oken; breaking off into a
moan and then rising again in a long whimpering wailing that made him
feel sick to hark to it. He began to look everywhere for the poor
creature. "It must be Sally Bratton's child," he thought to himself;
"she was always a flighty thing, and never looked after it. Like as not,
she's flaunting about the lanes, and has clean forgot the babby." But
though he looked and looked, he could see nought. And presently the
whimpering got louder and stronger in the quietness, and he thought he
could make out words of some sort. He hearkened with all his ears, and
the sorry thing was saying words all mixed up with sobbing--

"Ooh! the stone, the great big stone! ooh! the stones on top!"

Naturally he wondered where the stone might be, and he looked again, and
there by the hedge bottom was a great flat stone, nigh buried in the
mools, and hid in the cotted grass and weeds. One of the stones was
called the "Strangers' Table." However, down he fell on his knee-bones
by that stone, and hearkened again. Clearer than ever, but tired and
spent with greeting came the little sobbing voice--"Ooh! ooh! the stone,
the stone on top." He was gey, and mis-liking to meddle with the thing,
but he couldn't stand the whimpering babby, and he tore like mad at the
stone, till he felt it lifting from the mools, and all at once it came
with a sough out o' the damp earth and the tangled grass and growing
things. And there in the hole lay a tiddy thing on its back, blinking up
at the moon and at him. 'T was no bigger than a year-old baby, but it
had long cotted hair and beard, twisted round and round its body so that
you couldn't see its clothes; and the hair was all yaller and shining
and silky, like a bairn's; but the face of it was old and as if 't were
hundreds of years since 't was young and smooth. Just a heap of
wrinkles, and two bright black eyne in the midst, set in a lot of
shining yaller hair; and the skin was the colour of the fresh turned
earth in the spring--brown as brown could be, and its bare hands and
feet were brown like the face of it. The greeting had stopped, but the
tears were standing on its cheek, and the tiddy thing looked mazed like
in the moonshine and the night air.

The creature's eyne got used like to the moonlight, and presently he
looked up in Tom's face as bold as ever was; "Tom," says he, "thou 'rt a
good lad!" as cool as thou can think, says he, "Tom, thou 'rt a good
lad!" and his voice was sof