Up! Horsie! | Page 4

and knotted branches of a tree, at a short distance from the spot where he was lounging, gradually assumed a human shape, and he saw the old Scotch shepherd advancing towards him.
"So you have found it out at last!" said he with a merry twinkle in his eye, "and what are you going to do next?"
"Do?" echoed Gilbert, "why I shall roam about all day, and bring the sheep home every evening without a bit of trouble; and then the lady will be pleased with me, and who knows, as there seems to be no other young men hereabouts, but what she may make me the lord of her fine castle."
The Scotchman laughed loud and long, and it was not till Gilbert had nearly lost his temper that he could be induced to explain the cause of his mirth, and then he said: "Why, man, you have gone clean mad, and no wonder, as this fine lady of yours has been drugging you with Elfin wine to make a fool of you. If you don't mind she'll keep you here like a horse in a mill all the days of your life, running after clouds you mistake for sheep."
Gilbert winced at this, and did not half like to be told he was a day-dreamer. He maintained he saw the flocks all round him, while Sandy explained that morning mists were to be seen on the tops of all mountains, then become dispersed during the day, till they gather once more at the approach of night, and that mists also hover over waterfalls--and this was the whole history of Gilbert's flock. He had been served the same way himself the first time he came to Elf-land, only not being quite so soft-pated as his new acquaintance he had found out the tricks that were played upon travellers; and he now asked Gilbert whether he should help to extricate him from running after clouds, or whether he was determined to make a fool of himself for the rest of his life? Gilbert answered gravely that he was set upon wooing the beautiful lady, and becoming the lord of the castle. "The castle is about as solid as those built by youngsters with playing cards, and as to this beautiful lady of yours, she is only an Elle-maid," said the Scotchman contemptuously.
"Suppose she is?--What then?" returned Gilbert philosophically. For the fact was he did not exactly know what sort of a creature that might be, never having travelled so far before. "Come, I must take pity on you, and save you in spite of yourself,"--said Sandy. "Here is some wax with which you must stop up your ears to-night, when you return to the lady, that you may not hear that singing of hers which bewitches your sober senses, and then if you draw the bow lengthways up and down the middle string of the fiddle, in this fashion (taking up the fiddle and showing him) as you approach her, and refuse both the wine and the kiss, you will see what an Elle-maid really is."
He then laid the ivory fiddle down again, and by the time Gilbert had raised himself on one elbow to take it back, the shepherd was clean out of sight. Gilbert thought this very strange, and he began scraping once more on the fiddle to see if the branches of the tree would again sprout into his singular acquaintance, but they did not stir any more. Though not believing in the full truth of Sandy's sneers about the castle and the lady, Gilbert thought he would just follow his advice out of curiosity, to see what it might bring to light, and perceiving it was now time to retrace his steps, he descended from the rocks, and following the course of the stream, returned to his night quarters by a different road to any he had taken before. He now stopped his ears with the wax Sandy had given him, and it was well he did, as he had just come within hearing of the Elle-maid's enchanting strains. He then drew the bow rapidly across the strings in a backward direction, when all the sheep instantly appeared on the surrounding heights, and next drew it lengthways up and down the middle string as the Scotchman had shewn him how to do. He had now come upon the rear of the stately castle he longed to call his own, when he perceived it had neither a court-yard nor back-premises of any sort, and consisted solely of a front wall with windows, but no rooms behind, like a ruin, though he had hitherto entertained the notion that he had slept beneath its roof, and on soft cushions too, which he now plainly perceived could only have been clouds like his