“Then if you are not mad,” replied the wife, “I think your grandfather was! It is only the best poison that is good for rats and mice, and they shall have it soon, now that I am in the house.” But the ploughman caressed his wife and begged her to let him keep his promise to his grandfather, and the wife held her peace, not liking to seem bad-tempered on her wedding-day. After a bit she got used to her husband putting down little bits of food, as he said, for the rats and mice, and though she always declared she was going to poison them, she did not try to do so, as her husband seemed grieved when she talked about it. Thus things went on very happily for some months, when the wife began to think that her clothes were getting very old, and that she must have some new ones. So she took plenty of money and went into the neighbouring town, and came home with new dresses, and hats, and bonnets, and very pretty she looked in them, and her husband was very much pleased with them. But that evening after his wife was gone to bed, as the ploughman was finishing his pipe in the kitchen, he suddenly heard a deep voice from the hole, which called out just as it had done months before, “Stop, I am coming up.” For an instant the ploughman quaked with fear, then he saw something no bigger than a black beetle creeping through the hole, and it came in front of his chair, and he heard the voice, which was not so loud this time, say— “That will do, now I am going to begin to grow a little,” and it began to grow, and grow, and grow, till it was about eight inches high, and the ploughman saw it was the little black woman. “There,” she said, speaking quite quietly, “that is a nice useful size, that will do. Now I have something to say to you, and you will have to attend very carefully. I consider that you are breaking your compact. In the first place, you married without asking my leave, and, as I told you, I don’t like women in the house, but I will say nothing about that, as we had not spoken about it before, but how can you explain about all the fine clothes that your wife fetched home to-day? She has taken them to her room and not given one to me!” “Nay,” cried the ploughman, “they are my wife’s clothes, not mine.” “Nonsense,” said the gnome, “you gave her the money for them. Now understand that whatever she buys for herself in the future, she must buy the same for me. Two of everything: dresses, hats, gloves, whatever she has, I must have too, and be sure that mine are quite as good as hers.” “But how am I to manage that?” cried the ploughman; “how can I explain it to her without telling her that you are there?” “That is your business,” said the gnome. “All I say is that I must have the things if I am to remain in your house. You can tell her what you please. So now you know, and see that you do as I tell you,” and suddenly the little figure shrunk up till it was about the size of a black beetle, and then disappeared down the hole without another word.