rheard Pepe and Nonna relate,
and all that he had coaxed out of them by his questions. He had fallen
into the hands of the evil spirit, Misdral, and now the real misfortune,
which had threatened him ever since his birth, was to begin. He was
freezing cold, and very hungry, and as he thought of the beautiful
gardens at home, of the well-spread table in his father's castle, at
which he used to sit so comfortably in his high-backed chair, and of the
well-fed lackeys, he felt quite faint.

He also realized what terrible anxiety his absence would cause his
mother. He could see her running about, weeping, with her hair in
disorder, seeking him every where.

When he was smaller she had often taken him into her bed and played
"Little Red Riding Hood" with him, and he said to himself that for
that and many succeeding nights she would find no rest on her silken
cushions, but would wet them with her tears. These recollections brought
him to the verge of weeping, but the next instant he stamped his foot
angrily, in rage against his weakness.

He was only thirteen years old, but he was a true Greylock, and fear and
cowardice were as unknown to him as to his ancestor, Wendelin I. So
when he heard the voice of the wicked Misdral again, and listened to the
curses which it heaped upon his family, George's anger grew so hot that
he picked up a stone, as the first Wendelin had done five hundred years
before, to hurl it in the monster's wrinkled face. But Misdral did not
show himself, and George had to give up the expectation of seeing him,
for he gathered from the conversation between the two spirits that,
owing to an oath which he had given to the fairy, Misdral dared not lay
hands on a Wendelin, and that, therefore, he had planned to starve him
(George) to death. This prospect seemed all the more dreadful to the boy
because of his hunger at that moment.

The cave was lighted by a hole in the roof of rocks, and as George
could cry no more, and had raged enough against himself and the wicked
Misdral, there was nothing further for him to do but to look about his
prison, and examine the stalactites which surrounded him on all sides.
One of them looked like a pulpit, a second like a camel, a third made
him laugh, for it had a face with a bottle-nose, like that of the chief
wine cooper at the castle. On one of the columns he thought he discerned
the figure of a weeping woman, and this made his eyes fill with tears
again. But he did not me