Tom Tiddler's Ground

THEY were now quite close to the mountains, and the witch gave the order to come to earth. The catoplane floated gently down until it came to rest in a beautiful grassy spot all ringed round with trees.

The giant was standing just a little way off, looking around him.

"Can you see Him?" called the witch.

"Yes, He's just coming," cried the giant. "Coo-ee! Coo-ee!"—and he waved his great hand to some one.

The witch, George, Alexander, and the cats all sat down and waited. Presently a funny little man came running along through the trees. He had a queer wrinkled-up face, with a smile in one corner of his mouth. He wore a high sugar-loaf hat with a bunch of feathers stuck in it, and a long golden cloak which floated behind him in the wind.

He stepped right into the middle of their circle, and, taking off his hat, made a low bow.

"Welcome!" he said, "welcome! I hope you are all quite well. So you want to follow your fortune?"—with a queer look out of the corner of his eye at George.

"Yes, please," replied George. "At least, I suppose I'm following it. I don't know where it is or where I am."

"To be sure!" chuckled the little man, sitting down suddenly as if he worked with springs. "Well, of course, you're here!"

"I know that," laughed George.

"If you know that, why did you ask me?" said the little man, cocking his hat on one side. "You're here: you might be there, but you're not. Now you know all about it.... Would you like something to eat?"

"Oh yes, please!" cried George, "I should like some——" And he stopped for a moment to think what he would like.

"Ask for what you want," said the little man. "I expect it's here. There are all sorts of things lying about if one knows where to look for them."

George looked around him. "I don't see anything——" he began.

"Of course not!" snapped the witch. "How can you when you don't know what to look for."

George did not wait a moment. "A plate of roast beef and potatoes, and a large bone for Alexander, please!"

"Help yourself!" said the little man.

There, sure enough, was a large plate of beef on George's knees, and Alexander was contentedly gnawing a huge bone.

"I've got no knife and fork," said George, looking at his plate longingly.

"Why don't you ask for them?" grumbled the witch. "You don't expect knives and forks to come of themselves, do you?"

"A knife and fork, please!" He had hardly spoken when Golden Girl got up—where had she found them?—and handed him a knife and fork; just the right size too!

"Aren't you going to have something to eat?" asked George.

"By and by," replied the witch. "Perhaps I shall eat you if I get very hungry," and she smiled as if it were a good joke.

There never was such good roast beef, and George was quite sorry when it was all finished.

"Might I have some apple tart—and a spoon," he added quickly, just remembering in time.

The apple tart appeared from nowhere, and George, when he had finished it, said his grace to himself, so as not to make the others feel that they had had no lunch.

The little man had wrapped himself up in his cloak and was sitting quite still. Now he jumped up. "What is your fortune?" he asked George.

"I don't know. No one ever told me—unless, of course, it's money. Father always says he's going to make his fortune some day, and he means money. I should like lots of money."

"Lots of money, eh?"—and the queer little man smiled a queer little smile. "Well, you've come to the right place for that!" and they all burst out laughing.

Then the little man sang in a voice like a shrill tin whistle:

until the echoes answered: "Gold and silver! Gold and silver!"

George stared at him. "Are you Tom Tiddler?"

The little man bowed low. "At your service! This is my land. Make yourself at home, I beg you," and then sat down again.

"But I don't see any gold and silver," said George.

"Pick it up!" replied Tom Tiddler. "You'll see it quick enough then."

George bent down, and there, sure enough, in his hand was a lump of something sparkling in the light.

"Gold!" he cried, and he commenced to pick up more and more. He soon had a large heap by his side.

"How can I carry all this away?" he thought to himself.

Tom Tiddler jumped up and handed him a large sack.

"Oh, thank you!" and George shovelled all the gold and silver into it, while all the others sat watching him in silence. No one offered to help him, which he thought rather rude.

The sack was very heavy when he had filled it, and he could only just manage to lift it.

"Now that you've found your fortune, what are you going to do?" asked Tom Tiddler. "Go home, I suppose, and spend it." And they all laughed once more.

"I don't see anything to laugh at," said George. "I would go home, only I don't know my way."

"It's straight ahead until you get there, and then you stop," replied Tom Tiddler.

George thought this rather rude and not funny, so he turned and walked away a short distance. He felt as if he would like to cry, and began to wish he were at home again. Something cold touched his hand, and there was Alexander looking up at him, just in the old way, as if he were saying: "I'm here; don't mind what the others say. I'm always your friend."

George stooped down and patted him. "Dear old Alexander! Let us go back now. I don't like Tom Tiddler at all."

Alexander wagged his tail, but said never a word.

There was a sudden whirr—and there was the witch flying away far above their heads. George was rather glad, for he felt that he wanted only Alexander and nobody else.

Tom Tiddler came up to him again, and said with a bow: "May I show you the way, little master? You mustn't mind their laughter; you will understand better by and by. So many come here, following their fortunes like you, and don't even know what their fortunes are."

With another bow he turned and led the way up a rocky path which seemed to lead right into the heart of the mountains.

George followed him, carrying his bag. How heavy it was and how it hurt his shoulder! He got hot and then hotter, and at last, speaking half to himself, he said: "It is too heavy for me to carry.... I can't carry it any farther.... I'd sooner have no fortune at all if it's as difficult to take away as this is.... Oh, I wish it were gone!" Then, all in a moment, the sack no longer seemed to weigh anything. It might have been empty.

He felt so pleased and happy that he raced along after Tom Tiddler, but he could never quite catch him up, for the little man skipped along, jumping from rock to rock like a young goat. At last he gave a bigger jump than ever, and—hey presto!—like a Jack-in-the-box he was gone.

George rubbed his eyes. Yes, there was no doubt about it. Unless he had slipped through a hole in the ground or flown away, no one could tell what had become of him. He turned to Alexander, and was just going to ask him what they should do when he saw the great round face of the giant appear, as if it were floating in the air.

"This is a funny place," thought George. "One never knows what is going to happen next. Where did the poor old giant come from, I wonder."

"Hullo!" said the giant as he caught sight of them. "Hullo! Here you are at last. I've been waiting for you. They've all gone, I suppose."

"Yes, they've gone. How did you get here?" asked George.

"Oh, I'm just standing down in the valley below. I can put my head over the edge of the hill, and it's more comfortable for talking. Look over!"

George peeped over the edge of the cliff, and there, sure enough, below them in the valley were the great feet belonging to the giant. They looked, so far off were they, as if they must belong to some one else.

It was quite a long time before the giant spoke again. "Let us talk. You do want to talk, don't you? I was just thinking over one or two stories to tell you—not the whole of my life, you know—that's very long, as I told you before. It's a queer thing about stories. They grow just as you and I do. Every time I tell a story I find that it has grown longer. Some of them, so I've been told, have no end."

"Oh," said George, "but they must have an end, however long they are! They generally end with 'and so they married and lived happily ever after.'"

"I never heard that kind of story. It couldn't end that way if you were telling a story about a sausage. Sausages don't marry, do they?" And the giant laughed until all the echoes joined in with "Ha, ha! Ho, ho!"

"Is the story you are going to tell me about a sausage?" asked George.

The giant did not reply, but after a short pause he began: "Once there was a sausage. It was the most beautiful sausage I ever saw. Everybody loved it. It belonged to a prince who was very, very rich. He had so many sausages that he was never able to count them, and he had to go long past twelve times in the multiplication table even then.

"This sausage was large, round, and covered all over with gold paper to keep it from catching cold. It was rather delicate when it was young, but as it grew up——"

"Sausages don't grow up!" exclaimed George in surprise.

"Don't interrupt me," answered the giant. "As it grew up it became stronger and more beautiful every day. The prince was never tired of looking at it and admiring it.

"One day he thought it was time for him to get married, and so he wrote a letter to a lovely princess who lived not far away, and asked her if she would accept his hand and his sausages.

"The princess, however, was not very fond of sausages. She had once been ill after eating them, and had never cared for them since. So she wrote back and said that she was very sorry but she could not accept his kind invitation.

"The prince became very sorrowful when he received her letter, for she was a beautiful princess—almost as beautiful as his sausage. So he made up his mind to go and see where he could find a wife who would like both him and his sausages.

"He mounted his horse and rode away," continued the giant in a slow, sleepy voice, and George closed his eyes for just one minute, he felt so drowsy....