her, and set it stiff and fast like dried
plaster. So, as we went up the narrow, perilous path, our horses had to
tread very warily lest, going too near the edge, they should chip off
enough of the foothold to send themselves and their riders whirling
neck-over-toes to the bottom.

All at once the Little Playmate, who was riding immediately before me,
screamed out sharp and shrill, and I hastened up to her, thinking she had
fallen upon a misfortune. I found her palfrey with ears pricked and
distended nostril, gazing at a head in a red nightcap which was set out
of a hole in the red clay.

"The country of gnomes! Of a surety, yes! And hitherto I had thought it
had been but the nonsense of folk-tales!" said I to myself.

Which is what we shall say one day of more things than
red-nightcapped heads.

But the Little Playmate uttered scream after scream, for the head
continued coolly to stare at her, as if fixed alive over the gateway by
the craft of some cave-dwelling imp of the Red Axe.

I noticed, however, that the head chewed a straw and spat, which I
deemed a gnome would not do--though wherefore straws and spitting are
not free to gnomes I do not know and could not have told. Yet, at all
events, such was my belief. And a serviceable one enough it was, since
it took the fear out of me and gave me back my speech. And when a man
can speak he can fight. Contrariwise, it is when a woman will not fight
that she can talk best, as one may see in any congress of two angry
vixens. So long as they rail there is but threatening and safe
recriminations, but when one waxes silent, then 'ware nails and teeth!
And I am _not_ in my dotage to use such illustrations--as not
unnaturally sayeth the first to read my history.

"Good man," cried I, to Sir Red Cap in the wall, "I know not why you
stick your ugly head out of the mud, but retract it, I pray you! For do
you not see that it alarms the lady and affrights her beast?"

The man nodded intelligently, but went on coolly chewing his straw.

Then I went up to him, and, as civilly as I could, took him by the chin
and thrust his head back into the hole. And as I did so I saw for the
first time that the wall of the clay cliff, tough and gritty with its
alloy of lime, had been cut and hewn into houses and huts having doors of
wood of exactly the same color, and in some cases even windows with
bars--very marvellous to see, and such as I have never witnessed
elsewhere. Presently, at the