e.

Richard could not help laughing and following. At length Toadstool
plumped into a great hole full of water. "Served him right!" thought
Richard. "Served him right!" bawled the goblin, crawling out again, and
shaking the water from him like a spaniel. "This is the very place I
wanted, only I rolled too fast." However, he went on rolling again
faster than before, though it was now uphill, till he came to the top
of a considerable height, on which grew a number of palm-trees.

"Have you a knife, Richard?" said the goblin, stopping all at once, as
if he had been walking quietly along, just like other people.

Richard pulled out a pocket-knife and gave it to the creature, who
instantly cut a deep gash in one of the trees. Then he bounded to
another and did the same, and so on till he had gashed them all.
Richard, following him, saw that a little stream, clearer than the
clearest water, began to flow from each, increasing in size the longer
it flowed. Before he had reached the last there was quite a tinkling
and rustling of the little rills that ran down the stems of the palms.
This grew and grew, till Richard saw that a full rivulet was flowing
down the side of the hill.

"Here is your knife, Richard," said the goblin; but by the time he had
put it in his pocket, the rivulet had grown to a small torrent.

"Now, Richard, come along," said Toadstool, and threw himself into the
torrent.

"I would rather have a boat," returned Richard.

"Oh, you stupid!" cried Toadstool crawling up the side of the hill,
down which the stream had already carried him some distance.

With every contortion that labour and difficulty could suggest, yet
with incredible rapidity, he crawled to the very top of one of the
trees, and tore down a huge leaf, which he threw on the ground, and
himself after it, rebounding like a ball. He then laid the leaf on the
water, held it by the stem, and told Richard to get upon it. He did so.
It went down deep in the middle with his weight. Toadstool let it go,
and it shot down the stream like an arrow. This began the strangest and
most delightful voyage. The stream rushed careering and curveting down
the hill-side, bright as a diamond, and soon reached a meadow plain.
The goblin rolled alongside of the boat like a bundle of weeds; but
Richard rode in triumph through the low grassy country upon the back of
his watery steed. It went straight as an arrow, and, strange to tell,
was heaped up on the ground, l