“Husband,” cried the wife, “have you gone mad that you should give the best of the food to the rats and the mice?”
“I am not mad at all,” said the ploughman, “but my grandfather loved nothing in the world so well as rats and mice, and he made me promise before he died that they should always be well cared for in my house, and have of the best.”
“Then if you are not mad,” replied the wife, “I think your grandfather was! It is only the best poison that is good for rats and mice, and they shall have it soon, now that I am in the house.” But the ploughman caressed his wife and begged her to let him keep his promise to his grandfather, and the wife held her peace, not liking to seem bad-tempered on her wedding-day. After a bit she got used to her husband putting down little bits of food, as he said, for the rats and mice, and though she always declared she was going to poison them, she did not try to do so, as her husband seemed grieved when she talked about it.
Thus things went on very happily for some months, when the wife began to think that her clothes were getting very old, and that she must have some new ones. So she took plenty of money and went into the neighbouring town, and came home with new dresses, and hats, and bonnets, and very pretty she looked in them, and her husband was very much pleased with them. But that evening after his wife was gone to bed, as the ploughman was finishing his pipe in the kitchen, he suddenly heard a deep voice from the hole, which called out just as it had done months before, “Stop, I am coming up.”
For an instant the ploughman quaked with fear, then he saw something no bigger than a black beetle creeping through the hole, and it came in front of his chair, and he heard the voice, which was not so loud this time, say—
“That will do, now I am going to begin to grow a little,” and it began to grow, and grow, and grow, till it was about eight inches high, and the ploughman saw it was the little black woman. “There,” she said, speaking quite quietly, “that is a nice useful size, that will do. Now I have something to say to you, and you will have to attend very carefully. I consider that you are breaking your compact. In the first place, you married without asking my leave, and, as I told you, I don’t like women in the house, but I will say nothing about that, as we had not spoken about it before, but how can you explain about all the fine clothes that your wife fetched home today? She has taken them to her room and not given one to me!”
“Nay,” cried the ploughman, “they are my wife’s clothes, not mine.”
“Nonsense,” said the gnome, “you gave her the money for them. Now understand that whatever she buys for herself in the future, she must buy the same for me. Two of everything: dresses, hats, gloves, whatever she has, I must have too, and be sure that mine are quite as good as hers.”
“But how am I to manage that?” cried the ploughman; “how can I explain it to her without telling her that you are there?”
“That is your business,” said the gnome. “All I say is that I must have the things if I am to remain in your house. You can tell her what you please. So now you know, and see that you do as I tell you,” and suddenly the little figure shrunk up till it was about the size of a black beetle, and then disappeared down the hole without another word.
The ploughman rubbed his head, and wondered what he could do. He did not at all want to tell his wife about the little gnome, for he was sure she would not like it, but at the same time he did not want the gnome to leave his house and take away his luck.
A few days after, his wife told him she was going to the shoemaker’s to buy herself some smart new shoes, and the ploughman thought of the gnome, and knew he must do as she had told him. So he said to his wife, “Wife, when you get those shoes for yourself, I wish you would get a pair just like them for my cousin who has written to me to ask me for a present. I should like to send her some nice boots and shoes as she is very poor, so I shall be very much obliged if you will get two pairs of whatever you may get for yourself that I may send her one.”
The wife wondered very much, for she did not know the ploughman had any cousin; however, she went into the town, and brought home two pairs of smart red shoes with bows on the top.
When she had gone to bed at night, the ploughman took one pair and laid it by the hole in the same place where he had put the food, and it disappeared just as the food did without his seeing where it went. “Now,” thought he, “when she sees I am quite honest, perhaps the ugly little gnome will be content, and let us go on in peace.”
So time went on, and the ploughman and his wife lived very happily and quietly, till one evening a pedlar came round with a tray holding all sorts of pretty things to sell. The ploughman’s wife went to the door, and looked at the things: then she bought a pretty comb for her hair, but she would not show
