“More than you can require,” said the woman. “I suppose you know the
history of ‘the Girl who Trod on the Loaf, so that she might not soil her
shoes’? That has been written, and printed too.”
“I told that story myself,” said the man.
“Yes, then you must know it; and you must know also that the girl sank
into the earth directly, to the Moor-woman, just as Old Bogey’s
grandmother was paying her morning visit to inspect the brewery. She saw
the girl gliding down, and asked to have her as a remembrance of her visit,
and got her too; while I received a present that’s of no use to me-a travelling
druggist’s shop-a whole cupboard-full of poetry in bottles. Grandmother
told me where the cupboard was to be placed, and there it’s standing still.
Just look! You’ve your seven four-leaved shamrocks in your pocket, one of
which is a six-leaved one, and so you will be able to see it.”
And really in the midst of the moor lay something like a great knotted
block of alder, and that was the old grandmother’s cupboard. The Moor-
woman said that this was always open to her and to every one in the land, if
they only knew where the cupboard stood. It could be opened either at the
front or at the back, and at every side and corner-a perfect work of art, and
yet only an old alder stump in appearance. The poets of all lands, and
especially those of our own country, had been arranged here; the spirit of
them had been extracted, refined, criticised and renovated, and then stored
up in bottles. With what may be called great aptitude, if it was not genius
the grandmother had taken as it were the flavor of this and of that poet, and
had added a little devilry, and then corked up the bottles for use during all
future times.
“Pray let me see,” said the man.
“Yes, but there are more important things to hear,” replied the Moor-
woman.
“But now we are at the cupboard!” said the man. And he looked in. “Here
are bottles of all sizes. What is in this one? and what in that one yonder?”
