Can they be a crew of foreigners shipwrecked in the Sound, who have strayed up here? If they are, they have been pretty quick about it. And really,' he thought as he glanced back over his shoulder and noticed them staring at him, 'they seem to find me as odd as I find them! And why do they all stroke their chins as they look at me? Is anything the matter with my chin? ' and as he put his hand up to feel it, he discovered that he had grown a beard a foot long.
By this time he had entered the village street and a group of children gathered at his heels. At that his eyes brightened and his face lost something of its half-puzzled, half -frightened expression. Here, at least, was something to which he was accustomed, but instead of the smiles and shouts of joy which formerly greeted him, these children hooted rudely, and pointed to his beard.
Then indeed Rip's heart began to fail within him. What was the matter that in one night everything had changed so, and nothing seemed as it was only yesterday? And now he came to think of it, after a single night the village appeared much bigger, and the fields that were green when he went up the mountain, were full of houses to-day. Even the very dogs did not know him, and perhaps that was worst of all.
'I am bewitched,' thought Rip. 'It can't all be that flagon.'
He turned to go to his own house, but the very road to it was altered, and he lost his way more than once. At last he struck into a path which he recognised, and he stopped for a moment expecting to hear his wife's voice scolding somebody. But all was still, and as he drew nearer he saw that the roof had fallen in, and the glass of the windows was broken. A half-starved dog was prowling round, and with a throb of joy Rip whistled and called to him, 'Wolf, Wolf! Come here, good dog!' but the dog snarled and showed his teeth before trotting away.
Was it Wolf, or not? Rip never knew.
Inside, the house was as desolate as without, and very unlike to what Rip had been accustomed to see it. Though
