Mr. Strong’nth’arm lay ill. It was just his luck. For weeks he had been kicking his heels about the workshop, cursing Fate for not sending him a job. And Fate—the incorrigible¹ joker that she is—had knocked at his door ten days ago with an order that he reckoned would keep him going for a month, and then a week later had struck him down with pleurisy. They told him that if he kept quiet and didn’t rave² and fling his arms about, sending the bedclothes half a dozen times a day on to the floor, he would soon get well. But what was the good of everybody talking? What was to become of them? This job, satisfactorily completed and sent home, would have led to others—would have started him on his feet again. Now it would be taken away from him and sent elsewhere to be finished. Mrs. Strong’nth’arm made pilgrimages to the great house, returning with hot-house grapes. Mrs. Newt came with a basket. Both she and her husband would like to have done more; but times were bad. Even believers were in difficulty. Mrs. Newt suggested resignation.

 

It was the fourth morning after Mr. Strong’nth’arm’s seizure³, Anthony, putting on for warmth his father’s overcoat, had crept down in the faint dawn to light the kitchen fire, his mother being busy in the bedroom. He had just succeeded, and a little blaze leapt up and threw fantastic shadows on the whitewashed⁴ walls. Looking round, he saw the shape of a squat⁵ hobgoblin with a tiny head. He moved his arms, and immediately the hobgoblin responded with a gigantic gesture of delight. From the fireplace, now behind him, there came a cheerful crackling sound; it was just the noise that a merry old witch would make when laughing. The child, holding high the skirts of his long coat, began to dance; and the hobgoblin’s legs were going like mad. Suddenly the door opened and there stood the oddest of figures. He was short and bowlegged and had a big beard. He wore a peaked cap, and over his shoulder he carried a bundle hooked on to a stick. Without a doubt ’twas the King of the Gnomes⁶. He flung down his bundle and stretched out his hands. The child ran towards him. Lord how he danced! His little bow legs moved like lightning and his arms were so strong he could toss little Anthony up with one hand and catch him again with the other. The little bright flame stretched up higher and higher[Pg 31] as if the better to see the fun. The merry old witch laughed louder. And the shadows on the wall got so excited that they tumbled down flat on the ceiling.

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