tain-goat; and his strength was put to the
task of threshing rye, grinding oats and corn, or drawing water from a
brook.

Every night, troops of gay fairies and plodding brownies stole off on a
visit to the upper world, leaving Robin and his companions in
ever-deeper despair. Poor Robin! he was fain to sing--

"Oh, that my father had ne'er on me smiled!
Oh, that my mother had ne'er to me sung!
Oh, that my cradle had never been rocked,
But that I had died when I was young."

Now, there was one good-natured brownie who pitied Robin. When he took a
journey to earth with his fellow-brownies, he often threshed rye for the
laddie's father, or churned butter in his good mother's dairy, unseen
and unsuspected. If the little creature had been watched, and paid for
these good offices, he would have left the farmhouse forever in sore
displeasure.

To homesick Robin he brought news of the family who mourned him as dead.
He stole a silky tress of Janet's fair hair, and wondered to see the boy
weep over it; for brotherly affection is a sentiment which never yet
penetrated the heart of a brownie. The dull little sprite would gladly
have helped the poor lad to his freedom, but told him that only on one
night of the year was there the least hope, and that was on Hallow-e'en,
when the whole nation of fairies ride in procession through the streets
of earth.

So Robin was instructed to spin a dream, which the kind brownie would
hum in Janet's ear while she slept. By this means the lassie would not
only learn that her brother was in the power of the elves, but would
also learn how to release him.

Accordingly, the night before Hallow-e'en, the bonnie Janet dreamed that
the long-lost Robin was living in Elf-land, and that he was to pass
through the streets with a cavalcade of fairies. But, alas! how should
even a sister know him in the dim starlight, among the passing troops of
elfish and mortal riders? The dream assured her that she might let the
first company go by, and the second; but Robin would be one of the
third.

The full directions as to how she should act were given in poetical
form, as follows:

"First let pass the black, Janet,
And syne let pass the brown;
But grip ye to the milk-white steed,
And pull the rider down.

For _I_ ride on the milk-white steed,
And aye nearest the town:
Because I was a christened lad
They gave me that renown.