THE MIRACULOUS PITCHER
that he would fling away his staff, which looked so mysteriously mischievous, with the snakes always writhing about it. But then, again, Quicksilver showed himself so very good-humoured, that they would have been rejoiced to keep him in their cottage, staff, snakes, and all, every day, and the whole day long.
‘Ah me! Well-a-day!’ exclaimed Philemon, when they had walked a little way from their door. ‘If our neighbours only knew what a blessed thing it is to show hospitality to strangers, they would tie up all their dogs, and never allow their children to fling another stone.’
‘It is a sin and shame for them to behave so,–that it is!’ cried good old Baucis vehemently. ‘And I mean to go this very day, and tell some of them what naughty people they are!’
‘I fear,’ remarked Quicksilver, slyly smiling, ‘that you will find none of them at home.’
The elder traveller’s brow, just then, assumed such a grave, stern, and awful grandeur, yet serene withal, that neither Baucis nor Philemon dared to speak a word. They gazed reverently into his face, as if they had been gazing at the sky.
‘When men do not feel towards the humblest stranger as if he were a brother,’ said the traveller, in tones so deep that they sounded like those of an organ, ‘they are unworthy to exist on earth, which was created as the abode of a great human brotherhood!’
‘And, by the by, my dear old people,’ cried Quicksilver, with the liveliest look of fun and mischief in his eyes, ‘where is this same village that you talk about? On which side of us does it lie? Methinks I do not see it hereabouts.’
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