Every one of them was holding in his hands a wee mite of a bag with two handles, and when he would press these handles together a strong wind would come out of the bag and blow on his head, and make it burn bright like a spark of fire; and when he stopped pressing the handles of his wind bag his head would grow dim again. They were working away at a great rate, keeping their heads alive, and the wind they made nearly blew Merrimeg up out of the chimney.
She didn’t have much time to think about it, for all at once the imps stopped working at their wind bags, and the wind began to go down and their heads to grow dim, and before she knew what was coming Merrimeg felt these little imps, thousands of them, pounce on her, all over her, as thick as flies on honey, over her hair, and face, and arms, and legs, and dress, everywhere, and they were scratching and pinching, so that she screamed out in fright, and nearly fell down the chimney, for there was no wind now to hold her up.
But just then, when all the sparks had nearly gone out, the terrible little creatures suddenly stopped scratching and pinching and began to pump away at their wind bags like mad; for in another second their sparks would have been out, and that would have been the end of _them_.
That was what saved Merrimeg. The wind that sprang up from the wind bags was twice as strong as it has been before. It caught her, and tore her loose, and picked her up, and whirled her up the chimney, right up to the top of it and _out_.
There she was, standing in the bright sunshine, on the roof of her own house, looking down into the cabbage garden.
It was a little house, only one story high, but it was too high for her to jump down to the ground; so she crawled to the edge of the roof, and sure enough there was the garden ladder standing against the front wall of the house, and it didn’t take her more than a minute to clamber down the ladder and run to the door.
She knocked on the door and waited for her mother to let her in.
The door opened, and her mother stood in the doorway looking at her. When she saw the little girl who was waiting on the step she raised both her hands in astonishment and opened her mouth wide.
“Oh, mother!” cried Merrimeg. “Let me in, quick! I’m terrible sorry, and I’ve been up the chimney, and I’ll never, never do so any more, indeed I won’t!”