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.