The fairy laughed and flapped her little wings. "Now you must not be afraid; it will all come out right in the end. When I said the ogre was dreadful, I meant he was ugly-looking: we fairies like everything beautiful. Shall I go on?"
"Oh yes, and please forgive me for stopping you."
"This ogre was ugly, with a shaggy head, a shaggy beard, and fierce eyes, and he lived all by himself in a great stone castle on the shore of a large lake. His principal pleasure consisted in tormenting everything and everybody he came near; but if he had any preference, it was for boys; to tease and ill-use them had the power of affording him great happiness. Lazy, loitering little fellows were in especial danger, for he would catch them quite easily by throwing over their heads the nets he used in fishing, drag them off to his castle, and keep them in a dungeon until there would be no chance of discovery, and the boys' parents would think them lost forever. Thus he would gain a very useful, active set of laborers for a stone wall he was building, for so afraid were they of his displeasure, and so fearful that they might be starved, since the only food they received was dried and salted fish, that these boys worked like bees in a hive, only it was a sullen, painful sort of working, for they never sang or shouted, whistled or talked, and they were thin and wretched, and more like machines than boys.
"Now in this lake, on the shore of which was the ogre's castle, was an island, where lived a Princess whom the ogre had bewitched, but who had also regained her liberty, and near whom the ogre could never again come; even to land on her island or bathe in the water near would at once change him into a shark.
"This Princess, passing the ogre's castle in her beautiful swan-like sailing-boat, had seen the unhappy little boys at work on the stone wall; her sympathies had been aroused at so sad a sight, and she determined to wait her chance, and do what she could to relieve them. The chance came one day when the ogre had gone on a fishing excursion, from which he would not return till night. He had given the boys their rations of salt fish, and had commanded them in the gruffest tones to be sure and do an unusual amount of work in his absence, or they should all have chains on again; for when they were first caught he always chained them for fear they might try to escape; but they so soon lost all spirit and all desire for freedom that their chains were removed to enable them to work more easily.
APPROACH OF THE SWAN-LIKE BOAT.
"He had no sooner disappeared in his great clumsy craft laden with seines and harpoons, and baskets and jugs, than a whispering began among the boys, a sad sort of sighing and crying, almost like the whispering of wind in the tree-tops, which changed again to looks and glances of surprise as a beautiful vessel with silken sails floated up to the wharf, and a lovely gracious-looking lady clothed in white stepped from the boat, and came rapidly toward them.
"'Boys,' said she, addressing them in a very soft sweet voice, 'I have come to release you from this cruel bondage; will you trust me, and go with me?'
"'Yes, yes,' came from more than a dozen little tongues.