entertainment was being provided for them; then measures were passed through the iron bars of the gate to them, and these they raised to their lips.  At this the shepherd boy ran swiftly up the steps, approached the door, and pressed three times, quick as a pulse-beat, the third toe of the fourth water nymph, and immediately from a secret cavity in the knob a curious little golden key was shot forth.  This the shepherd boy seized, flew down the steps, and scaled over the town wall.  He ran to the great well and stooped over the lid.  He could hear the Seven Sisters twisting and worming and striving beneath it, little cries of pain breaking from them.  Overhead the moon was shining down on the well.

“O Seven Sisters,” said the Shepherd boy, “I have come to give you to your lover.”

He could hear a great cry of joy down in the well.  He put the key in the lock, turned it, and immediately there was the gliding and slipping of one steel bar after another into an oil bath.  The great lid slowly revolved, moving away from over the well.  The Seven Sisters did the rest.  They sprang with a peal of the most delirious laughter—­laughter that was of the underground, the cavern, the deep secret places of the earth, laughter of elfs and hidden rivers—­to the light of the moon.  The shepherd boy could see seven distinct spiral issues of sparkling water and they took the shape of nymphs, more exquisite than anything he had ever seen even in his dreams.  Something seemed to happen in the very heavens above; the moon reached down from the sky, swiftly and tenderly, and was so dazzling that the shepherd boy had to turn his face away.  He knew that in the blue spaces of the firmament overhead the moon was embracing the Seven Sisters.  Then he ran, ran like the wind, for already the water was shrieking down the streets of the town.  As he went he could see lights begin to jump in dark windows and sleepy people in their night attire coming to peer out into the strange radiance outside.

As he reached the drawbridge he saw that the men had already lowered it, and there was a great rustling noise and squealing; and what he took to be a drift of thick dust driven by the wind was gushing over it, making from the town.  A few more yards and he saw that it was not thick brown dust, but great squads of rats flying the place.  The trumpets were all blowing loud blasts when he reached the mansion of the Keeper of the Key, the guards with their spears pressing out under the arch of the courtyard, and servants coming out the doors.  The great oak door flew open and he saw the Keeper of the Key, a candle in his quaking hand.  A great crying could now be heard coming up from the population of the town.  The water was bursting open the doors of the houses as if they were cardboard.

“O Keeper of the Key,” cried the shepherd boy, “the Seven Sisters are abroad.  I am obeying your command and returning to the swine on the hills.  The despised Sunnach will be in the dreams of many to-night!”