354 
THE STRAND MAGAZINE. 
light and grace and swiftness. There must 
have been a hundred of them, and every one 
of them was angry. 
Perching on Robin's shoulder, on his head, 
swaying on the slender branches of the trees, 
they gazed at him with indignation, unmixed 
with any pity. Robin must have realized at 
that moment that lie was a prisoner and could 
not hope to escape from them. 
“ You have done an unspeakable thing ,’ 7 
said one fairy, who was about a sixth of an 
inch taller and about one ounce heavier 
than any of her companions, and so was 
crowned with authority. “ You threw a 
stone at a bird.” 
“ At a bird ! ” cried all the other fairies, 
and every voice went up to high C. which is 
their top note. You will find it at the very 
end of the piano on the right side. 
But Robin, though alarmed by their 
number, stood his ground sturdily and 
responded : Well, lots of boys do that .’ 7 
“ Fairies,” exclaimed the largest one (her 
name was Puffball), “ this is worse than we 
thought ! Boys must be very bad. What 
shall we do with this one ? ” 
" We will take him to the Queen and ask 
her to consider his case,” replied a fairy with 
a determined chin. 
To this the others all agreed, and, summon- 
ing a small army of grasshoppers, Puffball 
directed them to the cutting of a wild 
vine to make a harness. This was soon 
accomplished, and the vines securely fastened 
over Robin’s shoulders and under his arms. 
It was no use making a fuss ; he knew he 
had to go with them. 
Had anyone else been in the woods to see 
the strange procession, he surely would have 
thought it a pretty sight. Wreathed in his 
vine harness, Robin trudged on through 
the leafy glade, and every fairy who could 
get hold of an end of the vine, or even a tendril, 
flew behind and beside him, spurring him on if 
he lagged with the sharp end of a tiny wand. 
Once he cried out, “ Oh, you’re sticking pins 
into me,” and a nice little fairy, called Gold- 
heart, remonstrated gently. “ Not so hard, 
dear Cobweb ; perhaps boys have feelings, 
you know.” Robin was grateful to Goldheart. 
By and by he learned the names of several 
fairies who were his near companions. 
There was Fleetwing, very light in the air, 
and wearing pale pink. Thistledown was all in 
mauve, and looked ready to be blown away 
by the first puff of wind. Moonbeam wore 
silver and white, and seemed to shed a light 
of her own. Hyacinth was a very pretty 
creature in light blue, Daffodil wore yellow, 
and was very gay. Goldheart was in bright 
yellow, and, as her name indicates, was 
renowned for her good heart. Robin heard 
them speak frequently of a fairy called Silver 
.Shoes, who seemed rather important ; but 
she was not among them, nor did Robin 
ever see her entirely. He understood that 
Silver Shoes had charge of the wood, but 
during a short absence on a vacation she had 
made Puffball her manager. 
After they had gone a long way, and Robin 
was hot and tired (though ail the fairies were 
fresher than when they started, for that is 
their way), they came to the edge of a little 
creek and Robin begged for a drink. 
“ Fetch an acorn,” said Puffball, and 
Thistledown flew to do her bidding. 
When poor Robin saw the acorn he asked 
if he might not bend down and drink from 
the stream ; but the fairies would not permit 
it, in case he swallowed a fish. 
So Robin had twenty-seven acorn-cups of 
water. By the time he tossed off the tenth 
every fairy was raising her eyebrows at another 
fairy. At the fifteenth they began to whisper, 
and when he finished the twentieth they drew 
aside in a little buzzing group and had a 
debate on the subject — “ Is he a boy or a 
fish ? ” And by the time they had settled 
the question (the decision being only that they 
would leave it to the Queen), Robin had 
somewhat slaked his thirst and was ready to 
go on. Their destination was the mouth of 
the creek, where there was a beautiful little 
waterfall. To Robin’s astonishment, they 
passed in at the back of the waterfall, through 
an opening in the rocks. No human being 
would ever have imagined it to be a Fairy 
Queen’s palace, and this is just the reason 
why such a place is always chosen for the 
fairies’ Royal residence. 
Robin now found himself in a dimly-lighted 
cave whose floors and walls were made of 
solid stone. The waterfall made a beautiful 
curtain for the entrance. At the extreme end 
of the cave two white agates were placed, 
one upon another, and seated upon this 
throne was the Fairy Queen. 
Iler first words, when she saw all the fairies 
enter with a prisoner, were, “ ('all the fire- 
flies,” which was the same as saying at home, 
44 Light the gas.” A swarm of fire-flies came 
in and the cave was brilliantly lighted up. 
It was a beautiful scene. The lovely little 
Queen upon her white throne, surrounded 
by her fairies, the secrecy of the cave, and 
the bright though fitful light of the fire-flies 
— all this made Robin so interested that he 
forgot to be frightened. 
