110 MEMOIR OF ALFRED SMEE. [CHAP. X. 



in your bedroom window, which, although you can scarcely see, is quite 

 wide enough for me to pass through." 



At these words, the Laird shook and shook again, as well he might, 

 and covered his face with the bedclothes ; but he saw the Fairy neverthe- 

 less, and could not hide her from his view. In a stentorian voice which 

 shook the very walls of the house, the Fairy continued : " I have answered 

 thy questions fully, and perhaps more fully than you expected; now 

 answer mine. Will you compensate the villagers for the damage the 

 rabbits have caused ?" " I will," he quickly cried, " but spare me, O Fairy 

 Dogood." " Will you promise never to keep Babbit Protectors again ?" 

 " I will," he wildly shrieked, more dead than alive with fear ; " but, O dear 

 Fairy Dogood, keep the cats from devouring me." The Fairy with a voice 

 like thunder exclaimed, " Don't call me dear, but keep thy promise ; for if 

 ever thou breakest it, the proprietorship of the lands of the valley shall 

 never descend in the direct line in thy family; and mark, if thou art ever 

 guilty of further extortions, the lands you have acquired by conquest will 

 be taken from you, and given back to the people from whom, in plain truth, 

 you have stolen them. Power has only been given to me by Queen Mab over 

 rabbits, but not over cats," said the Fairy ; " I cannot help you, and would 

 not if I could." And then in a flame which lit up for a minute the whole 

 valley, and was seen by many persons hundreds of miles around, the Fairy 

 instantly disappeared through the same crack she had entered, saying with 

 a voice like thunder, " Keep thy promise." A great scientific man, Mr. 

 Factfinder, who carefully examined the pane of glass with a lens, is 

 reported to have been of opinion that the flames fused the two sides of the 

 crack which the fairy passed through, as he could not find any reflection 

 on the surfaces ; though he clearly perceived the direction of the cut by a 

 slight irregularity in the glass. 



In the celebrated collection of Baron Oldfinder, a window was men- 

 tioned in the catalogue one pane of which showed signs of having been 

 cracked. A minute investigation showed a central part of the disturbance 

 of the substance of the glass, from which irregular curved lines radiated. 

 It is possible that this might have been the very pane of glass which Fairy 

 Dogood went through. It is impossible, however, to clear up the mystery, 

 as the heir of the seventh Baron Breakeverything Larky, when a boy, and 

 not knowing the priceless value of this antiquity, used it as a target to fire 

 at, and literally smashed it to atoms. He ever regretted the circumstance, 

 and used to say, in after-years, that any object which could throw light on 

 the important legend of the Widow and the Babbits was of great interest 

 to the whole civilized world, and he deeply deplored, that he had inad- 

 vertently destroyed this important link of the evidence. 



After the flames, which occurred three minutes past midnight, and are 

 recorded in all good astronomical books of a subsequent period, the air 

 became very still and cold, in fact colder than ever has been known before 

 or since. How cold it was, never can be known, for no thermometer has 

 ever been made to register such extreme cold as prevailed that still night. 

 The cats, exhausted by hunger and fatigue, succumbed to the frost, and lay 

 dead in all directions. The next day, when the villagers looked out of the 

 windows, the white snow was literally strewn with dead cats; the black 

 cats were very distinctly visible on the white ground, though the white ones 

 were not visible, as they could hardly be distinguished from the snow. 



