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“Help! help!” he cried as he struggled to get free, and a night-hawk that was out in a search of a supper flew down to see what the matter was.

“Oh, ho!” said he when he saw who it was. “Fairy folk like to have all things their way, but ’tis my turn now to have a little fun.”

And he plucked Pease-Blossom from out the thorns and flew away with him in his bill.

Up and down, so high that the trees below looked no taller than corn stalks, and so low that their branches brushed his wings, he flew, till Pease-Blossom was faint from dizziness.

“See what a great moth the hawk has in his bill,” cried an owl that they passed.

“‘Tis no moth but a bug,” said a whip-poor-will.

“Such an enormous gnat should make a meal for two,” whispered a brother hawk, flying close.

“Simpleton! Do you not know a fairy when you see one?” said the night-hawk who could keep quiet no longer.

But no sooner had he opened his bill to speak his very first word than out tumbled Pease-Blossom.

The other hawk made haste to catch the fay but before he could reach him a fine breeze came blowing by.

“Is this not my little playmate, Pease-Blossom, who likes so well to ride on the grasses and rock in the flowers?” asked the breeze; and it whisked the little fairy away and bore him along so fast that no bird could keep up with him.

They were at the Silver Sea in the twinkling of a star, and Pease-Blossom was just beginning to think that his troubles were ended, when the breeze died away as quickly as it had come, and the little fay found himself in the sea before he knew what was happening.

Fortunately for him a great tarpon fish came swimming by just then.

“Catch fast hold of my tail, and I will take you safely to shore,” said he; and Pease-Blossom lost no time in doing as he was bid.

Ugh! How salty the water was and how the billows roared as the fish plunged through them, sending the white spray far above his head!

Poor Pease-Blossom was more dead than alive when they reached the shore, but as soon as he had gotten his breath again he said to his new friend:

“If you will come with me to fairyland you may swim in a stream as clear as glass. There is no salt in it, and no rough waves and every fairy in the dell will guard you from harm.”

“Water without salt! I cannot imagine it,” said the great tarpon. “And no waves! Why, I should die of homesickness there.”

So when Pease-Blossom saw that there was nothing he could do for him, he thanked him kindly, and turned his steps to the Giant’s castle which stood on a high hill close beside the sea just as the moon had said.

But Pease-Blossom’s wings were so wet and so weary that though he tried once, twice, and thrice he could not fly to the lowest window ledge of the castle; and what he would have done nobody knows had not a chimney-swift who was out late from home flown by just then.

She lived in the castle chimney and when she heard what the little fay wanted she offered to carry him to her nest.

“Once there all will be easy,” she said; “for there is no better way to get into the castle than through the chimney.”

So Pease-Blossom seated himself between the swift’s wings, and up they went to the top of the chimney and then down through the opening to the swift’s home, which looked as if it were only half of a nest fastened against the wall.

“If you will come with me to fairyland,” said Pease-Blossom when he saw this, “you shall have the greenest tree in the wood for your home. And the fairies will help you to build a whole nest there.”