But not
a stone of the lot was more precious than roadside pebbles. "I ought
not to look till I come from the Rath," said he. "It's best to do like
Pat all through."
But he made up his mind not to return the fairy man's shoes.
"Who knows the virtue that's in them?" he said. So he made a small
pair of red leather shoes, as like them as could be, and he blacked
the others upon his feet, that the fairies might not know them, and at
sunrise he went to the Rath.
The fairy man was looking over the ditch as before.
"Good-morning to you," said he.
"The top of the morning to you, sir," said the cobbler; "here's your
shoes." And he handed him the pair that he had made, with a face as
grave as a judge.
The fairy man looked at them, but he said nothing, though he did not
put them on.
"Have you looked at the things you got last night?" says he.
"I'll not deceive you, sir," says the cobbler. "I came off as soon as
I was up. Sorra peep I took at them."
"Be sure to look when you get back," says the fairy man. And just as
the cobbler was getting over the ditch to go home, he says:
"If my eyes don't deceive me," says he, "there's the least taste in
life of dirt on your left shoe. Let me dust it with the tail of my
coat."
"That means home in a twinkling," thought the cobbler, and he held up
his foot.
The fairy man dusted it, and muttered something the cobbler did not
hear. Then, "Sure," says he, "it's the dirty pastures that you've come
through, for the other shoe's as bad.
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