For the cowherd, however, as I say, the idea had no small attraction, and his stare was the reflection of Mistress Jean's own--for the soul is a live mirror, at once receiving into its centre, and reflecting from its surface.
"Div ye railly think it, mem ?" said Donal at last.
"Think what ?" retorted Jean, sharply, jealous instantly of being compromised, and perhaps not certain that she had spoken aloud.
"Div ye railly think 'at there is sic craturs as broonies, Mistress Jean ?" said Donal.
"Wha kens what there is an' what there isna ?" returned Jean: she was not going to commit herself either way.

Even had she imagined herself above believing such things, she would not have dared to say so; for there was a time still near in her memory, though unknown to any now upon the farm except her brother, when the Mains of Glashruach was the talk of Daurside because of certain inexplicable nightly disorders that fell out there; the slang rows, or the Scotch remishs (a form of the English romage), would perhaps come nearest to a designation of them, consisting as they did of confused noises, rumblings, ejaculations; and the fact itself was a reason for silence, seeing a word might bring the place again into men's mouths in like fashion, and seriously affect the service of the farm; such a rumour would certainly be made in the market a ground for demanding more wages to fee to the Mains.

"Ye haud yer tongue, laddie," she went on; "it's the least ye can efter a' 'at's come an' gane; an' least said's sunest mendit, Gang to yer wark." But either Mistress Jean's influx of caution came too late, and someone had overheard her suggestion, or the idea was already abroad in the mind bucolic and georgic, for that very night it began to be reported upon the nearer farms, that the Mains of Glashruach was haunted by a brownie who did all the work for both men and maids--a circumstance productive of different opinions with regard to the desirableness of a situation there, some asserting they would not fee to it for any amount of wages, and others averring they could desire nothing better than a place where the work was all done for them.
Quick at disappearing as Gibbie was, a very little cunning on the part of Jean might soon have entrapped the brownie; but a considerable touch of fear was now added to her other motives for continuing to spend a couple of hours longer in bed than had formerly been her custom.

So that for yet a few days things went on much as usual; Gibbie saw no sign that his presence was suspected, or that his doings were offensive; and life being to him a constant present, he never troubled himself about anything before it was there to answer for itself.
One morning the long thick mane of Snowball was found carefully plaited up in innumerable locks.

This was properly elf-work, but no fairies had been heard of on Daurside for many a long year.