it was to the flowers which lived upon it. So they neglected their business, and took to sailing on the streams, and plunging into every pool they could find. Hence the rapidity of their decline and fall.
Again, on coming to the seacoast, they had found that the salt water did much to restore the beauty they had lost by partaking of the Carasoyn. Therefore they were constantly on the shore, bathing forever in the water, especially that left in this pool by the ebbing tide, which was particularly to their taste; till at last they had grown entirely dependent for comfort on the seawater, and, they thought, entirely dependent on it for existence also, at least such existence as was in the least worth possessing.
Therefore, when they saw the big face of Colin peering once more over the ledge, they rushed at him in a rage, scrambling up the side of the rock like so many mad beetles. Colin drew back and let them come on. The moment the foremost put his foot on the line that Colin had drawn around the rock, he slipped and tumbled backwards head over heels into the pool, shrieking—
“He’s got Dottlecob’s wax!”
“He’s got Dottlecob’s wax!” screamed the next, as he fell backwards after his companion, and this took place till no one would approach the line. In fact no fairy could keep his footing on the wax, and the line was so broad—for as Colin rubbed it, it had melted and spread—that not one of them could spring over it. The queen now rose.
“What do you want, Colin?” she said.
“I want my child, as you know very well,” answered Colin.
“Come and take him,” returned the queen, and sat down again, not now with her feet in the water, for it was much too low for that.
But Colin knew better. He sat down on the edge of the basin. Unfortunately, the tail of his coat crossed the line. In a moment half-a-dozen of the fairies were out of the circle. Colin rose instantly, and there was not much harm done, for the multitude was still in prison. The water was nearly gone, beginning to leave the very roots of the long tangles uncovered. At length the queen could bear it no longer.
“Look here, Colin,” she said; “I wish you well.”
And as she spoke she rose and descended the side of the rock towards the water now far below her. She had to be very cautious too, the stones were so slippery, though there was none of Dottlecob’s wax there. About halfway below where the surface of the pool had been, she stopped, and pushed a stone aside. Colin saw what seemed the entrance to a cave inside the rock. The queen went in. A few moments after she came out wringing her hands.
“Oh dear! oh dear! What shall I do?” she cried, “You horrid thick people will grow so. He’s grown to such a size that I can’t get him out.”
“Will you let him go if I get him out?” asked Colin.
“I will, I will. We shall all be starved to death for want of seawater if I don’t,” she answered.
“Swear by the cobbler’s awl and the cobbler’s wax,” said Colin.
“I swear,” said the queen.
“By the cobbler’s awl and the cobbler’s wax,” insisted Colin.
“I swear by the cobbler’s awl and the cobbler’s wax,” returned the queen.
“In the name of your people?”
“In the name of my people,” said the queen, “that none of us here present will ever annoy you or your family hereafter.”
“Then I’ll come down,” said Colin, and jumped into the basin. With the cobbler’s awl he soon cleared a big opening into the rock, for it bored and cut it like butter. Then out crept a beautiful boy of about ten years old, into his father’s arms, with eyes, and ears, and chin, and cheek all safe and sound. And he carried him home to his mother.
It was a disappointment to find him so much of a baby at his age; but that fault soon began to mend. And the house was full of jubilation. And little Colin told them the whole story of his sojourn among the fairies. And it did not take so long as you would think, for he fancied he had been there only about a week.
The Castle
A Parable
On the top of a high cliff, forming part of the base of a great mountain, stood a lofty castle. When or how it was built, no man knew; nor could anyone pretend to understand its architecture. Everyone who looked upon it felt that it was lordly and noble; and where one part seemed not to agree with another, the wise and modest dared not to call them incongruous, but presumed that the whole might be constructed on some higher principle of architecture than they yet understood. What helped them to this conclusion was, that no one had ever seen the whole of the edifice; that, even of the portion best known, some part or other was always wrapped in thick folds of mist from the mountain; and that, when the sun shone upon this mist, the parts of the building that appeared through the vaporous veil were strangely glorified in their indistinctness, so that they seemed to belong to some aerial abode in the land of the sunset; and the beholders could hardly tell whether they had ever seen them before, or whether they were now for the first time partially revealed.
Nor, although it was inhabited, could certain information be procured as to its internal construction. Those who dwelt in it often discovered rooms they had never entered before—yea, once or twice—whole suites of apartments, of which only dim legends had been handed down from former times. Some of them expected to find, one day, secret places, filled with treasures of wondrous jewels; amongst which they hoped to light upon Solomon’s ring, which had for ages disappeared from the earth, but which had controlled
