THE COAL-BLACK STEED
From England
Lateone night—a bright, quiet, moonlit night—old Dame Moll lay snugly sleeping in her bed, when suddenly she was wakened by a noise like a rushing storm. The next minute there came a loudrap! rap! rap!at her cottage door.
Startled and frightened she sprang out of bed, and opened the door on a crack.
“Don’t be afraid, good woman,” said a squeaky voice. “Open wide! Open wide!”
So she opened a bit wider, and saw a strange, squint-eyed, ugly little fellow standing on the door-stone. Somehow the look in his eyes seemed to cast a spell over her, and made her, willy-nilly, open the door very wide.
“My wife has sent for you, good woman,” said he. “You must come with me and bathe and dress our new-born child.”
“Your wife!” thought the poor Dame. “Heaven defend me! Sure as I live I am going to care for a little Imp!”
But she could not refuse to go, for the spell in the little man’s eyes drew her, and she was forced to walk toward a coal-black steed that stood snorting before the door. Its eyes were red-hot balls, and its breath was like smoke.
And how Dame Moll got to the place she never could tell. But suddenly she found herself set down by a neat but poor cottage, and saw two tidy children playing before the door. In a minute she was seated in front of a roaring hearth-fire, washing and dressing a small baby. But a very active and naughty baby it was, though only an hour old; for it lifted its fist and gave the good Dame such a rousing box on her ear, that it made her head ring.
“Anoint its eyes with this salve, my good woman,” said the mother, who was lying in a neat white bed.
So Dame Moll took the box of salve, and rubbed a bit on the child’s eyes.
“Why not a drop on mine,” thought she, “since it must be Elfin ointment.” So she rubbed her finger over her right eye.
O ye powers of Fairyland! What did she see!
The neat but homely cottage had become a great and beautiful room. The mother, dressed in white silk, lay in an ivory bed. The babe was robed in silvery gauze. The two older children, who had just come into the cottage, were seated one on either side of the mother’s pillow. But they, too, were changed! For now they were little flat-nosed Imps who, with mops and mows, and with many a grin and grimace, were pulling the mother’s ears with their long, hairy paws.
When Dame Moll saw this, she knew that she was in a place of enchantment, and without saying a word about having anointed her own eye, she made haste to finish dressing the Elfin babe.
Then the squint-eyed little old fellow once more placed her behind him on the coal-black steed, and away they went sailing through the air. And he set her down safely before her door.
On the next market-day, when Dame Moll was selling eggs, what did she see but the little old fellow himself busied, like a rogue, stealing some things from the market-stalls.
“Oh! Ho!” cried she; “I’ve caught you, you thief!”
“What!” exclaimed he. “Do you see me to-day?”
“See you! To be sure I do!—as plain as the sun in the sky! And I see you very busy stealing, into the bargain!”
“With which eye do you see me?” said he.
“With my right eye, to be sure,” answered Dame Moll.
“The ointment! The ointment!” exclaimed the little man. “Take that for meddling with what did not belong to you!”
And he struck her in the eye as he spoke. And from that day to this old Dame Moll has been blind in the right eye. And surely it served her right for stealing the Fairy ointment.