Old Weevil only moaned and shuffled about the room in a miserable fashion. "I can't get rid of the Brute, darling. He sits upon my shoulders and strangles me. Why should these people be outside the law because they are commoners? One hundred years ago you might have seen horrible deeds of cruelty in every London street. There are none to be seen now, because townsfolk have become civilised, and law-makers have recognised that what may please the few is distressing to the many. But in these wild lonely places people may be fiends, and the law does not touch them. It exists for the populous centres, not for the solitudes." "I'm going to get supper. Mind you are good when I come back," said the little housewife quickly. "That is not all," raved the poor old man, still shuffling to and fro, heedless that he was alone. "The cry of the animals goes up to Heaven. There are the ponies and bullocks turned out upon the moor all winter, in weather which would kill the hardiest man, if he was exposed to it, in a few hours. They get no food. There is not a bit of grass for them. Many of them are done to death by cruel weather and starvation. In spring their carcases are found lying upon the moor." CHAPTER XVIII ABOUT AUTUMN IN FAIRYLAND The devil had passed through Tavy woods late that year, and in his path blackberries were blasted, the bracken was scorched, and all the foliage smouldered. He had trampled upon, and burnt, everything; the next time he passed through he would breathe on them and they would rot away. At last he would come with his big bellows; clear the wood out, and scatter a lot of dusty frost about the place to make it look tidy. Directly he was out of the way a busy little body in green would bustle into the woods with a big basket of buds on her arm, and she would stick these buds about upon the honeysuckles and the primroses, and then run away in a snowstorm laughing. Nobody would notice her; she is too small and shadowy, and yet observant folk would know she had been because the plants which had received the buds would smarten up at once. Every one loves the little green fairy, although she is often quite a plain creature, and usually is afflicted with a dreadful cold. She beats the devil and restores all that he has trampled and blown upon. She may often be seen in April, sweeping up the remains of the hoar-frost and attending to her buds, sneezing all the time. People call her Spring in those days. Her cold is quite incurable, but fortunately it does not kill her.