orporated with its smoky breath that you could scarcely tell
whether it were indeed a voice or only a whiff of tobacco. Some
narrators of this legend held the opinion that Mother Rigby's
conjurations and the fierceness of her will had compelled a familiar
spirit into the figure, and that the voice was his.

"Mother," mumbled the poor stifled voice, "be not so awful with me! I
would fain speak, but, being without wits, what can I say?"

"Thou canst speak, darling, canst thou?" cried Mother Rigby, relaxing
her grim countenance into a smile. "And what shalt thou say, quotha?
Say, indeed! Art thou of the brotherhood of the empty skull and
demandest of me what thou shalt say? Thou shalt say a thousand things,
and saying them a thousand times over, thou shalt still have said
nothing. Be not afraid, I tell thee! When thou comest into the
world--whither I purpose sending thee forthwith--thou shalt not lack
the wherewithal to talk. Talk. Why, thou shalt babble like a
mill-stream, if thou wilt. Thou hast brains enough for that, I trow."

"At your service, mother," responded the figure.

"And that was well said, my pretty one!" answered Mother Rigby. "Then
thou spakest like thyself and meant nothing. Thou shalt have a hundred
such set phrases and five hundred to the boot of them. And now,
darling, I have taken so much pains with thee and thou art so beautiful
that, by my troth, I love thee better than any witch's puppet in the
world; and I've made them of all sorts--clay, wax, straw, sticks, night
fog, morning mist, sea-foam, and chimney-smoke. But thou art the very
best; so give heed to what I say."

"Yes, kind mother," said the figure, "with all my heart!"

"With all thy heart!" cried the old witch, setting her hands to her
sides, and laughing loudly. "Thou hast such a pretty way of speaking!
With all thy heart! And thou didst put thy hand to the left side of thy
waistcoat, as if thou really hadst one!"

So now in high good-humor with this fantastic contrivance of hers,
Mother Rigby told the scarecrow that it must go and play its part in
the great world, where not one man in a hundred, she affirmed, was
gifted with more real substance than itself. And that he might hold up
his head with the best of them, she endowed him on the spot with an
unreckonable amount of wealth. It consisted partly of a gold-mine in
Eldorado,[185-1] and of ten thousand shares in a broken bubble, and of
half a million acres of vineyard at the North