It was a wanton trick, though, that these folk of malice used to play on a small school-boy, new kicked out of his nest into the draughty, uncomfortable outer world, his unfledged skin still craving the feathers whereinto he was wont to nestle. The barrack-like school, the arid, cheerless class-rooms, drove him to Nature for redress; and, under an alien sky, he would go forth and wander along the iron road by impassive fields, so like yet so unlike those hitherto a part of him and responding to his every mood. And to him, thus loitering with overladen heart, there would come suddenly a touch of warmth, of strange surprise. The turn of the road just ahead—that, sure, is not all unfamiliar? That row of elms—it cannot entirely be accident that they range just _so?_ And, if not accident, then round the bend will come the old duck-pond, the shoulder of the barn will top it, a few yards on will be the gate—it swings-to with its familiar click—the dogs race down the avenue—and then—and then! It is all wildly fanciful; and yet, though knowing not Tertullian, a _“credo quia impossibile”_ is on his tongue as he quickens his pace—for what else can he do? A step, and the spell is shattered—all is cruel and alien once more; while every copse and hedge-row seems a-tinkle with faint elfish laughter. The Fairies have had their joke: they have opened the wicket one of their own hand’s-breadths, and shut it in their victim’s face. When next that victim catches a fairy, he purposes to tie up the brat in sight of his own green hill, and set him to draw up a practical scheme for Village Councils.