I suppose?" said the old woman.
"Down the road as straight as you can go, and you'll come to his hut,"
and she turned away to the children again.

Sidigunda took off her slipper, and poured out some drops from her
magic bottle.

Immediately it grew larger and larger; and she had just time to spring
in, before it galloped away with a series of bounds that made it very
difficult to cling on.

Faster and faster it went, until the country seemed only a flying
haze; and just as the Princess began to feel she could endure no more,
it stopped abruptly before a small hut.

Outside the door a boy sat on a stone seat, playing on a long horn
whose notes echoed among the rocky hills that surrounded him.

Princess Sidigunda looked at the boy with a friendly smile. He stopped
playing, and made room for her to sit down beside him.

"I knew you were coming," he said. "You want to go to the
Sea-grandmother, don't you?"

"Yes, I do!" said the Princess. "Do you live here all alone?"

"Why, of course," replied the Crab-herd, "I look after all the crabs
of the district. You may see me collect them if you like, for if I'm
to go with you now, I must shut them up safely before starting."

As he said this, he rose, and blowing a few notes on his horn, he
walked slowly along, followed by the Princess.

As the horn sounded, crabs of every size and colour came darting out
from the stones, and scuttled across the sand towards the Crab-boy.
There were red and green, yellow and brown, large and small--a
procession growing larger and larger, until it reached an enclosed
space, into which the boy guided it, and then shut the gate securely.

The Princess had dropped down to rest upon a conch-shell, in the shade
of some purple seaweed, and she looked up at the Crab-herd with her
large blue eyes, while he counted his crabs, and chased in one or two
of the stragglers.

"Is the Sea-grandmother's house far off?" she asked thoughtfully.

"Up in the great mountains, no distance from here. She lives in a
cave, with plenty of space for her knitting."

"Does she knit _much_?" enquired Sidigunda.

"Yes; she knits and spins too. She never leaves off; and never has for
hundreds and thousands of years."

"What a very old lady she must be! Old enough to be a
great-great-great-grandmother!" cried the Princess in astonishment.

"If you said three hundred '_greats_' you would be nearer the real
thing," remarked the Crab-boy. "But come now, follow me