And then the Stranger Child soared up far into the clouds. And the most marvellous thing happened! Behind the children there began a most horrid, fearsome buzzing and humming, snarling and growling, and, lo! Tutor Ink had changed into an enormous frightful-looking fly. And he began to fly upward heavily, following the Stranger Child.
Fanchon and Frederic, overpowered with terror, ran out of the wood, and did not dare to look up at the sky until they had got some distance away. And, then, when they did so, all that they could see, was a shining speck in the clouds, glittering like a star, and coming nearer and downward.
The star grew bigger and bigger, and the children could hear, as if it were, the call of a trumpet; and presently they saw that the star was really a splendid bird with shining purple plumage. It came dropping down to the wood, clapping its mighty wings, and singing loud and clear.
“Hurrah! Hurrah!” shouted Frederic. “That is a Purple Bird from the Fairy Court! He will bite Tutor Ink to death! The Shining Child is saved!—and so are we! Come, Fanchon, let us get home as fast as we can, and tell our father about it.”
WHAT THE COUNT DID TO TUTOR INK
The children burst into the house where their parents were sitting.
“Hurrah! Hurrah!” Frederic shouted. “The Purple Bird has bitten Tutor Ink to death!”
“Oh, Father dear, Mother dear!” cried Fanchon. “Tutor Ink is not Tutor Ink at all! He is really the wicked Mouche, King of the Gnomes; a monstrous fly, but a fly with clothes and shoes and stockings on!”
“Who on earth has been putting such nonsense into your heads?” asked the Countess.
And the parents gazed at the children in utter amazement, while they went oh to tell about the Stranger Child whose mother was a great Fairy Queen, and about the Gnome King, Mouche, and the Purple Bird.