164 BEYOND THE BLUE MOUNTAINS.

don’t feel very happy at doing it, but even Mrs. Discipline said that
it would be dangerous for me to be on that steep hill in the dark.
She said the Wild Men of the Woods might find me.”

“Oh, oh, oh! You'll kill me if you say any more,” said Feather-
pate. “T’ll die of laughing! The Wild Men of the Woods! And
did she really frighten you with that bogey tale?”

“ Tt didn’t sound at all like a bogey tale,” said Buttercup ; “andI
think it is awfully rude of you, Featherpate, to laugh the way you
do. Iam quite determined to go to Mr. Penalty’s, but if there are
stairs leading from your marble halls to his house, it may be safer for
me to go that way than to climb the steep hill all by myself in the
dark.”

“Not a doubt on that point,” said Featherpate. ‘Here, take my
hand, and let us run to the door in the side of the hill. We'll soon
be out of all this wind and snow, and what a jolly game we’ll have in
the marble halls!”

“Oh! I must go to Mr. Penalty’s.”

“So you shall, but those stairs are such a short cut that we shall
have plenty of time for a game first. Now come along; be quick,
don’t loiter any more.”

Buttercup gave his hand to Featherpate.

Oh, what a slight touch Featherpate’s seemed—not a proper grasp
at all, and yet there was a strength about it which pulled Buttercup
over the ground so quickly that he could scarcely keep his feet.

Another moment, and he would have reached the door in the side
of the hill; an instant longer, and he would have been inside it, lost
for ever to his mother and Primrose, when suddenly something
happened.

This was neither more nor less than a sharp little mocking
“Ha-ha!” It seemed to come down out of the sky, and struck with
great distinctness on the little boy’s ears.

Featherpate did not hear the mocking laugh at all, but Butter-
cup did.

In an instant he remembered the Green Lady, and the many
dangers from which he had already escaped; in an instant, too, the