Robin!"

"What to do?" meekly asked the boy, hungrily glancing at a few kernels
of rye which had rolled out of one of the brownie's mortars.

"Are ye hungry, my laddie? Touch a grain of rye if ye dare! Shell these
dry beans; and if so be ye're starving, eat as many as ye can boil in an
acorn-cup."

With these words she gave the boy a withered bean-pod, and, summoning a
meek little brownie, bade him see that the lad did not over-fill the
acorn-cup, and that he did not so much as peck at a grain of rye. Then
glancing sternly at her prisoner, she withdrew, sweeping after her the
long train of her green robe.

The dull days crept by, and still there seemed no hope that Wild Robin
would ever escape from his beautiful but detested prison. He had no
wings, poor laddie; and he could neither become invisible nor draw
himself through a keyhole bodily.

It is true, he had mortal companions: many chubby babies; many
bright-eyed boys and girls, whose distracted parents were still seeking
them, far and wide, upon the earth. It would almost seem that the
wonders of Fairy-land might make the little prisoners happy. There were
countless treasures to be had for the taking, and the very dust in the
little streets was precious with specks of gold: but the poor children
shivered for the want of a mother's love; they all pined for the dear
home-people. If a certain task seemed to them particularly irksome, the
heartless Queen was sure to find it out, and oblige them to perform it,
day after day. If they disliked any article of food, that, and no other,
were they forced to eat, or else starve.

Wild Robin, loathing his withered beans and unsalted broths, longed
intensely for one little breath of fragrant steam from the toothsome
parritch on his father's table, one glance at a roasted potato. He was
homesick for the gentle sister he had neglected, the rough brothers
whose cheeks he had pelted black and blue; and yearned for the very
chinks in the walls, the very thatch on the home-roof.

Gladly would he have given every fairy flower, at the root of which
clung a lump of gold ore, if he might have had his own coverlet "happed"
about him once more by his gentle mother.

[Illustration: "HERE IS A LITTLE MAN AFTER MY AIN HEART," SAID THE
QUEEN OF THE FAIRIES]

"Mither," he whispered in his dreams, "my shoon are worn, and my feet
bleed; but I'll soon creep hame, if I can. Keep the parritch warm for
me."

Robin was as strong as a moun