boundary to help him, she stood on Tievara before she was

aware.

The round hill was green and dark and silent. Its outer line swelled up against the sky in a smooth curve; and the sky was a primrose colour behind it. No little brown kid was there, to bite the short thick grass. Ailish moved on, hearing nothing now. Only the stiff and pricking whin grew round about the hill. She saw no flowers there, though there were many flowers on the Fairies' Mound. She heard no fairy laughter, and counted no fairy lights. Climbing on, she stood a moment on the round top, and gazed at the primrose sky. Then she began to descend -softly, silently. And Ailish was seen no more on this side afterwards.

It was the wedding-day of the Chief of Cloy. His kinsmen, and his friends, and his people all gathered together to greet him; and when he rode out of his castle gates so early, they joined after in a long procession, winding down the Glen of Cloy, and followed him to the house of the bride, to bring her home with honour.

No bride came out to meet them from the low brown house. The door stood open, the hearth was cold.

She

Lara entered-he only-and called on her name. might be near or might be far, but she was not there. He came out again, and stood before his kinsmen with a troubled heart. The bride is lost,' he said. 'Give your counsel, for my mind

is dark.'

And Lara leaned his head against the neck of his gallant dark horse. The willow-tree waved over them standing there. His leaves all whispered to each other, and shivered. There was no other voice. The kinsmen stood round; and all hearts were sorry for Lara, so beautiful was the bride he had lost.

He mounted his dark horse again and rode away, pale and determined. He vowed to seek through all Erin for his love Ailish, and to return to his castle no more for a year unless he found her. Then he began the search.

Kings were his friends, and lent their aid to further him. Poor men were his friends, and showed him the way through Erin, from coast to coast. Women were his best friends, for constancy is what they honour most. They taught him many things, but they could not teach him to find Ailish.

The year wore through, the year and a month, and Lara set

his face homewards. His hope was weak now, but his courage was strong, and his love was strongest. He entered the Glen of Cloy from the north, and rode downwards towards the sea, through a great field of bracken fern, green and tall on the glen side. Weary, he lay down in that place and slept. The green bracken closed over his head and hid him from the sun. His dark horse waited patiently.

When Lara opened his eyes he thought for a moment that he was lying in some strange forest, so tall had the bracken grown, so dim and green the light came down, straight along the straight stems and slipping from the tips of the branches. There seemed a scarlet sun lying on the ground, and it was only a tiny pimpernel. Then he heard voices, and instantly he was wide awake and motionless.

They were only fairy voices, and they came from two little fern-fairies-small, nimble men, with brown faces and crumpled green caps.

'The Chief of Cloy has spent a year and a month now searching for his lost love Ailish,' said one. 'He is coming home to-day. Is his luck broken at last?'

'What hope for him?' replied the other. 'Who is to tell him that the Fairy King has carried her off on Tievara, and hidden her in his palace, deep in the heart of the Fairy Mound? Lara will not look for her so near home.' And they laughed..

But the Chief of Cloy leapt to his feet above the bracken. He sprang on his horse and galloped down the Glen.

When he reached his own castle again, he gathered every man to whom his voice was law and every friend to whom his name was dear. He led them up to Tievara, and commanded them to level it from the top downwards; and they began. They worked till sunset, and then they all went home in a body; for they could not stay in that spot at night for fear of the fairy power.

In the morning they returned-but wirra!-the Fairy folk had worked in the night, and piled up the mound again to its full height, so that it stood all round and green as before. Then Lara and his people fell to work fiercely; and that day they toiled so that they cut a great gap deep into the centre of the hill. But when night came they marched back to the Glen of Cloy; and when they returned to Tievara in the morning, the fairies had played them the same trick. Their labour was wasted.

So it went on for a month, the mortals demolishing by day and the fairies restoring by night, till the mortals lost heart— all except the Chief of Cloy.

To him there came a thought once, on a sudden, which gave him hope. He remembered how, in the old days of his friendship with the false Fairy King, he had received the charm of the fern-seed, by which to walk invisible. To this he resorted, and under the power of the charm he went one night to a fairyhaunted spot that he had visited of old.

There fir trees stood up darkly in their ranks against the sky. Grey rocks were strewn about below, their shadows under them stretching over the trembling grass. And everywhere between them foxgloves grew; red and white foxgloves, with spires of bells in hundreds. The bells were smooth without and spotted within, and the foxglove-fairies lived in them. These fairies generally sleep all day, for the softness and closeness of the bells makes them very sleepily inclined; only, if a bee, as often happens, tries to get in, the foxglove-fairy has to wake up, and then there is a tussle. A fairy can generally keep the door against a brown bee if he wakes in time. This is why a bee may often be seen creeping backwards out of a foxglove bell and going away in a hurry, with nothing to carry. But the foxglove-fairies come out at night and enjoy themselves greatly.

Lara, who knew their ways of old, came to the place, but kept himself from sight, for he wanted to hear their talk.

Most of them were dancing or carrying on in various fashions; but two of them were swinging quietly together on the strand of a wood-spider's web, which shone with dew as if he had strung it with little pearls in the spinning. It disturbed the wood-spider, but that they did not mind, and the spider said nothing, for it is never of the least use to argue with a fairy.

Said one to the other, 'Is the Chief of Cloy not tired yet of digging on the Fairy Mound?'

And the other replied, 'What hope for him? Who is to tell him that the Fairy King can always undo his work at night, unless he sows it all over with salt before leaving it?' Then they laughed.

And Lara was not angry that they made a mock of his misfortunes, for he knew that a fairy, having no heart, cannot pity anything. Presently this mocking pair let themselves drop from the swinging strand and sped away to a bed of rushes down the hill. They were going to race each other up a green rush and

down again; and this is far from easy, because of the chance of being pricked at the top.

But Lara did not wait to see the race; he had heard enough, and he went home through the dew and the starlight with a glad heart.

Next day he led his men up Tievara to begin their work with strength renewed; and when they had finished they strewed the whole ground over with salt and left it. The morning after, on their return, they found the fairies had not been able to touch the place, and it lay all white in the sun. So they shouted; and, for Lara's sake, they worked again, double as fast, and dug down so deep towards the root of the hill that they came very near the roof of the fairy palace.

But at that moment the Chief of Cloy heard the voice of the Fairy King calling up to him—

'Come no nearer. I will bring back the bride.'

'Bring her quickly,' Lara shouted, or I will wreck your city.'

He was beside himself at the thought of his bride stolen away; but he remembered the place and the fairy power, and he held back his men from striking even once more into the ground.

Then the false Fairy King came up and carried Ailish, the bride, with him, back to the light of day. And Lara caught her in his arms. He forgot to speak the word of scorn, which the fairy would little have heeded. He turned and carried her in a deep slumber as she was, down the green side of Tievara and back to her home in the low brown house. The great willowtree by the door rustled and bent as Lara passed beneath it. He carried her in and laid her gently down; then he tried to waken her.

But Ailish would not wake, neither that day nor the next. She was not changed at all after her long year with the fairies under the hill. The red was in her lips and the darkness in her hair, as Lara remembered them of old. She wore her own white robe that he knew, with but one earth stain wet on the hem of it. And he watched with longing for her eyes to open, but they never opened. So at last they knew that she was charmed.

And some told Lara that she would never wake again; but this he refused to believe, and day by day he would come to see her. In his eyes she grew more beautiful than ever, but more deeply, deeply asleep. And now he never spoke to her, because

the silence in her presence hurt him less than the sound of his own voice without her answer. He left a guard of his men to watch the house where she lived, both day and night. And still he hoped each day that she would waken before he came back on the next; but he hoped in vain.

Then there came many to Lara, from all parts of the kingdom, with their counsel; for the fame of the Chief of Cloy, and of his bride who was fairy-charmed, had gone abroad. And many were the counsels given him by the wise and the unwise; yet none were of any avail.

So the time wore on to another autumn, and there was gold falling from the trees, and the dews were heavy in the morning, and the skies were pure at night.

In vain did Lara wander through all fairy-haunted places on those autumn nights-through woods where the wind whispered up and down, and the starlight could not fall; between the pale, feathering ashes, and the hollies stiff and dark. But all the woodfairies kept at home. Then he climbed up the glensides, and waded to his knee through the rusty-coloured bracken, and followed the courses of mountain streams where birches grew along them, bending one way and another their round stems of silver and thin leaves of gold, and everywhere the bracken fern grew round their feet; but all the fern-fairies kept at home. Then he visited that hollow that lay in the shadow of pines. When he passed by the beds of rushes they were all sere and broken, and the grey rocks strewn about were bare now and cold; the foxgloves stood up stripped of all their spires of bells; and the little foxglove-fairies had gone away.

Lara was left at a loss. For once his hopes fell, and he could think of no more devices. It was plain that the Fairy King had warned his people everywhere to keep their secrets safe, and to find new places for playing in at night. There was no more hope from them.

He looked at his bride, who lay so beautiful and still, and he wondered if she would sleep so for ever, until he died, and after. A sudden fear seized him that she might indeed be dead. Quickly he lit a little silver lamp with three horns, and held it before her face. But when he saw the weak, daylight flame moved backwards by her breath he was satisfied, and laid it down. It was the lamp he had himself caused to be left by the head of her couch and lit every evening, lest some night Ailish might waken alone in the darkness.