Now a meeting of the Welshery,
whether fairies or human, without music was a thing not to be thought
of. So, although at first some fairies grumbled and held back, and
were quite sulky about it, even muttering other grumpy words, they at
last all agreed, and Puck sent for the fiddler to make music for the
dance.
XVI
KING ARTHUR'S CAVE
In our time, every boy and girl knows about the nuts and blossoms, the
twigs and the hedges, the roots and the leaf of the common hazel bush,
and everybody has heard of the witch hazel. In old days they made use
of the forked branches of the hazel as a divining rod. With this, they
believed that they could divine, or find out the presence of treasures
of gold and silver, deep down in the earth, and hidden from human
eyes.
And, what boy or girl has never played the game, and sung the ditty,
"London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down," even
though nobody now living ever saw it fall?
Now, our story is about a hazel rod, a Welshman on London Bridge,
treasures in a cave, and what happened because of these.
It was in the days when London Bridge was not, as we see it to-day, a
massive structure of stone and iron, able to bear up hundreds of cars,
wagons, horses and people, and lighted at night with electric bulbs.
Pages:
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142