crept into a
crevice in a rock where the cat could not reach him, and refused to
come out even when the Lady of the Hills came to look for him and
begged him to come to her. When at last, compelled by hunger, he
returned to her, he was silent and sullen and would not be caressed.

He saw no more of the cat, and when next day he asked her where it
was, she said that it had gone from them and would return no
more--that she had sent it away because it had vexed him. This made
Martin sulk, and he would have gone away and hidden himself from her
had she not caught him up in her arms. He struggled to free himself,
but could not, and she then carried him away a long distance down
the mountain-side until they came to a small dell, green with
creepers and bushes, with a deep carpet of dry moss on the ground,
and here she sat down and began to talk to him.

"The cat was a very beautiful beast with his spotted hide," she said;
"and you liked to play with him sometimes, but in a little while you
will be glad that he has gone from you."

He asked her why.

"Because though he was fond of you and liked to follow you about and
play with you, he is very fierce and powerful, and all the other
beasts are afraid of him. So long as he was with us they would not
come, but now he has gone they will come to you and let you go to
them."

"Where are they?" said Martin, his curiosity greatly excited.

"Let us wait here," she said, "and perhaps we shall see one by-and-by."

So they waited and were silent, and as nothing came and nothing
happened, Martin sitting on the mossy ground began to feel a strange
drowsiness stealing over him. He rubbed his eyes and looked round; he
wanted to keep very wide awake and alert, so as not to miss the
sight of anything that might come. He was vexed with himself for
feeling drowsy, and wondered why it was; then listening to the low
continuous hum of the bees, he concluded that it was that low, soft,
humming sound that made him sleepy. He began to look at the bees,
and saw that they were unlike other wild bees he knew, that they
were like humble-bees in shape but much smaller, and were all of a
golden brown colour: they were in scores and hundreds coming and
going, and had their home or nest in the rock a few feet above his
head. He got up, and climbing from his mother's knee to her shoulder,
and standing on it, he looked into the crevice into which the bees
were streaming, and saw their nest full of clust