Page:Stories and story-telling (1915).djvu/239

 invisible cloak, and tumbled down, pulling the cloak over him. There he lay, hardly daring to breathe.

"What was all that noise about?" asked the goblin gruffly, coming into the kitchen.

But as he could see nothing amiss, he went grumbling upstairs again, while the shoes took Blunder up chimney, and landed him in a meadow, safe enough, but so miserable! He was cross, he was disappointed, he was hungry. It was dark, he did not know the way home, and, seeing an old stile, he climbed up, and sat down on the top of it, for he was too tired to stir. Just then came along the South Wind, with his pockets crammed full of showers, and, as he happened to be going Blunder's way, he took Blunder home. The boy was glad enough of this, only he would have liked it better if the Wind had not laughed all the way. For what would you think, if you were walking along a road with a fat old gentleman, who went chuckling to himself, and slapping his knees, and poking himself, till he was purple in the face, when he would burst out in a great windy roar of laughter every other minute?

"What are you laughing at?" asked Blunder, at last.

"At two things that I saw in my travels," answered the Wind; "a hen, that died of starvation, sitting on an empty peck-measure in front of a bushel of grain; and a little boy who sat on the