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  ‘ “If you won’t join our dancin’ sit yourself down on the hearth.” That was the woman with the buttermilk speakin’ to my grandfather again. She showed him the white hearth stones, but he wouldn’t sit down an’ stood with his boll of meal on his back, waitin’ a chance to slip a nail into his brother’s pocket an’ so help him to escape from the fairies. But Finlay never stopped dancin’ for a second an’ even with the boll of meal on his back he never sweated a drop or showed a trace of tiredness. At last Finlay swings against his brother, an’ there’s his chance. My grandfather got the nail in his pocket an’ Finlay seemed to wake from a dream. The two of them made for the door, pulled it open an’ ran out. They didn’t stop runnin’ till they’d done about four miles an’ could see the next croft. There Finlay collapsed as if he was dead an’ my grandfather couldn’t wake him. He went for help to the croft house an’ told them the story, an’ soon all the men of the village banded together, called on the minister begging him to go with them, an’ followed my grandfather to the place of the green grass an’ the heathery cnoc. But they found no passage an’ no door. An’ though they took spades an’ dug at the cnoc they found nothin’ to prove my grandfather’s story except for some white stones that looked like hearth stones an’ these they threw out, scattering them around the cnoc.’

  ‘An’ a nail, did tsey not?’ Hector reminded him. ‘A shiny new nail, like as if it was never used.’

  ‘Aye,’ Erchy remembered. ‘Aye, you’re right.’

  ‘It was lucky for him he bought tsose nails,’ Hector murmured.

  ‘What about Finlay?’ I asked. ‘Did he recover from his ordeal?’

  ‘He was never the same again,’ replied Erchy. ‘He slept for three whole days before they could wake him an’ when they did wake him he had such a stammer they couldn’t understand much of what he said. He never got rid of it. Never.’

  I indicated Hector’s mug of buttermilk, still untouched. ‘So you don’t trust me enough to drink my buttermilk,’ I teased them.

  Hector gallantly took up the mug, wished my good health and drank deeply. He smacked his lips. ‘Tsat was good,’ he said.

  Erchy said: ‘It’s all right for him. You notice he’s wearin’ tackety boots.’

  ‘Oh, Erchy,’ I laughed. ‘Can you imagine anything less like a fairy than I am? Honestly? Wouldn’t I need to be a “fine lookin’ woman” if I wanted to inveigle you into my power. For goodness’s sake take a good long look at me and see if you can see the slightest resemblance to a fairy.’

  I am no beauty at the best of times and I knew how revolting I must look after my dose of ’flu. Lank hair, puffy red-rimmed eyes, red nose and pale cracked lips. Erchy stared at me long and hard.

  ‘Well?’ I demanded cynically. ‘Anything seductive in my appearance?’

  ‘No,’ he retorted relentlessly, and picking up the bowl of buttermilk he drank it to the last drop.

  Copyright

  First published in 1968 by Hutchinson & Co.

  This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world

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  ISBN 978-1-4472-2062-6 EPUB

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  Copyright © Lillian Beckwith, 1968

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