urhood, he walked on a
good way, peering about in the moonlight before he could find any. When
at last he hit upon the wished for herb, great was his joy, and he
plucked it as triumphantly as if he held in his hand the bridle of the
finest steed mortal ever looked upon, crying out: "Up! Horsie!" in a
loud voice. But no horsie answered to the appeal, and the ragwort
remained the simple herb it was before. Again and again he called out
the magic formula in tones now commanding and now entreating, and lastly
quite passionately, only there was no spur nor whip that could move the
ragwort to serve as his horse. He now perceived old Sandy had tricked
him after all, and sent him to Elf-land without giving him the means of
coming back. So there was nothing for it but to trudge all the way back
on foot,--and a long way it was I can tell you! It is true Gilbert
retained a hope that kept up his spirits a good while, that he should
still find some of the right sort of ragwort, and accordingly in each
new district he came to, he industriously gathered some specimens to try
the experiment, but with no better success. And after each fresh
disappointment, he could not help saying to himself: "I wish I had given
Sandy a lift, and then I should never have got into this scrape." The
worst of it was that Gilbert had scarcely any money about him, and when
that little was spent, he was at his wit's end to know how to pay his
way home. Luckily he still had the fiddle, and though he could not play
a single tune, its tones were so sweet that people liked to hear them,
and village children enjoyed having a scrape upon it, so that he always
managed to get a night's lodging and a supper as he journeyed along, and
even to get carried across the sea, for the sailors said it was as good
as listening to a mermaid.

When at last he reached home, he hung up the fiddle in his cottage, but
that same night it cracked right through with a loud moan, and fell in
shivers on the floor. Gilbert tried to mend it, but he never could
manage to restore it to its right shape again. It was like a puzzle that
baffles a child's attempts to put it together. However, he made a sort
of box of it, something like an Eolian harp, across which he stretched
the golden strings, and whenever the wind blew from Elf-land they would
play sweet mournful tunes, as the instrument lay on the window-sill.

For years Gilbert had a hankering to return to Elf-land and see a little
more of