Page:Rewards and Fairies (Kipling, 1910).djvu/38

16 ‘"Robin," said he, while I was trying to clean him down with a bunch of hay," I don’t quite understand folk in housen. I went to help that old woman, and she hit me, Robin!"

‘"What else did you expect?" I said. "That was the one time when you might have worked some of your charms, instead of running into three times your weight."

‘"I didn’t think," he says. "But I caught the man one on the head that was as good as any charm. Did you see it work, Robin?"

‘"Mind your nose!" I said. "Bleed it on a dockleaf — not your sleeve, for pity’s sake." I knew what the Lady Esclairmonde would say.

‘He didn’t care. He was as happy as a gipsy with a stolen pony, and the front part of his gold coat, all blood and grass stains, looked like ancient sacrifices.

‘Of course the People of the Hills laid the blame on me. The Boy could do nothing wrong, in their eyes.

‘"You are bringing him up to act and influence on folk in housen, when you’re ready to let him go," I said. "Now he’s begun to do it, why do you cry shame on me? That’s no shame. It’s his nature drawing him to his kind."

‘" But we don’t want him to begin that way," the Lady Esclairmonde said. "We intend a splendid fortune for him — not your flitter-by-night, hedge-jumping, gipsy-work."

‘"I don’t blame you, Robin," says Sir Huon,