Chapter VI: Part 6

On hearing this the wife burst into tears, and wept more bitterly than her husband, for she would not stop at all. It was in vain for him to try to cheer her and tell her that poor folk could be quite as happy as rich ones. She declared she could never be happy poor. Then when he said if she would let her face go, he would love her just as much or more without it, she cried that she could never be happy with a dreadful shrivelled black skin like a monkey’s. All that night she cried, and when morning came her skin was all red, and her eyes could scarce be seen, so swelled were their lids, but still she cried on all day, and her husband said nothing to comfort her, because he did not know what to say. By the time it grew dark, her face was so swelled and sore that she could not bear to touch it, and she had cried herself almost blind, but still the tears were rolling down. When the time came for the clock to strike twelve, her husband took her hand and led her to the kitchen, and there she sat with her face in her hands sobbing. Just as the clock struck, they heard the voice like thunder shouting, “Stop! I am coming up,” and the wife peeped between her fingers and saw the little thing no bigger than a black beetle come through the hole and then grow, and grow, and grow, till it was like an ugly little black woman near a foot high. And when she saw how hideous it was she thought, “Never, never will I consent to have a skin like that—not for millions of pounds.”

The gnome did not speak to her, but said to the ploughman, “So you have brought your wife. That is a good thing, if you wish me to remain with you. So now tell her to take down her hands and let me see this face you make such a fuss about. I have my knife all ready.”

And the ploughman saw that she had in her hand a tiny knife, which did not look as if it could hurt any one.

“Wife, wife,” groaned the ploughman, “what shall we do?”

Then the wife looked up out of her swollen eyes, and was just going to speak, when the gnome gave a shriek. “What?” she cried, “that face! Do you mean to say that is what you think so pretty, and that I am going to change my beautiful, dry, black skin for that swollen red mass? No, indeed. You must be mad. It is a good thing that I saw it in time. I shall leave the house at once.”

“Nay,” cried the ploughman, “but it is you who are breaking your compact this time.”

But the gnome made no reply, but scuttled down through the hole as fast as it could, and the ploughman and his wife burst out laughing for joy. And that was the last they ever saw of it, and it must have gone right away, but they knew it had left some of its luck behind it, as they both lived happily for the rest of their days.

THE END

_Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bungay._

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES.

1. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical
errors.

2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.