ed. In her
fear she prays to God, and keeps close to her husband. What shall she
do? She has not the strength to tell the Church. She tells her
husband, who laughs at first incredulously. Then she owns to a little
more,--what a madcap the goblin is, sometimes even overbold. "What
matters? He is so small." Thus he himself sets her mind at ease.

Should we too feel reassured, we who can see more clearly? She is
quite innocent still. She would shrink from copying the great lady up
there who, in the face of her husband, has her court of lovers and her
page. Let us own, however, that to that point the goblin has already
smoothed the way. One could not have a more perilous page than he who
hides himself under a rose; and, moreover, he smacks of the lover.
More intrusive than anyone else, he is so tiny that he can creep
anywhere.

He glides even into the husband's heart, paying him court and winning
his good graces. He looks after his tools, works in his garden, and of
an evening, by way of reward, curls himself up in the chimney, behind
the babe and the cat. They hear his small voice, just like a
cricket's; but they never see much of him, save when a faint glimmer
lights a certain cranny in which he loves to stay. Then they see, or
think they see, a thin little face; and cry out, "Ah! little one, we
have seen you at last!"

In church they are told to mistrust the spirits, for even one that
seems innocent, and glides about like a light breeze, may after all be
a devil. They take good care not to believe it. His size begets a
belief in his innocence. Whilst he is there, they thrive. The husband
holds to him as much as the wife, and perhaps more. He sees that the
tricksy little elf makes the fortune of the house.

CHAPTER IV.

TEMPTATIONS.

I have kept this picture clear of those dreadful shadows of the hour
by which it would have been sadly overdarkened. I refer especially to
the uncertainty attending the lot of these rural households, to their
constant fear and foreboding of some casual outrage which might at any
moment descend on them from the castle.

There were just two things which made the feudal rule a hell: on one
hand, its _exceeding steadfastness_, man being nailed, as it were, to
the ground, and emigration made impossible; on the other, a very great
degree of _uncertainty_ about his lot.

The optimist historians who say so much about fixed rents, charters,
buying of immunities, forget how slightly