e of your
fairy flukes!"

Skelmersdale stared at him for a moment, cue in hand, then flung it down
and walked out of the room.

"Why can't you leave 'im alone?" said a respectable elder who had been
enjoying the game, and in the general murmur of disapproval the grin of
satisfied wit faded from the ploughboy's face.

I scented my opportunity. "What's this joke," said I, "about Fairyland?"

"'Tain't no joke about Fairyland, not to young Skelmersdale," said the
respectable elder, drinking. A little man with rosy cheeks was more
communicative. "They DO say, sir," he said, "that they took him into
Aldington Knoll an' kep' him there a matter of three weeks."

And with that the gathering was well under weigh. Once one sheep had
started, others were ready enough to follow, and in a little time I
had at least the exterior aspect of the Skelmersdale affair. Formerly,
before he came to Bignor, he had been in that very similar little shop
at Aldington Corner, and there whatever it was did happen had taken
place. The story was clear that he had stayed out late one night on
the Knoll and vanished for three weeks from the sight of men, and had
returned with "his cuffs as clean as when he started," and his pockets
full of dust and ashes. He returned in a state of moody wretchedness
that only slowly passed away, and for many days he would give no account
of where it was he had been. The girl he was engaged to at Clapton
Hill tried to get it out of him, and threw him over partly because he
refused, and partly because, as she said, he fairly gave her the "'ump."
And then when, some time after, he let out to some one carelessly that
he had been in Fairyland and wanted to go back, and when the thing
spread and the simple badinage of the countryside came into play, he
threw up his situation abruptly, and came to Bignor to get out of the
fuss. But as to what had happened in Fairyland none of these people
knew. There the gathering in the Village Room went to pieces like a pack
at fault. One said this, and another said that.

Their air in dealing with this marvel was ostensibly critical and
sceptical, but I could see a considerable amount of belief showing
through their guarded qualifications. I took a line of intelligent
interest, tinged with a reasonable doubt of the whole story.

"If Fairyland's inside Aldington Knoll," I said, "why don't you dig it
out?"

"That's what I says," said the young ploughboy.

"There's a-many have trie