weet child, and so long
as you live with me on the hills, and love me and eall me mother,
you shall be happy, and everything you see, sleeping and waking,
shall seem strange and beautiful."

It was quite true that he was sweet to look at, very pretty with his
rosy-white skin deepening to red on his cheeks; and his hair curling
all over his head was of a bright golden chestnut colour; and his
eyes were a very bright blue, and looked keen and straight at you
just like a bird's eyes, that seem to be thinking of nothing, and
yet seeing everything.

After this Martin was eager to go to sleep at once and have the
promised dream, but his very eagerness kept him wide awake all day,
and even after going to bed in that dim chamber in the heart of the
hill, it was a long time before he dropped off. But he did not know
that he had fallen asleep: it seemed to him that he was very wide
awake, and that he heard a voice speaking in the chamber, and that
he started up to listen to it.

"Do you not know that there are things just as strange underground
as above it?" said the voice.

Martin could not see the speaker, but he answered quite boldly:
"No--there's nothing underground except earth and worms and roots.
I've seen it when they've been digging."

"Oh, but there is!" said the voice. "You can see for yourself. All
you've got to do is to find a path leading down, and to follow it.
There's a path over there just in front of you; you can see the
opening from where you are lying."

He looked, and sure enough there _was_ an opening, and a dim passage
running down through the solid rock. Up he jumped, fired at the
prospect of seeing new and wonderful things, and without looking any
more to see who had spoken to him, he ran over to it. The passage
had a smooth floor of stone, and sloped downward into the earth, and
went round and round in an immense spiral; but the circles were so
wide that Martin scarcely knew that he was not travelling in a
straight line. Have you by chance ever seen a buzzard, or stork, or
vulture, or some other great bird, soaring upwards into the sky in
wide circles, each circle taking it higher above the earth, until it
looked like a mere black speck in the vast blue heavens, and at
length disappeared altogether? Just in that way, going round and
round in just such wide circles, lightly running all the time, with
never a pause to rest, and without feeling in the least tired,
Martin went on, only down and down