Grimes looked up; and Tom looked up too; for the voice was that of the Irishwoman who met them the day that they went out together to Harthover.  “I gave you your warning then, but you gave it yourself a thousand times before and since.  Every bad word that you said—­every cruel and mean thing that you did—­every time that you got tipsy—­every day that you went dirty—­you were disobeying me, whether you knew it or not.”

“If I’d only known, ma’am—–­”

“You knew well enough that you were disobeying something, though you did not know it was me.  But come out and take your chance.  Perhaps it may be your last.”

So Grimes stepped out of the chimney, and really, if it had not been for the scars on his face, he looked as clean and respectable as a master sweep need look.

“Take him away,” she said to the truncheon, “and give him his ticket of leave.”

“And what is he to do, ma’am?”

“Get him to sweep out the crater of Etna; he will find some very steady men working out their time there, who will teach him his business:  but mind, if that crater gets choked again, and there is an earthquake in consequence, bring them all to me, and I shall investigate the case very severely.”

So the truncheon marched off Mr. Grimes, looking as meek as a drowned worm.

And for aught I know, or do not know, he is sweeping the crater of Etna to this very day.

“And now,” said the fairy to Tom, “your work here is done.  You may as well go back again.”

“I should he glad enough to go,” said Tom, “but how am I to get up that great hole again, now the steam has stopped blowing?”

“I will take you up the back stairs, but I must bandage your eyes first; for I never allow anybody to see those back stairs of mine.”

“I am sure I shall not tell anybody about them, ma’am, if you bid me not.”

“Aha!  So you think, my little man.  But you would soon forget your promise if you got back into the land world.  I never put things into little folks’ heads which are but too likely to come there of themselves.  So come—­now I must bandage your eyes.”

So she tied the bandage on his eyes with one hand, and with the other she took it off.

“Now,” she said, “you are safe up the stairs.”  Tom opened his eyes very wide, and his mouth, too; for he had not, as he thought, moved a single step.  But, when he looked round him, there could be no doubt that he was safe up the back stairs, whatsoever they may be, which no man is going to tell you, for the plain reason that no man knows.

The first thing which Tom saw was the black cedars, high and sharp against the rosy dawn; and Saint Brandan’s Isle reflected double in the still, broad, silver sea.  The wind sang softly in the cedars, and the water sang among the caves:  the sea birds sang as they streamed out into the ocean, and the land birds as they built among the boughs; and the air was so full of song that it stirred Saint Brandan and her hermits, as they slumbered in the shade; and they moved their good old lips, and sang their morning hymn amid their dreams.  But among all the songs one came across the water more sweet and clear than all; for it was the song of a young girl’s voice.