“But me no buts,” thundered the miller. “Go, sirrah, for this house is yours no more.”
“But whither, father?” asked bewildered Valentine.
“That, sirrah, is your affair,” replied the angry miller. “Go anywhere you please; go find the Husbandman of the Hills!”
And with this last bit of advice, the wrathful water-miller pushed his son out of the mill and drew the long, grinding bolt across the door. A moment later the single light went out, and the mill was dark.
And now Valentine, in search of shelter for the night, sought out a farm in the gloom of the wooded hills. Leaving the broad white road, he followed first a country lane, then a pathway winding through a great woodsy mire, and then another lane, softly carpeted with moss and last year’s fallen leaves.
A star fell from the twinkling heavens; a hunting owl hooted in a tree. Ever so far away a silver bell struck the midnight hour.
Suddenly Valentine knew that he had followed a strange path, and was lost in the heart of the hills. It was a very strange path indeed, for the trees and the brambles along it seemed to have grown together in the dark, and pressed forward to form a thick imprisoning wall.
Uneasy at heart, the youth now turned to retrace his steps, only to see that the same mysterious trees had risen up behind!
Hours passed. Stars that were high in the heavens vanished over treetops in the east, a silvery dawn began to pale, and there were chirps and stirs and peeps and feathery noises in the wood. At the rising of the sun, Valentine arrived at the farm of the Husbandman of the Hills.
Now the Husbandman of the Hills—I must tell you—was the farmer of the fairies. It was from this farm in the hills that the goblins of the mountain-tops, the elves of the silver river, and the peoples of the fairy kingdoms of the world had their apples and clotted cream, their cherries and plums, and their butter-pats stamped with a crown.