Then, before he could help himself, Peterkin had a dancing man, locked arms, on either side of him—and he was stamping, running, tripping, jigging along with them.
“Oh, heigh, stop! Let go of me—stop, stop!” he commanded, out of breath and red in the face.
“No, that’s just what we can’t do!” sighed the fat old chief. “We must dance on and on and on. Our legs are shot with pain, our lungs are like hot blasts, our feet are blistered and sore—but we cannot stop!”
Peterkin stumbled and fell flat. His two guides yanked him to his feet—then on and on in a breathless dance.
“Once,” went on the hoarse and puffing chief, “we were the happiest of all the Four Kingdoms. We were just plain, sensible, walk-along folk. We loved to rest and doze in the heat of the noon. We loved to lie about and let our fields grow of themselves with rich wheat and tasselled corn. We were content to take our ease.
“Then, one lazy noon, there came into our midst—I don’t know whence—a toothless man.”
“What a villain this toothless enemy must be!” thought Peterkin, remembering all that had gone before.
“He was a genial farmer, it seemed to us,” continued the breathless chief, as they whirled along the road, uphill, downhill, in their ceaseless jig. “He lay down with us in the shade of the trees and looked out across our fields and sucked his pipe through his toothless gums.
“‘Ah, this is rare comfort!’ he said in a cheery voice. ‘You seem to be a happy valleyful here.’