"Why, do you not know that they are pixie circles, where the 'elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves' hold their revels, whirling in giddy round, and making the rings, 'whereof the ewe not bites'? Have you forgotten how Mrs. Quickly, in the Merry Wives of Windsor, tells us that
"'nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,
Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring:
The expressure that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile-fresh than all the field to see'?
"If we are magicians and work spells under magic glasses, why should not the pixies work spells on the grass? I brought you here to-day on purpose to see them. Which of you now can name the pixie who makes them?"
A deep silence followed. If any knew or guessed the truth of the matter, they were too shy to risk making a mistake.
"Be off with you then," said the Principal, "and keep well away from these rings all day, that you may not disturb the spell. But come back to me before we return at night, and perhaps I may show you the wonder-working pixie, and we may take him home to examine under the microscope."
The day passed as such happy days do, and the glorious harvest moon had risen over the distant tors before the horses were spanned and the waggons ready. But the Principal was not at the starting place, and looking round they saw him at the farther end of the dell.
"Gently, gently," he cried, as there was one general rush towards him; "look where you tread, for I stand within a ring of fairies!"
And then they saw that just outside the green circle in which he stood, forming here and there a broken ring, were patches of a beautiful tiny mushroom, each of which raised its pale brown umbrella in the bright moonlight.
"Here are our fairies, boys. I am going to take a few home where they can be spared from the ring, and to-morrow we will learn their history."