She frightened Alice
dreadfully as she rushed past her, showing nothing but her green
lamping eyes.
Richard, peeping up, found that he had turned a hearth-stone upside
down. On the edge of the hole stood a little crooked old man,
brandishing a mop-stick in a tremendous rage, and hesitating only where
to strike him. But Richard put him out of his difficulty by springing
up and taking the stick from him. Then, having lifted Alice out, he
returned it with a bow, and, heedless of the maledictions of the old
man, proceeded to get the stone and the pot up again. For puss, she got
out of herself.
Then the old man became a little more friendly, and said: "I beg your
pardon, I thought you were goblins. They never will let me alone. But
you must allow, it was rather an unusual way of paying a morning call."
And the creature bowed conciliatingly.
"It was, indeed," answered Richard. "I wish you had turned the door to
us instead of the hearth-stone." For he did not trust the old man.
"But," he added, "I hope you will forgive us."
"Oh, certainly, certainly, my dear young people! Use your freedom. But
such young people have no business to be out alone. It is against the
rules."
"But what is one to do--I mean two to do--when they can't help it?"
"Yes, yes, of course; but now, you know, I must take charge of you. So
you sit there, young gentleman; and you sit there, young lady."
He put a chair for one at one side of the hearth, and for the other at
the other side, and then drew his chair between them.
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