e as before. After you get on your horse,
should you hear anything shouting or making any noise after you, be sure
not to look back, as they will follow you for thousands of miles; but
when the time is up and you get near my place, it will be all over. Well
now, my young man, I have told you all you have to do to-morrow; and
mind, whatever you do, don't look about you when you see all those
frightful things asleep. Keep a good heart, and make haste from there,
and come back to me with all the speed you can. I should like to know
how my two brothers were when you left them, and what they said to you
about me."

[Illustration: The Castle of Melvales

Swan Swan,
Carry me over,
In the name of the Griffin of Greenwood.]

"Well, to tell the truth, before I left London my father was sick, and
said I was to come here to look for the golden apples, for they were the
only things that would do him good; and when I came to your youngest
brother, he told me many things I had to do before I came here. And I
thought once that your youngest brother put me in the wrong bed, when he
put all those snakes to bite me all night long, until your second
brother told me 'So it was to be,' and said, 'It is the same here,' but
said you had none in your beds."

"Well, let's go to bed. You need not fear. There are no snakes here."

The young man went to bed, and had a good night's rest, and got up the
next morning as fresh as newly caught trout. Breakfast being over, out
comes the other horse, and, while saddling and fettling, the old man
began to laugh, and told the young gentleman that if he saw a pretty
young lady, not to stay with her too long, because she might waken, and
then he would have to stay with her or to be turned into one of those
unearthly monsters, like those he would have to pass by going into the
castle.

"Ha! ha! ha! you make me laugh so that I can scarcely buckle the
saddle-straps. I think I shall make it all right, my uncle, if I see a
young lady there, you may depend."

"Well, my boy, I shall see how you will get on."

So he mounts his Arab steed, and off he goes like a shot out of a gun.
At last he comes in sight of the castle. He ties his horse safe to a
tree, and pulls out his watch. It was then a quarter to one, when he
called out, "Swan, swan, carry me over, for the name of the old Griffin
of the Greenwood." No sooner said than done. A swan under each side,
and one in front, took him over in a c