you and be rid of you, and then we'll have to send
back the real child, and all your own plan will be lost."

"And how will you carry out my plan without me?" Naggeneen asked.
"Don't I always tell you what to do? You'll want me a dozen times a
day."

"We'll not want you at all. You do tell us what to do and we do it
when we like, and it's small good ever came of it. And then, if we do
want anything of you, we know where to find you, and we'll easily come
to you. It's been done before. You was left in the place of a young
man that was taken away once before, and when the tribe that you was
with then wanted to talk to you they came to you, and we can do the
same if we like, but I don't think we shall like."

"That's just it," Naggeneen cried; "did you know about that time? This
time would be just like it. Do you know how they drove me off? I
couldn't help it then and I couldn't help it again. There's times when
it seems like there's a charm on me, and so there is, belike, and I
have to do a thing that it's bad for me to do. Do you know the whole
of it, how it was that time?

"It was a man that time, as you say, and not a child. Rickard the Rake
he was called, I remember, and a fine rake he was. Never a bit of work
would he do, but he'ld always be at every fair or wake or the like of
that. And so little good there was in him that the fairies in the rath
where I was then said: 'It's an easy thing it'll be stealing him away,
and serve him right, too, and he'll be handy for us, he's so good a
dancer.'

"I was ordered to be the one to be left in his place, though I knew no
good would come of it. And so one night, when he was dancing, we
struck him with a dart in the hip, and he fell down where he was. And
then, in all the bother and the noise that there was, it was easy to
get him away and to leave me in the place of him. So they took me up
and put me in bed and nursed me and did all they could think of for
me, and me all the time squirming and squealing, like it was dying I
was.

"They gave me everything I could think of to eat, and that was not so
bad, for I never lived better in my life; but it was worn out I was
getting, with lying there all the time and playing sick, and never a
chance to stir about or get any air or a minute to myself. And the
thing I was spoiling for was a tune out of the pipes or the fiddle.
Then they brought a fairy-man to look at me, and he said it was a
fairy and not Rickard at all that was