"Pease-Blossom in his trust did fail;
And he must seek the nightingale,"
she said; and no sooner had she spoken than the little fay bade his companions good-bye and hastened out upon his quest alone.
The goblins had left no trace behind them and Pease-Blossom wandered hither and thither over dewy fells and fields asking of every piping cricket and brown winged bat he met: "Passed the goblins this way?"
No one could aid him, and he was ready to drop from weariness and sorrow when the moon came over the hill and called:
"Whither away, Pease-Blossom? Whither away?"
"In quest of the nightingale that the goblins have stolen; but where they have taken her I cannot find," answered the little fay sadly.
Then said the moon: "Many a nightingale there is in the wide world, both free and caged, and how may I know yours from any other? But this I can tell you: through a window in the castle of the Great Giant, which stands upon a high hill beside the Silver Sea, I spy a nightingale in a golden cage which was not there when I shone through that same window yester eve; and moreover, at the World's End, which is beyond the Giant's castle, I see a band of goblins counting money."
"A thousand thanks to you, oh moon," cried Pease-Blossom joyfully when he heard this; for he could put two and two together as well as any fay in fairyland, and he did not doubt that the goblins had sold the nightingale to the Great Giant.
"I shall be at the castle before you shine in the dell," he called to the moon as he flew swift as a humming bird through the air.
But when he reached the hedge of thorns that guarded the palace of a lovely princess who was next neighbor to the Giant, he tripped against a candle-fly that was hurrying to an illumination in the palace, and tumbled headlong into the thorns.