They went together into the great hall, and there Tur-il-i-ra sat down before the fire. His wife, who thought a great deal of the good Giant, was sorry to see that he was silent and rather grum.
"What makes you look so, my dear?" said she. "Did you not have a good time?"
"O yes," said he, "good enough,--but that gate put me out. I wonder what's the matter with it. It's got to be fixed. I won't be bothered and worried in this way."
"It shall all be made right in the morning," said his wife. "But are you sure you did not take anything that disagreed with you while you were away?"
"Perhaps I did," said he. "It might have been the mince-pies. They told me they were temperance pies, but I don't believe it."
"How many did you eat, my dear?" asked the good Giantess.
"Well, I don't know," said her husband. "About ten or eleven hundred, I suppose."
"That was too many for you," said his wife. "And I think you had better go to bed, and I will bring you something to make you feel better."
So the Giant went to bed, and as he slowly ascended the stairs, he winked to himself with his right eye. And his wife, she went into the kitchen, and winked to herself with her left eye.
After a while she came up to the Giant, and brought a barrel of hot chamomile tea; and when he had drank it all, she tucked him in, nice and warm, and the next morning he felt as well as ever.
One pleasant sunny day, the Giant Tur-il-i-ra was lying on his back on the grass, under some great trees, in a wood near the palace of the King.
His feet were high above the rest of his body, resting in the crotch of a great oak-tree, and he lay with his vest open and his hat off, idly sucking the pith from a young sapsago-tree that he had just broken off. Near him, on the top of a tall bulrush, sat the little fairy Ting-a-ling. They had been talking together for some time, and Tur-il-i-ra said, "Ting-a-ling, you must come and see me. You have never been to my castle except when you came for the good of somebody else. Come now for yours and mine, and stay at least a week. We will have a gay old time. Will you come?"
"I will," cried the little fairy, in a voice as clear as the chirp of a cricket. "I'll come whenever you say so."
"Let it be to-morrow, then," said the Giant. "Shall I fetch you?"