wand. Toonie thought surely this must be some carter or ploughman beating him
to make him go faster; so he made haste to get on and be rid of the blows.

Then, all of a sudden, the little elderly man threw away his hazel stick, and
fell down, clutching at Little Toonie's ankles, whining and praying him not to
go on.

"Now that I have failed to keep you from coming," he cried, "my masters will
put me to death for it! I am a dead man, I tell you, if you go another step!"

Toonie could not understand what the old fellow meant, and he could not speak
to him. But the poor creature clung to his feet, holding them to prevent him
from taking another step; so Toonie just stooped down, and (for he was so
little and light) picked him up by the scruff, and carried him by his
waistband, so that his arms and legs trailed together along the ground.

In the open moonlight ahead little people were all agog; bright dewdrops were
shivering down like rain, where flying feet alighted--shot from bent grass-
blades like arrows from a drawn bow. Tight, panting little bodies, of which
one could count the ribs, and faces flushed with fiery green blood, sprang
everywhere. But at Toonie's coming one cried up shriller than a bat; and at
once rippling burrows went this way and that in the long grass, and stillness
followed after.

The poor, dangling old man, whom Toonie was still carrying, wriggled and
whined miserably, crying, "Come back, masters, for it is no use--this one sees
you! He has got past me and all my poor skill to stop him. Set me free, for
you see I am too old to keep the door for you any longer!"

Out buzzed the fairies, hot and angry as a swarm of bees. They came and