside he lifted the tissue door and entered. It was dark at first, and there was a musty smell in the air. Spite did not care for that, and in a moment ran to the far end of the cave and back again. This strange place had once been the home of a Burrow Pixie. It was a tunnel scooped out of the sandy earth.[H] It ran horizontally for a short way, and then sloped downward. It was lined around the sides, top and bottom with a tight silken tube, and was about half an inch in diameter. It was, therefore, a tunnel within a tunnel, a silk within a sand one. The silk supported the sides so completely that not a particle of soil could pa.s.s through. The upper part of the tube projected from the earth, falling forward so as to form a flap which protected the mouth of the burrow or cave. At first the tube had been much longer and was bent and carried over the surface among the moss. This was the door which Spite had been looking for, and whose discovery so much pleased him.
”Well, well,” said Spite, talking all the while to himself, ”this is lucky indeed. It must now be several moons since cousin Atypus was cut off by the Brownies, and here is her old place just as good as ever. It looks right into the meeting house. How fortunate! But I must fix up this door a little, or I shall have those suspicious fellows smelling around here; although I doubt whether they know anything about the place. They caught Atypus when she had ventured out of doors.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 14.--English Atypus in Her Burrow.]
Meanwhile Spite was busy with the door. He laid a dry leaf and a few bits of dry moss around the edge of the pebble, then gently lifted the silken flap and crept within. He made a wee hole in the flap, and through this saw and heard the proceedings of the Brownies. Little did the good folk suspect that one of their enemies was so near, almost in their midst. As for Spite, he was in high glee, although he was not without fears. The boy Brownies had climbed atop the Black Pebble, and crowded and capered upon it until they were like to shake it from the bank, and send it arolling into the a.s.sembly.
”Serve 'em right, the little plagues,” snarled Spite, ”if the old rock did get loose, and break all their necks in the avalanche. Only, that would make a gap in my burrow, and--well, it isn't pleasant to think of the consequences.”
Moreover, MacWhirlie and the restless youngsters who were mounted on the herbage that grew above and around the Pixie's cave, were continually tramping over the moss around the door, rocking to and fro on the overhanging heather sprays till the roots fairly shook, and scrambling up and down the little slope and over the flap itself. No wonder that Spite's heart seemed to jump into his throat occasionally.
However, the door of the cave was so cunningly disguised and fitted into the bank, that Spite was not discovered. He was well satisfied, for all that, when the meeting was dismissed and the last of the Brownies disappeared. He pushed open the flap, peeped out, then crawled slowly into the light, crept down the slope and entered the vacant meeting place. He was hungry; the labors and excitement through which he had pa.s.sed had quite exhausted him. He therefore crouched behind a toadstool stem, and, after waiting patiently a while, sprang upon and devoured a hapless fly and beetle that chanced to straggle that way. Then he wiped his jaws with his hairy claw, rubbed his cheeks and head quite in the fas.h.i.+on of p.u.s.s.y was.h.i.+ng her face,[I] stretched a few silken threads from the stem to the ground, and turned away.
”There,” he said, ”I leave those few lines to show that I have been here, and that Spite the Spy is sharper than all the Brownies. Now for home! King Cobweb will be interested in what I have to tell. As for Parson Wille and his Brownies, perhaps they shall not escape us quite so readily.”
Spite gained great applause by this adventure, and when it was resolved to send out to the New World some one to watch the motions of Parson Wille, and do all the harm possible to his kind Brownie guardians, who but Spite the Spy should be chosen? ”You need take but few companions,”
said King Cobweb; ”there are plenty of our folk in that country. I shall send a letter with you to my cousin, King Cobweaver, and you can muster a goodly company in America.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 15.--”Having Overspun Themselves.”]
Now what should Spite do, but make his way straight to the old chest. He discovered that in one corner the joints of the planks had sprung open a little. ”That will do bravely, I think!” He crept into the crack to try if it fitted his size.
”Very good indeed,” he exclaimed, and then ran to report.
King Cobweb was quite satisfied. Spite thereupon hid himself in the open seam with two other Pixies named Hide and Heady, and, having overspun themselves with a silken covering, made the voyage to America in the old chest with the Brownies.[J]
When safely landed at Hillside, he reported to the nearest tribe of Pixies. He was received with great favor as a distinguished foreigner; was feasted, petted, and his wonderful skill in strategy heralded everywhere. In short, he was quite a lion, and his fame was even greater in America than on the other side of the Atlantic. Spite took his honors gracefully, enjoyed them hugely, acknowledged them publicly, hobn.o.bbed with his friends, and took occasion when talking in private with his two countrymen, to ridicule the customs and manners of American Pixies. That was very mean, to be sure; but what better could you expect from Spite the Spy?
In the midst of all his junketings and sight-seeing Spite never once forgot the great object of his journey. He was spinning out his plots against the Brownies, counseling with his American friends how he might worry, injure and destroy them, and forming leagues for that purpose.
That was the beginning of troubles for the Brownies at Hillside.