away, suspected something amiss, and hearing these strange outcries, hastily laid hold of the pudding and threw it into the hedge, while he ran away at full speed.

Tom crept out in woful condition, and climbed up a raggedrobin to look for the way home, but as if from the flower itself came a voice and laugh, "Ho! ho! ha! ha! He fancied he was Robin Goodfellow himself!”

There was no use in hoping that Puck would help him in his need; so he set out, plucking up his courage as best he might, and, late at night, he found his way back to the cottage by the forest; but he was so weak and spent that he had no strength to climb the door-step, and there he lay in the dark, sobbing and vowing that he would never play elvish pranks again, and shutting his eyes lest he should see ghostly shapes.

He heard his poor mother weeping, and his aunt scolding her, "Ay, and a happy riddance! Nothing but a changeling! Fie on you to mourn for a little hop-o'-my-thumb like that! If ever he shews his mischievous little nose again, I'll run him through with a red-hot knitting-needle, that I will!" Tom was so frightened that he would have run off, but his legs failed him, and he swooned away.

"He is gone like Robin Goodfellow," continued the aunt, "the instant you give him any wholesome chiding. So now I like having a son dancing in the bogs like a Will-of

hope you

the-wisp.❞

Just then, the whinnying of a colt was heard outside, and the

E

old dame fancying her market-colt had got loose, started up in haste, and Owen opened the door. 26 One of Mab's fairies had placed a glow-worm close to Tom, and Owen saw his poor little boy, so pale in the green light that he feared he was dead. He picked him up, and brought him to his mother, and at the first sigh he gave, she was overjoyed; but as to the aunt, she had gone in pursuit of the horse that had strayed, as she thought, and presently she saw a light before her, which led her through brake and bramble, mire and wood, till in the morning she was found quite spent under the hedge, in the very place whence she started.

Tom, who was by this time very sorry for his misdeed, humbly asked her pardon; but she vowed it was all his fault, and that she would never enter Owen's house again while he remained there.

CHAPTER VI.

HOW TOM THUMB WENT TO SEEK HIS ADVENTURES.

Oм THUMB was the wiser for his mishaps, and began to see that though the elves might make all seem winning and full of pleasance for a time, they would only lead him into trouble when he followed their freaks, and could give him no real help in distress, even if they would, and far more often would only make a mock of him.

He thus became steady and trustworthy, and was very useful to his mother, running errands for her as fast as a fairy, and helping her as much as his little strength allowed, so that she was wont to call him the comfort of her life. He used even to drive the cattle to the field with a whip of barley-straw; and one day when Owen was going to fell wood in the forest, and began to wish he had a man to bring the cart after him, "O father," said Tom, "I will bring the cart, if my mother will only harness the horse."

"A fine carter!

laughing,

How is he to hold the bridle ?" said Owen,

"Never you fear, father; I will sit in the horse's ear and tell him which way to go."

Owen consented, and his mother, not without her misgivings, put the horse into the shafts, when the sun had come to his full height, and little Tom climbed up into the broad ear, which made him as fine a shady bower as the cuckoo-pint's sheath, where he often sat in the heat of the day.

On went the cart straight for the forest, and as the horse was somewhat over quick on meeting with two travellers on the way, Tom called out "Steady, steady!"

"What means this ?" said one of the travellers to the other. "Here comes a cart, and the driver is heard calling to the horse, but never a carter is to be seen."

"You dull oaf!" replied the other, "it is but a strayed horse that has gone on for want of some one to hold him. I will soon stop him."

Just then Tom called out " Yeo ho !" and the good old horse hastened his pace, so that the men could not come up with him. "There is some wonder in this," said the traveller.

follow and see where the horse stops."

"Let us

The horse and cart went deep into the forest where Owen was cutting wood.

"Here I am, father," cried Tom; "take me down."

“Well done, my brave lad!" said Owen, laying hold of the