d me useful when
there is corn to thrash, or untamed colts in the stables, or when the
waters are out in flood."

[Footnote 29: A churn.]

No one quite knew what to say in answer to the creature's strange
request. It was an unheard-of thing for anyone to come and offer their
services for nothing, and the men began to whisper among themselves, and
to say that it was not canny, and 'twere better to have nothing to do
with him.

But up spoke old Grannie Duncan again. "'Tis but a Brownie, I tell you,"
she repeated, "a poor, harmless Brownie, and many a story have I heard
in my young days about the work that a Brownie can do, if he be well
treated and let alone. Have we not been complaining all summer about bad
times, and scant wages, and a lack of workmen to work the work? And now,
when a workman comes ready to your hand, ye will have none of him, just
because he is not bonnie to look on."

Still the men hesitated, and the silly young wenches screwed their
faces, and pulled their mouths. "But, Grannie," cried they, "that is all
very well, but if we keep such a creature in our village, no one will
come near it, and then what shall we do for sweethearts?"

"Shame on ye," cried Grannie impatiently, "and on all you men for
encouraging the silly things in their whimsies. It's time that ye were
thinking o' other things than bonnie faces and sweethearts. 'Handsome is
that handsome does,' is a good old saying; and what about the corn that
stands rotting in the fields, an' it past Hallowe'en already? I've heard
that a Brownie can stack a whole ten-acre field in a single night."

That settled the matter. The miller offered the creature the corner of
his barn to sleep in, and Grannie promised to boil the cogful of brose,
and send her grandchild, wee Jeannie, down with it every evening, and
then we all said good-night, and went into our houses, looking over our
shoulders as we did so, for fear that the strange little man was
following us.

But if we were afraid of him that night, we had a very different song to
sing before a week was over. Whatever he was, or wherever he came from,
he was the most wonderful worker that men had ever known. And the
strange thing was that he did most of it at night. He had the corn safe
into the stackyards, and the stacks thatched, in the clap of a hand, as
the old folk say.

The village became the talk of the countryside, and folk came from all
parts to see if they could catch a glimpse of ou