I played tunes
and tunes. I could play as well then as I can now, and so the other
fairies, that had been without me for some time, must have heard me
playing, for soon I heard the rustle and the whisper and the patter of
their coming, and then they gathered round me, and I had been left
there lonely for so long that I kept on playing, to keep them with me.

"It was then the fairy-man and the fairy-woman began talking, and I
heard every word they said, as no doubt they meant I should. 'What'll
we do with the little beast at all?' says she.

"'We'll do something that's not too unpleasant at first,' says he.
'We'll take him and hold his head under the water, and see will that
drive any of the devilment out of him.'

"'Oh, the thief!' says she. 'That's not the way to treat him at all.
Let's heat the shovel and put him on it and throw him out the window.'

"'Ah, why will you be that cruel?' says he. 'Just let me heat the
tongs red hot in the fire and then I'll catch him by the nose with
them, and we'll find out will that make him go home and send poor
Rickard back to us.'

"'That's not enough,' says she. 'I'll go and bring some of the juice
of the lussmore that I have, and we'll make him drink it, and then if
he's a fairy he'll wish that he was a man, so that he could die, it'll
make that consternation inside him.'

"'We'll do the both of them things,' says he, and with that they both
started into the kitchen, and all the rest of the people after them.
But you may believe that by that time I was not there at all. I'd had
enough of their kindness and I didn't think it was right to wait for
any more of it. But I looked in at the window for a last glimpse of
them, and one of the women saw me, and she screamed, and then the
fairy-man made after me with the tongs, and I had to vanish
completely. And you know what would happen then. When they drove me
off, of course we had to send back Rickard, and there they found him
the next morning, asleep in his bed, as sound as ever he was in his
life.

"And that was not all. The lesson that he'd had was enough for him,
and he left drinking and fighting and swearing, and he helped his old
father and his brothers on the farm, and he was another man
altogether. And so it's as I told you. You can never get the better of
men, if they know anything, and all you do to hurt them only helps
them. And so it will be if you send me to the Sullivans."

"If you're done talking about it now," s