His mother did not believe such things, but she believed nothing but her New Testament!--and what if there should be something in them?
The idea of service rendered by the hand of a being too clumsy, awkward, ugly, to consent to be seen by the more finished race of his fellow-creatures, whom yet he surpassed in strength and endurance and longevity, had at least in it for Donal the attraction of a certain grotesque yet homely poetic element.

He remembered too the honour such a type of creature had had in being lapt around for ever in the airy folds of L'Allegro.

And to think that Mistress Jean, for whom everybody had such a respect, should speak of the creature in such a tone!--it sent a thrill of horrific wonder and delight through the whole frame of the boy: might, could there be such creatures?
And thereupon began to open to his imagination vista after vista into the realms of might-be possibility--where dwelt whole clans and kins of creatures, differing from us and our kin, yet occasionally, at the cross-roads of creation, coming into contact with us, and influencing us not greatly, perhaps, yet strangely and notably.

Not once did the real brownie occur to him--the small, naked Gibbie, far more marvellous and admirable than any brownie of legendary fable or fact, whether celebrated in rude old Scots ballad for his taeless feet, or designated in noble English poem of perfect art, as lubber fiend of hairy length.
Jean Mavor came from a valley far withdrawn in the folds of the Gormgarnet mountains, where in her youth she had heard yet stranger tales than had ever come to Donal's ears, of which some had perhaps kept their hold the more firmly that she had never heard them even alluded to since she left her home.

Her brother, a hard-headed highlander, as canny as any lowland Scot, would have laughed to scorn the most passing reference to such an existence; and Fergus, who had had a lowland mother--and nowhere is there less of so-called superstition than in most parts of the lowlands of Scotland--would have joined heartily in his mockery.