“Well, let me sit on your shoulder and I’ll go with you and show you a short way home,” said Goodfellow; “I know all about it, so you needn’t think about yourself again.  In fact, we’ll talk about the party.  Just blow your whistle, and the swine will go ahead.”

Fairyfoot did so, and the swine rushed through the forest before them, and Robin Goodfellow perched himself on the Prince’s shoulder, and chatted as they went.

It had taken Fairyfoot hours to reach the place where he found Robin, but somehow it seemed to him only a very short time before they came to the open place near the swineherd’s hut; and the path they had walked in had been so pleasant and flowery that it had been delightful all the way.

“Now,” said Robin when they stopped, “if you will come here to-night at twelve o’clock, when the moon shines under this tree, you will find me waiting for you.  Now I’m going.  Good-bye!” And he was gone before the last word was quite finished.

Fairyfoot went towards the hut, driving the swine before him, and suddenly he saw the swineherd come out of his house, and stand staring stupidly at the pigs.  He was a very coarse, hideous man, with bristling yellow hair, and little eyes, and a face rather like a pig’s, and he always looked stupid, but just now he looked more stupid than ever.  He seemed dumb with surprise.

“What’s the matter with the swine?” he asked in his hoarse voice, which was rather piglike, too.

“I don’t know,” answered Fairyfoot, feeling a little alarmed.  “What is the matter with them?”

“They are four times fatter, and five times bigger, and six times cleaner, and seven times heavier, and eight times handsomer than they were when you took them out,” the swineherd said.

“I’ve done nothing to them,” said Fairyfoot.  “They ran away, but they came back again.”

The swineherd went lumbering back into the hut, and called his wife.

“Come and look at the swine,” he said.

And then the woman came out, and stared first at the swine and then at Fairyfoot.

“He has been with the fairies,” she said at last to her husband; “or it is because he is a king’s son.  We must treat him better if he can do wonders like that.”

[Illustration:  “WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH THE SWINE?” HE ASKED.]

PART II

In went the shepherd’s wife, and she prepared quite a good supper for Fairyfoot and gave it to him.  But Fairyfoot was scarcely hungry at all; he was so eager for the night to come, so that he might see the fairies.  When he went to his loft under the roof, he thought at first that he could not sleep; but suddenly his hand touched the fairy whistle and he fell asleep at once, and did not waken again until a moonbeam fell brightly upon his face and aroused him.  Then he jumped up and ran to the hole in the wall to look out, and he saw that the hour had come, and the moon was so low in the sky that its slanting light had crept under the oak-tree.