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Updated: July 2, 2025
For he too had on the way let go his mouthful of silence. Toonie, when his second failure came home to him, was quite vexed with himself for his folly and mismanagement. So that it should not happen again, he got his wife to tie on his cap of moonshine so firmly that it could not come off, and to gag up his mouth so that no word could come out of it.
And some said it was his mother's fault, and some that it was his father's, and some that he was a changeling sent by the fairies, and that the real child had been taken to share his father's bondage. But which of these things was true Little Toonie himself had no idea.
But though Toonie went that way every evening on his road home from work, never once had he been able to spy them. So one day he said to the old faggot-maker, "How is it that one gets to see a fairy?" The old man answered, "There are some to whom it comes by nature; but for others three things are needed a handful of courage, a mouthful of silence, and a capful of moonshine.
He had nearly reached to the top of the hill, when up from the ground sprang the little elderly man, and began beating him across the face with a hazel wand. Toonie thought surely this must be some carter or ploughman beating him to make him go faster; so he made haste to get on and be rid of the blows.
People were very kind to her, and told her that Toonie was not dead that he had only fallen into the hands of the good-folk; but all day long she sat and cried, "I fastened on his cap of moonshine, and I tied up his tongue; and for all that he has gone away and left me!" And so she cried until her child was born and named Little Toonie in memory of his lost father.
There before him went walking a little shrivelled elderly man, looking to right and left as if uncertain of the road. As Little Toonie drew near, the other one turned and spoke. "Can you tell me," said he, "if this be the way to the fairies?" Little Toonie had no tongue to give an answer; so, looking at his questioner, he wagged his head and went on.
And so it came that one night, finding the door of his stable unlocked, he ran out into the open world a free man. A soft wind breathed at large, and swung slowly in the black-silver treetops. Over them Little Toonie could see the quiet slopes of Drundle Head, asleep in the moonlight. Before long, following the lead of his eyes, he had come to the bottom of the ascent.
Quickening his pace, the old man came alongside and began peering; then he smiled to himself, and after a bit spoke out. "So you have lost your cap, neighbour? Then you will never be able to find the fairies." For he did not know that Little Toonie, who wore no cap on his head, carried his capful of moonshine safe underneath his skull, where it had been since the hour of his birth.
Toonie believed in himself so much that the very next night he took his courage in both hands, filled his cap with moon-shine, shut his mouth, and set out. Just after he had started he passed, as he thought, a priest riding by on a mule. "Good evening to you, Toonie," called the priest.
To make him work, carter and ploughman used to crack their whips over his back; and Little Toonie took it as the most natural thing in the world, because his brain was full of moonshine, so that he understood nothing clearly by day.
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