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The little man led Fairyfoot up to the nearest table, handed him one of the flagons, and said "Drink to the good company!"
Fairyfoot put him down, and stood and watched him while he walked forward with a very grand manner. He went straight to the gayest and largest group he could see. It was a group of gentlemen fairies, who were crowding around a lily of the valley, on the bent stem of which a tiny lady fairy was sitting, airily swaying herself to and fro, and laughing and chatting with all her admirers at once.
How was I to know how to build a nest! And the worst of it was the way she went on about it." "She!" said Fairyfoot "Oh, her, you know," replied the little man, ungrammatically, "my wife. She'd always been a robin, and she knew how to build a nest; she liked to order me about, too she was one of that kind. But, of course, I wasn't going to own that I didn't know anything about nest-building.
Fairyfoot wished himself safe in the forest again, or even keeping the sickly sheep; but the queen, being a prudent woman, said "I pray your majesty to notice what fine feet this boy has. There may be some truth in his story. For the sake of our only daughter, I will choose two maids who talk the least of all our train, and my chamberlain, who is the most discreet officer in our household.
Still kneeling before her, still bending his head modestly, and still blushing, Fairyfoot told his story. He told her of his own sadness and loneliness, and of why he was considered so terrible a disgrace to his family. He told her about the fountain of the nightingales and what he had heard there and how he had journeyed through the forests, and beyond it into her own country, to find her.
"Now you may go, poor robin!" he said, opening the cap: but instead of the bird, out sprang a little man dressed in russet-brown, and looking as if he were an hundred years old. Fairyfoot could not speak for astonishment, but the little man said "Thank you for your shelter, and be sure I will do as much for you.
She had so fair and tender a young face, and her large, soft eyes, yet looked so sorrowful, that Fairyfoot loved her in a moment, and he knelt on one knee, taking off his cap and bending his head until his own golden hair almost hid his face. "Beautiful Princess Goldenhair, beautiful and sweet Princess, may I speak to you?" he said. The Princess stopped and looked at him, and answered him softly.
"Her old skinflint of a father cut down the cedar which I loved best in the whole forest, and made a chest of it to hold his money in; besides, I never liked the princess everybody praised her so. But come, we shall be too late for the last dance." When they were gone, Fairyfoot could sleep no more with astonishment.
Once a year the undermost scullion was sent to see how he did, with a bundle of his next brother's cast-off clothes; and, as the king grew old and cross, it was said he had thoughts of disowning him. So Fairyfoot grew in Fleecefold's cottage.
Perhaps the country air made him fair and rosy for all agreed that he would have been a handsome boy but for his small feet, with which nevertheless he learned to walk, and in time to run and to jump, thereby amazing everybody, for such doings were not known among the children of Stumpinghame. The news of court, however, travelled to the shepherds, and Fairyfoot was despised among them.
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