The pace at which the steed travelled was a caution. Harry had once accompanied his father to Gawler by rail, but the speed of the train was like travelling on a bullock dray in comparison to the flying pace of that beast without a tail. How he held on to its back is a positive wonder. All he saw was the clear starlit sky above his head, rocking and rolling about like the waves at the Semaphore on a windy day. His poor feet ached with the cold, for his only covering was his night-gown, and his legs felt as though they didn’t belong to him. At length, just as he was beginning [[102]]to feel faint and giddy from exhaustion, the Rocking-horse stopped, and the bandage was removed from his eyes. Ah! what a sight he beheld. There was the Drum he had broken strutting about on legs like a human being, who came up to Harry with a haughty swagger, and said, “Boy, why did you break my head?”
“A JACK-IN-THE-BOX … CAME AND REVILED HIM.”
And then a Hoop came, and demanded, “why he was thrown aside in the lumber-room?” and a black Jack-in-the-box, whose scanty locks had been wantonly torn from his scalp, came and [[103]]reviled him; and, lastly, his late victim, the poor doll, made its appearance in a winding sheet, and began to reproach him for his cruelty.
The unfortunate boy seated himself on the ground and burst into tears, but the more he wept the more his tormentors jeered at him; and really the Drum and Robinson Crusoe seemed to incite the others to insult him; therefore was our poor Harry very miserable indeed. Growing tired of playing with him, or afraid of the cold wind, perhaps, his strange companions at last took their departure, and Harry was left alone.
Such companionship had been bad enough, but solitude was worse. He started up, and shouted with all his might, “Is there anybody about?” “I don’t know,” sighed the wind. “Which is the way home?” shouted Harry. “I don’t know,” chuckled the laughing jackass. “Where’s my mother?” screamed the boy. “I don’t know,” exclaimed a ’possum and a kangaroo together. Too frightened to speak any more, Harry groped his way along in the darkness. As day dawned he came to a very high hill, and here he saw his tormentors having some rare fun. The Doll had mounted the Rocking-horse, which was galloping round and round as they do in a [[104]]circus. While the Drum beat time, old Robinson Crusoe was waltzing with the Lady of the Lake; and Jack the Giant-killer played leap-frog with Mother Hubbard, Red Riding Hood and Little Jack Horner. Their merriment grew more fast and furious every moment, but the instant they espied our hero it ceased, and a deep silence fell upon them all.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” cried a Pop-gun, breaking the silence, “you are aware we have refrained from doing injury to this cruel boy, through the mediation of the ‘Old Woman who lived in a Shoe.’ We left him in peace to make his way home, and instead of doing so he has wantonly broken in upon our secret revelry, and so has forfeited all claim to our clemency. What shall we do with him?”
“Pitch him headlong from the cliff,” replied the Drum in a deep voice.
“It shall be done,” responded a chorus of voices.
Poor Harry, who had not spoken hitherto, now found his voice. “No, no! Spare me, good gentlemen; spare me!” he cried.