"How did that window ever get changed into a round hole?" he asked the Goblin, pointing to it in great astonishment.
"Oh," said the Goblin, carelessly, "that's one of the circular singumstances that happen on a Believing Voyage. It's nothing to what you'll see before we come back again. Ah!" he added, "there comes the Colonel!"
Sure enough, at this moment the Colonel's head appeared through the flaps. The clock was still in his arms, and he seemed to be having a great deal of trouble in getting it through, and his head kept coming into view and then disappearing again behind the flaps in so ridiculous a manner that Davy shouted with laughter, and the Goblin smiled harder than ever. Suddenly
"NEXT CAME MARY FARINA." the poor little man made a desperate plunge, and had almost made his way out when the flaps shut to with a loud snap and caught him about the waist. In his efforts to free himself he dropped his clock to the ground outside, when it burst with a loud explosion, and the house instantly disappeared.
This was so unexpected, and seemed so serious a matter, that Davy was much distressed, wondering what had become of his dear old grandmother, and Mrs. Frump, the cook, and Mary Farina, the housemaid, and Solomon, the cat. However, before he had time to make any inquiries of the Goblin, his grandmother came dropping down through the air in her rocking-chair. She was quietly knitting, and her chair was gently rocking as she went by. Next came Mrs. Frump, with her apron quite full of kettles and pots, and then Mary Farina, sitting on a step-ladder with the coal-scuttle in her lap. Solomon was nowhere to be seen. Davy, looking
THE RABBIT TAKES LIBERTIES WITH DAVY'S PROPERTY. over the side of the clock, saw them disappear, one after the other, in a large tree on the lawn, and the Goblin informed him that they had fallen into the kitchen of a witch-hazel tree, and would be well taken care of. Indeed, as the clock sailed over the tree, Davy saw that the trunk of it was hollow, and that a bright light was shining far underground; and, to make the matter quite sure, a smell of cooking was coming up through the hole. On one of the topmost boughs of the tree was a nest with two sparrows in it, and he was much astonished at discovering that they were lying side by side, fast asleep, with one of his mittens spread over them for a coverlet. I am sorry to say that Davy knew perfectly well where the other mitten was, and was ashamed to say anything about it.
"I suppose my shoes are somewhere about," he said, sadly. "Perhaps the squirrels are filling them with nuts."
"You're quite right," replied the Goblin, cheerfully; "and there's a rabbit over by the hedge putting dried leaves into your hat. I rather fancy he's about moving into it for the winter."