Colin, filled with horror, although he did not more than half believe what they were saying, sat up in bed and stared at them with fierce eyes, waiting to hear what they would say next. Silversnout now resumed his part:—
“Ho, ho! Ho! ho! and if he don’t know, And fish them out of the pool, so—so,”—
here they all pretended to be hauling in a net as they danced.
“Before the end of the seven long years, Sweet babe will be left without eyes or ears.”
Then Peterkin replied:—
“Sweet babe will be left without cheek or chin, Only a hole to put porridge in; Porridge and milk, and haggis, and cakes: Sweet babe will gobble till his stomach aches.”
From this last verse, Colin knew that they must be Scotch fairies, and all at once recollected their figures as belonging to the multitude he had once seen frolicking in his father’s cottage. It was now Silversnout’s turn. He began:
“But never more shall Colin see Sweet babe again upon his knee, With or without his cheek or chin, Except—”
Here Silversnout caught sight of Colin’s face staring at him from the bed, and with a shriek of laughter they all vanished, the tones of Peterkin’s fiddle trailing after them through the darkness like the train of a shooting star.