230 WHISPERS FROM FAIRYLAND. [v.

John turned his head sheepishly round, too much
confused and ashamed to say anything to this request,
and Molly saw that it would fall upon her to deal with
it. The woman looked respectable, but then the
Witches had looked even more than respectable, and
she could not but feel misgivings, though she knew not
how to express them without appearing rude or un-
kind. So she backed the boat a little, and said in —
her own good-natured voice, ‘ Well, if so be that you
really wants to come along with us, there’s room
enough if you sit quiet.’

Without another word the person addressed
stepped into the boat, which John then mechanically .
pushed off, and Molly, who had thought it best that
she should herself take the oars, began steadily to row
towards the shore. But the boat appeared to be so
unusually heavy that she made but little progress, and
felt she was tiring herself for nothing.

‘Here! John, my man,’ she said, ‘do you take an
oar and lend a hand. She don’t go just as should
be.” The words were scarcely out of her mouth when
the young damsel, who had until that moment been
sitting quietly near to John, suddenly threw her arms
round his neck, shouted in a wild discordant voice,
“Come back, my Johnnie! ehaw! ehaw!’ and cap-
sized the boat before you could say Jack Robinson.

In a single instant Molly realised the state of
affairs. The crafty witch whom she had been foolish
enough to take on. board was guiding John by the
scruff of the neck towards the shore, sitting cosily on
his back, and making him swim as she did so. Mean-
time, at the head of a whole shoal of mackerel and