“They say it’s not lucky to give them clothes, though,” said the Tailor; “they don’t like it.”

“Tell me!” said the dame, “as if any one that liked a tidy room wouldn’t like tidy clothes, if they could get them.  No! no! when we have one, you shall take his measure, I promise you.”

And this was all the Tailor got out of her on the subject.  When his work was finished, the Farmer paid him at once; and the good dame added half a cheese, and a bottle-green coat.

“That has been laid by for being too small for the master now he’s so stout,” she said; “but except for a stain or two it’s good enough, and will cut up like new for one of the lads.”

The Tailor thanked them, and said farewell, and went home.  Down the valley, where the river, wandering between the green banks and the sandy rocks, was caught by giant mosses, and bands of fairy fern, and there choked and struggled, and at last barely escaped with an existence, and ran away in a diminished stream.  On up the purple hills to the old ruined house.  As he came in at the gate he was struck by some idea of change, and looking again, he saw that the garden had been weeded, and was comparatively tidy.  The truth is, that Tommy and Johnnie had taken advantage of the Tailor’s absence to do some Brownie’s work in the daytime.

“It’s that Blessed Brownie!” said the Tailor.  “Has he been as usual?” he asked, when he was in the house.

“To be sure,” said the old lady; “all has been well, son Thomas.”

“I’ll tell you what it is,” said the Tailor, after a pause.  “I’m a needy man, but I hope I’m not ungrateful.  I can never repay the Brownie for what he has done for me and mine; but the mistress up yonder has given me a bottle-green coat that will cut up as good as new; and as sure as there’s a Brownie in this house, I’ll make him a suit of it.”

“You’ll what?” shrieked the old lady.  “Son Thomas, son Thomas, you’re mad!  Do what you please for the Brownies, but never make them clothes.”

“There’s nothing they want more,” said the Tailor, “by all accounts.  They’re all in rags, as well they may be, doing so much work.”

“If you make clothes for this Brownie, he’ll go for good,” said the Grandmother, in a voice of awful warning.

“Well, I don’t know,” said her son.  “The mistress up at the farm is clever enough, I can tell you; and as she said to me, fancy any one that likes a tidy room not liking a tidy coat!” For the Tailor, like most men, was apt to think well of the wisdom of womankind in other houses.

“Well, well,” said the old lady, “go your own way.  I’m an old woman, and my time is not long.  It doesn’t matter much to me.  But it was new clothes that drove the Brownie out before, and Trout’s luck went with him.”

“I know, Mother,” said the Tailor, “and I’ve been thinking of it all the way home; and I can tell you why it was.  Depend upon it, the clothes didn’t fit.  But I’ll tell you what I mean to do.  I shall measure them by Tommy—­they say the Brownies are about his size—­and if ever I turned out a well-made coat and waistcoat, they shall be his.”