“How am I to get you?” asked Colin in a whisper, which sounded, after the sweet voice of the changeling, like the wind in a field of dry beans.
“The queen is so pleased with you that she is sure to offer you something. Choose me. Here she comes.”
Immediately he heard another voice, shriller and stronger, in front of him; and, looking about, saw standing on the edge of the bed a lovely little creature, with a crown glittering with jewels, and a rush for a sceptre in her hand, the blossom of which shone like a bunch of garnets.
“You great staring creature!” she said. “Your eyes are much too big to see with. What clumsy hobgoblins you thick folk are!”
So saying, she laid her wand across Colin’s eyes.
“Now, then, stupid!” she said and that instant Colin saw the room like a huge barn, full of creatures about two feet high. The beams overhead were crowded with fairies, playing all imaginable tricks, scrambling everywhere, knocking each other over, throwing dust and soot in each other’s faces, grinning from behind corners, dropping on each other’s necks, and tripping up each other’s heels. Two had got hold of an empty eggshell, and coming behind one sitting on the edge of the table, and laughing at someone on the floor, tumbled it right over him, so that he was lost in the cavernous hollow. But the lady-fairies mingled in none of these rough pranks. Their tricks were always graceful, and they had more to say than to do.
But the moment the queen had laid her wand across his eyes, she went on:
“Know, son of a human mortal, that thou hast pleased a queen of the fairies. Lady as I am over the elements I cannot have everything I desire. One thing thou hast given me. Years have I longed for a path down this