Fairy Tales, Now First Collected/Tale 24
TALE XXIV.
THE SCHOOL-BOYS.
At my first coming into the island of Man, says Waldron, and hearing this sort of stories, I imputed the giving credit to them merely to the simplicity of the poor creatures who related them; but was strangely surprised, when I heard other narratives of this kind, and altogether as absurd, attested by men who passed for persons of sound judgement. Among this number, was a gentleman, my near neighbour, who affirmed, with the most solemn asseverations, that, being of my opinion, and entirely averse to the belief that any such beings were permitted to wander for the purposes related of them, he had been at last convinced by the appearance of several little figures, playing and leaping over some stones in a field, whom, a few yards distance, he imagined were school-boys, and intended, when he came near enough, to reprimand, for being absent from their exercises at that time of the day; it being then, he said, between three and four of the clock: but, when he approached as near as he could guess, within twenty paces, they all, immediately, disappeared, though he had never taken his eye off them from the first moment he beheld them; nor was there any place where they could so suddenly retreat, it being an open field, without hedge or bush, and, as is said before, broad day.[1]
- ↑ Idem, u. s. p. 66.