XI
The Goblin Cobbler
When he came to himself he lay on the moor still. He got up and gazed around. The moon was up, but there was no hut to be seen. He was sorry enough now that he had been so foolish. He called, “Jenny, Jenny,” but in vain. What was he to do? Tomorrow was the eighth of the nine days left, and if before twelve at night the following day he had not rescued his boy, nothing could be done, at least for seven years more. True, the year was not quite out till about seven the following evening, but the fairies, instead of giving days of grace, always take them. He could do nothing but begin to walk, simply because that gave him a shadow more of a chance of finding the cobbler’s than if he sat still, but there was no possibility of choosing one direction rather than another.
He wandered the rest of that night and the next day. He could not go home before the hour when the cobbler could no longer help him. Such was his anxiety, that although he neither ate nor drank, he never thought of the cause of his gathering weakness.
As it grew dark, however, he became painfully aware of it, and was just on the point of sitting down exhausted upon a great white stone that looked inviting, when he saw a faint glimmering in front of him. He was erect in a moment, and making towards the place. As he drew near he became aware of a noise made up of many smaller noises, such as might have proceeded from some kind of factory. Not till he was close to the place could he see that it was a long low hut, with one door, and no windows. The light shone from the door, which stood wide open. He approached, and peeped in. There sat a multitude of cobblers, each on his stool, with his candle stuck in the hole in the seat, cobbling away. They looked rather little men, though not at all of fairy-size. The most remarkable thing about them was, that at any given moment they were all doing precisely the same thing, as if they had been a piece of machinery. When one drew the threads in stitching, they all did the same. If Colin saw one wax his thread, and looked up, he saw that they were all waxing their thread. If one took to hammering on his lapstone, they did not follow his example, but all together with him they caught up their lapstones and fell to hammering away, as if nothing but hammering could ever be demanded of them. And when he came to look at them more closely, he saw that every one was blind of an eye, and had a nose turned up like an awl. Every one of them, however, looked different from the rest, notwithstanding a very close resemblance in their features.
The moment they caught sight of him, they rose as one man, pointed their awls at him, and advanced towards him like a closing bush of aloes, glittering with spikes.
“Fine upper-leathers,” said one and all, with a variety of accordant grimaces.
“Top of his head—good paste-bowl,” was the next general remark.
“Coarse hair—good ends,” followed.
“Sinews—good thread.”
“Bones and blood—good paste for seven-leaguers.”
“Ears—good loops to pull ’em on with. Pair short now.”
“Soles—same for queen’s slippers.”
And so on they went, portioning out his body in the most irreverent fashion for the uses of their trade, till having come to his teeth, and said—
“Teeth—good brads,”—they all gave a shriek like the whisk of the waxed threads through the leather, and sprung upon him with their awls drawn back like daggers. There was no time to lose.
“The old woman with the spindle—” said Colin.
“Don’t know her,” shrieked the cobblers.
“The old woman with the distaff,” said Colin, and they all scurried back to their seats and fell to hammering vigorously.
“She desired me,” continued Colin, “to ask the cobbler for a lump of his wax.”
Every one of them caught up his lump of wrought rosin, and held it out to Colin. He took the one offered by the nearest, and found that all their lumps were gone; after which they sat motionless and stared at him.
“But what am I to do with it?” asked Colin.
“I will walk a little way with you,” said the one nearest, “and tell you all about it. The old woman is my grandmother, and a very worthy old soul she is.”
Colin stepped out at the door of the workshop, and the cobbler followed him. Looking round, Colin saw all the stools vacant, and the place as still as an old churchyard. The cobbler, who now in his talk, gestures, and general demeanour appeared a very respectable, not to say conventional, little man, proceeded to give him all the information he required, accompanying it with the present of one of his favourite awls.
They walked a long way, till Colin was amazed to find that his strength stood out so well. But at length the cobbler said—
“I see, sir, that the sun is at hand. I must return to my vocation. When the sun is once up, you will know where you are.”
He turned aside a few yards from the path, and entered the open door of a cottage. In a moment the place resounded with the soft hammering of three hundred and thirteen cobblers, each with his candle stuck in a hole in the stool on which he sat. While Colin stood gazing in wonderment, the rim of the sun crept up above the horizon; and there the cottage stood, white and sleeping, while the cobblers, their lights, their stools, and their tools had all vanished. Only there was still the sound of the hammers ringing in his head, where it seemed to shape itself into words something like these: a good deal had to give way to the rhyme, for they were more particular about their rhymes than their etymology:
“Dub-a-dub, dub-a-dub,
Cobbler’s man
Hammer it, stitch it,
As fast as you can.
The weekday ogre
Is wanting his boots;
The trip-a-trap fairy
Is going bare-foots.
Dream-daughter has worn out
Her heels and her toeses,
For want of cork slippers
To walk over noses.
Spark-eye, the smith,
May shoe the nightmare,
The kelpie and pookie,
The nine-footed bear:
We shoe the mermaids—
The tips of their tails—
Stitching the leather
Onto their scales.
We shoe the brownie,
Clumsy and toeless,
And then he goes quiet
As a mole or a moless.
There is but one creature
That we cannot shoe,
And that is the Boneless,
All made of glue.”
A great deal of nonsense of this sort went through Colin’s head before the sounds died away. Then he found himself standing in the field outside his own orchard.