Kitabı oku: «Tell Me a Story», sayfa 3
Chapter Four.
Con and the Little People
“They stole little Bridget For seven years long; When she came home again Her friends were all gone.”
There was once a boy who was a very good sort of a boy, except for two things; or perhaps I should say one thing. I am really not sure whether they were two things, or only two sides of the same thing; perhaps, children, you can decide. It was this. He could not bear his lessons, and his head was always running on fairies. You may say it is no harm to think about fairies, and I do not say that in moderation it is. But when it goes the length of thinking about them so much that you have no thought for anything else, then I think it is harm – don’t you? and I daresay that this had to do with Con’s hating his lessons so. Perhaps you will think it was an odd fancy for a boy: it is more often that girls think about fairies, but you must remember that there are a great many kinds of fairies. There are pixies and gnomes, and brownies and cobs, all manner of queer, clever, mischievous, and kindly creatures, besides the pretty, gentle, little people whom one always thinks of as haunting the woods in the summer time, and hiding among the flowers.
Con knew all about them; where he got his knowledge from I can’t say, but I hardly think it was out of books. However that may have been, he did know all about the fairy world as accurately as some boys know all about birds’ nests, and squirrels, and field mice, and hedgehogs. And there was one good thing about this fancy of Con’s; it led him to know a great many queer things about out-of-door’s creatures that most boys would not have paid attention to. He did not care to know about birds’ nests for the sake of stealing them for instance, but he had fancies that some of the birds were special favourites of the fairies, and it led him to watch their little ways and habits with great attention. He knew always where the first primroses were to be found, because he thought the fairies dug up the earth about their roots, and watered them at night, when every one was asleep, with magic water out of the lady well, to make them come up quicker, and many a morning he would get up very very early, in hopes of surprising the tiny gardeners at their work before they had time to decamp. But he never succeeded in doing so; and, after all, when he did have an adventure, it came, as most things do, just exactly in a way he had never in the least expected it.
Con’s home had something to do with his fancifulness perhaps. I won’t tell you where it was, for it doesn’t matter; and though some of the wiser ones among you may think you can guess what country he belonged to when I tell you that his real name was not Con, but Connemara, I must tell you you are mistaken. No, I won’t tell you where his home was, but I will tell you what it was. It was a sort of large cottage, and it was perched on the side of a mountain, not a hill, a real mountain, and a good big one too, and there were ever so many other mountains near by. There was a pretty garden round the cottage, and at the back a door opened in the garden wall right on to the mountain. Wasn’t that nice? And if you climbed up a little way you had such a view. You could see all the other mountains poking their heads up into the sky one above the other – some of them looked bare and cold, and some looked comfortable and warmly clad in cloaks of trees and shrubs and furze, but still they all looked beautiful. For the sunshine and the clouds used to chase each other over the heights and valleys so fast it was like giants playing bo-peep; that was on fine days of course. On foggy and rainy days there were grand sights to be seen too. First one mountain and then another would put on a nightcap of great heavy clouds, and sometimes the night-caps would grow down all over them till they were quite hidden; and then all of a sudden they would rise off again slowly, hit by bit, till Con could see first up to the mountain’s waist, then up, up, up to the very top again. That was another kind of bo-peep.
Summer and winter, fine or wet, cold or hot, Con used to go to school every day. He was only seven years old, and there was a good way to walk, more than a mile; but it was very seldom, very, very seldom, that he missed going. There were reasons why it was best for him to go; his father and mother knew them, and he was too good not to do what they told him, whether he liked it or not. But he was like the horse that one man led to the water, but twenty couldn’t make drink. There was no difficulty in making Con go to school; but as for getting him to learn once he was there – ah, no! that was a different matter. So I fear I cannot say that he was much of a favourite with his teachers. You see they didn’t know that his little head was so full of fairies that it really had no room for anything else, and it was only natural that they should think him inattentive and even stupid, and their thinking so did not make Con like his lessons any better. And with his playmates he was not a favourite either. He never quarrelled with them, but he did not seem to care about their games, and they laughed at him, and called him a muff. It was a pity, for I believe it was partly to make him play with other boys that his father and mother sent him to school; and for some things the boys couldn’t help liking him. He was so good-natured, and, for such a little fellow, so brave. He could climb trees like a squirrel, and he was never afraid of anything. Many and many a short winter’s afternoon it was dark before Con left school to come home, but he did not mind at all. He would sling his satchel of books across his shoulders, and trudge manfully home – thinking – thinking. By this time I daresay you can guess of what he was thinking.
There were two ways by which he could come home from school – there was the road, really not better than a lane, and when he came that way you see he had to do all his climbing at the end, for the road was pretty level, winding along round the foot of the mountain, perched on the side of which was Con’s home; and there was what was called the hill road, which ran up the mountain behind the village, and then went bobbing up and down along the mountain side still gradually ascending, away, away, I don’t know where to – up to some lonely shepherds’ huts I daresay, where nobody but the shepherds and the sheep ever went. But on its way it passed not very far from Con’s home. I need hardly say that the hill road was the boy’s favourite way. He liked it because it was more “climby,” and for another reason too. By this way, he passed the cottage of an old woman named Nance, of whom he was extremely fond, and to whom he would always stop to speak if he possibly could.
I don’t know that many boys and girls would have taken a fancy to Nance. She was certainly not pretty, and what is more she was decidedly queer. She was very very small, indeed the smallest person I ever heard of, I think. When Con stood beside her, though he was only seven, he really looked bigger than she did, and she was so funnily dressed too. She always wore green, quite a bright green, and her dresses never seemed to get dull or soiled though she had all her housework to do for herself, and she had over her green dress a long brown cloak with a hood, which she generally pulled over her face to shield her eyes from the sun, she said. Her face was very small and brown and puckered-up looking, but she had bright red cheeks, and very bright dark eyes. She was never seen either to laugh or cry; but she used to smile sometimes, and her smile was rather nice.
The neighbours – they were hardly to be called her neighbours, for her house was quite half-a-mile from any other – all called her “uncanny,” or whatever word they used to mean that, and they all said they did not know anything of her history, where she had come from, or anything about her. And once when Con repeated to her some remarks of this kind which he had heard at school, Nance only smiled and said, “no doubt the people of Creendale” – that was the name of the village – “were very wise.”
“But have you always lived here, Nance?” asked Con.
“No, Connemara,” she answered gravely, “not always.”
But that was all she said, and somehow Con did not care to ask her more.
It was not often he asked her questions; he was not that sort of boy for one thing, and besides, there was something about her that forbade it. He used to sit at one side of the cottage fire, or, in summer, on the turf seat just outside the door, watching Nance’s tiny figure as she flitted about, or sometimes just staring up at the sky, or into the fire without speaking. Nance never seemed to mind what he did, and he in no way doubted that she was glad to see him, though by words she had never said so. When he did speak it was always about one thing – what, you can guess, it was always about fairies. It was through this that he had first made friends with Nance. She had found him peering into the hollow trunk of an old solitary oak-tree that stood farther down the hill, not very far from her dwelling.
“What are you doing there, Connemara?” she said.
“I was thinking this might be one of the doors into fairyland,” he answered quietly, without seeming surprised at her knowing his name.
“And what should you know about that place?” she said again.
And Con turned towards her his earnest blue eyes, and told her all his thoughts and fancies. It seemed easier to him to tell Nance about them than it had ever seemed to tell any one else – his feelings seemed to put themselves into words, as if Nance drew them out.
Nance said very little, but she smiled. And after that Con used to stop at her cottage nearly every day on his way home – he dared not on his way to school, for fear of being late, for almost the only thing he always did get was good marks for punctuality. His people at home did not know much about Nance. He told his mother about her once, and asked if he might stay to speak to her; and when his mother heard that Nance’s cottage was very clean, she said, “Yes, she didn’t mind,” and, after that, Con somehow never mentioned her again. He came to have gradually a sort of misty notion that Nance had had something to do with him ever since he was born. She seemed to know everything about him. From the very first she called him by his proper name – not Con or Master Con, but Connemara, and he liked to hear her say it.
One winter afternoon, it was nearly dark though it was only half-past three, Con coming home from school (the master let them out earlier on the very short days), stopped as usual at Nance’s cottage. It was very, very cold, the fierce north wind came swirling down from the mountains, round and round, here, there, and everywhere, till, but for the unmistakable “freeze” in its breath, you would hardly have known whence it blew.
“It is so cold, Nance,” said the boy, as he settled himself by the fire. Nance’s fires always burnt so bright and clear.
“Yes,” said Nance, “the snow is coming, Connemara.”
“I don’t care,” said Con, shaking his shaggy fair hair out of his eyes, for the heat was melting the icicles upon it. “I’m not going to hurry. Father and mother are away for two days, so there’s no one to miss me. Mayn’t I stay, Nance?”
Nance did not answer. She went to the door and looked out, and Con thought he heard her whisper something to herself. Immediately a blast of wind came rushing down the hill, into the very room it seemed to Con. Nance closed the door. “Not long; the storm is coming,” she said again, in answer to his question.
But in the meantime Con made himself very comfortable by the fire, amusing himself as usual by staring into its glowing depths.
“Nance,” he said at last, “do you know what the boys at school say? They say they wonder I’m not afraid of you! They say you’re a witch, Nance!”
He looked up in her face brightly with his fearless blue eyes, and laughed so merrily that all the corners of the queer little cottage seemed to echo it back. Nance, however, only smiled.
“If you were a witch, Nance, I’d make you grant me some wishes, three anyway,” he went on. “Of course you know what the first would be, and, indeed, if I had that, I don’t know that I would want any other. I mean, to go to fairyland, you know.”
Nance nodded her head.
“The other two would be for it to be always summer, and for me never, never, never to have any lessons to learn,” he continued.
“Never to grow a man?” said Nance.
“I don’t know,” answered Con. “Lessons don’t make boys grow; but still I suppose they have to have them sometime before they are men. But I shouldn’t care if I could go to fairyland, and if it would be always summer; I don’t think I would care about ever being a man.”
As he said these words the fire suddenly sent out a sputtering blaze. It jumped up all at once with such a sort of crackle and fizz, Con could have fancied it was laughing at him. He looked up at Nance. She was not laughing; on the contrary, her face looked very grave, graver than ever he had seen it.
“Connemara,” she said slowly, “take care. You don’t know what you are saying.”
But Con stared into the fire again and did not answer. I hardly think he heard what she said; the warm fire made him drowsy, and the brightness dazzled his eyes. He was almost beginning to nod, when Nance spoke again to him, rather sharply this time.
“My boy, the snow is beginning; you must go.” Con’s habit of obedience made him start up, sleepy though he was. Nance was already at the door looking out.
“Do not linger on the way, Connemara,” she said, “and do not think of anything but home. It will be a wild night, but if you go straight and swift you will reach home soon.”
“I’m not afraid,” said Con stoutly, as he set off.
“I could wish he were,” murmured Nance to herself, as she watched the little figure showing dark against the already whitening hill side, till it was out of sight.
Then she came back into the cottage, but she could not rest.
Con strode on manfully; the snow fell thicker and thicker, the wind blew fiercer and fiercer, but he had no misgiving. He had never before been out in a snow-storm, and knew nothing of its special dangers. For some time he got on very well, keeping strictly to the path, but suddenly, some little way up the mountain to his right, there flashed out a bright light. It jumped and hopped about in the queerest way. Con stood still to watch.
“Can it be a will-o’-the-wisp?” thought he, in his innocence forgetting that a bleak mountain side in a snow-storm is hardly the place for jack-o’-lanterns and such like.
But while he watched the light it all at once settled steadily down, on a spot apparently but a few yards above him.
“It may be some one that has lost their road,” thought Con; “I could easily show it them. I may as well climb up that little way to see;” for strangely enough the thought of the fairies having anything to do with what he saw never once occurred to him.
He left the path and began to climb. There, just above him, was the light, such a pretty clear light, shining now so steadily. It did not seem to move, but still as fast as he thought he had all but reached it, it receded, till at last, tired, and baffled, he decided that it must be a will-o’-the-wisp, and turned to regain the road. But like so many wise resolutions, this one was more easily made than executed; Con could not find the road, hard though he tried. The snow came more and more thickly till it blinded and bewildered him hopelessly. Con did his utmost not to cry, but at last he could bear up no longer. He sank down on the snow and sobbed piteously; then a pleasant resting feeling came over him, gradually he left off crying and forgot all his troubles; he began to fancy he was in his little bed at home, and remembered nothing more about the snow or anything.
Nance meanwhile had been watching anxiously at her door. She saw that the snow was coming faster, and that the wind was rising. Every now and then it seemed to rush down with a sort of howling scream, swept round the kitchen and out again, and whenever it did so, the fire would leap up the chimney, as if it were laughing at some one.
“Frisken is at his tricks to-night,” said Nance to herself, and every moment she seemed to grow more and more anxious. At last she could bear it no longer. She reached a stout stick, which stood in a corner of the room, drew her brown cloak more closely round her, and set off down the path where she had lost sight of Con. The storm of wind and snow seemed to make a plaything of her; her slight little figure swayed and tottered as she hastened along, but still she persevered. An instinct seemed to tell her where she should find the boy; she aimed almost directly for the place, but still Connemara had lain some time in his death-like sleep before Nance came up to him. There was not light enough to have distinguished him; what with the quickly-approaching darkness and the snow, which had already almost covered his little figure, Nance could not possibly have discovered him had she not stumbled right upon him. But she seemed to know what she was about, and she did not appear the least surprised. She managed with great difficulty to lift him in her arms, and turned towards her home. Alas, she had only staggered on a few paces when she felt that her strength was going. Had she not sunk down on to the ground, still tightly clasping the unconscious child, she would have fallen.
“It is no use,” she whispered at last; “they have been too much for me. The child will die if I don’t get help. The only creature that has loved me all these long, long years! Oh, Frisken, you might have played your tricks elsewhere, and left him to me. But now I must have your help.”
She struggled again to her feet, and, with her stick, struck sharply three times on the mountain side. Immediately a door opened in the rock, revealing a long passage within, with a light, as of a glowing fire, at the end, and Nance, exerting all her strength, managed to drag herself and Con within this shelter. Instantly the door closed again.
No sooner had it done so, no sooner was Nance quite shut out from the outside air, than a strange change passed over her. She grew erect and vigorous, and the weight of the boy in her arms seemed nothing to her. She looked many years younger in an instant, and with the greatest ease she carried Con along the passage, which ended in a small cave, where a bright fire was burning, in front of which lay some soft furry rugs, made of the skins of animals. With a sigh Nance laid Con gently down on the rugs. “He will do now,” she said to herself.
The first thing Con was aware of when a sort of half-consciousness returned to him, was the sound of voices. He did not recognise either of them; he was too sleepy to think where he was, or to take in the sense of what he heard, but long afterwards the words returned to him.
“Of course we shall do him no harm,” said the first voice. “That is not our way with those who come to us as he has done. All his life he has been wishing to come to us, and we might bear you a grudge for trying to stop him.”
Here the speaker burst into a curious, ringing laugh, which seemed to be re-echoed by numberless other voices in the distance.
“You made him wish it,” answered some one – it was Nance – sadly.
“We made him wish it! Ha, ha! ha, ha! Did you ever hear anything like that, my dear friends? Why did his mother tie up his sleeves with green ribbon before he was christened? Answer that. Ha, ha! ha, ha!” And then there came another succession of rollicking laughter.
“It was to be, I suppose,” said Nance. “But you won’t keep him. I brought him here to save his life, not to lose his – ”
“Hush, hush; how can you be so ill-mannered?” interrupted the other. “Keep him? of course not, unless he wants to stay, the pretty dear.”
“But will you make him want to stay?” pleaded Nance.
“How could we?” said the other mockingly. “How could we influence him? He is a pupil of yours. But if you like to change your mind, you may come back instead of him. Ha, ha! ha, ha! what a joke!” And the laughter sounded as if the creatures, whoever they were, were holding their sides, and rolling about in the extremity of their glee. It faded away, gradually however, growing more and more indistinct, as if receding into the distance. And Con turned round on his side, and fell asleep more soundly than ever.
When at last he really awoke he found himself lying on a bed of soft moss, under the shade of some great trees, for it was summer time – summer evening time it seemed, for the light was subdued, like that of the sun from behind a cloud. Con started up in amazement, rubbing his eyes to make sure he was not dreaming. Where was he? How could it all be? The last thing he remembered was losing his way in the snow-storm on the mountain; what had become of the winter and the snow? He looked about him; the place he was in seemed to be a sort of forest glade; the foliage of the trees was so thickly interlaced overhead that only little patches of sky were here and there to be seen. There was no sunshine; just the same even, pale light over everything. It gave him again the feeling of being in a dream. Suddenly a sound caught his ears, it was that of running water; he turned in the direction whence it came.
It was the loveliest little brook you ever saw – “with many a curve” it wound along through the forest, and on its banks grew the most exquisite and wonderful variety of flowers. Flowers of every colour, but of shapes and forms Con had never seen before. He stood looking at them in bewildered delight, and as he looked, suddenly the thought for the first time flashed into his mind – “This is fairyland! I have got my wish at last. I am in fairyland!”
There was something, even to him, almost overwhelming in the idea. He could not move or speak, hardly even breathe. All at once there burst out in every direction, above his head, beneath his feet, behind him, in front of him, everywhere in fact, peals and peals of laughter – the clearest, merriest, most irresistible laughter you ever heard.
“It’s the fairies,” thought Con, “but where are they?”
Where were they? Everywhere. There came another shrill peal of laughter and up they sprang, all together, from every imaginable corner. There was not a branch of a tree, hardly even a twig, it seemed to Con, on which one was not perched. They poked up their comical faces above the clear water of the brook where they must have been hiding, though how he had failed to see them there the boy could not imagine; they started up from the ground in such numbers, that Con lifted carefully first one foot and then the other to make sure he was not tramping upon some of them; they actually swarmed, and Con could not make it out at all. Could they have only just come, or had they been there all the time, and had something wrong with his eyes prevented his seeing them before? No, he couldn’t make it out.
Were they like what he had expected to find them? Hardly, at least he was not sure. Yet they were very pretty; they were as light and bright and agile as – like nothing he could think of. Their faces seemed to be brimming over with glee; there was not a sad or anxious look among them. They were dressed in every colour of the rainbow, I was going to say, but that would not be true, for there were no brilliant colours among them. In every shade that you see in the woods in autumn would be more correct; the ladies in the soft greens and brown pinks and tender yellows of the fading leaves, the gentlemen in the olives and russet-browns and purples which give the deeper tints of autumn foliage – perhaps this was the reason that Con had not at first distinguished them from the leaves and the moss and the tree-roots where they had lain hidden?
He stood gazing at them in silence, wondering when they were going to leave off laughing. At last the noise subsided, and one fairy, who had been swinging on a bough just above Con’s head, slid down and stood before him.
“Welcome to fairyland, Connemara,” he said pompously. He was one of the tallest among them, reaching above Con’s waist. His face, like the rest, was full of fun, but it had a look of great determination too. “My name is Frisken,” he continued, “at least that’s one of my names, and it will do for you to use as well as any other, though up above there they have ever so many names for me. I am an old friend of yours, though you may not know it, and you will find it for your interest to please me. We’ve given up kings and queens lately, we find it’s better fun without; but, considering everything, I think I may say my opinion is considered of some importance. Elves, do you agree with me?”
They all raised a shout of approval, and Frisken turned again to Con. “Our laws are easy to keep,” he said, “you will soon know them. Your duties are comprised in one word, Play, and if ever you attempt to do anything else it will be the worse for you. You interrupted us in the middle of a dance, by-the-by. Elves, strike up the music.”
Then Frisken took Con’s right hand, and a lovely little maiden clad in the palest green, and with flowing yellow hair, took the other, and the fairies made themselves into dozens and dozens of rings, and twirled and whirled away to the sound of the gayest and most inspiriting music. Con had never enjoyed himself so much in his life, and the best of it was the more he danced the more he wanted to dance; he jumped and whirled and twirled as fast as any (though I have no doubt the fairies thought him rather clumsy about it), and yet without the very least feeling of fatigue. He felt as if he could have gone on for ever. Suddenly the elves stopped.
“Oh don’t stop!” said Con, who was beginning to feel quite at home, “do let’s go on. I am not a bit tired.”
“Tired,” said Frisken, contemptuously, “whoever heard such a word? How can you be so ill-mannered? Besides, mortal though you are, you certainly should not be tired. Why, you’re only just awake, and you slept long enough to last you at any rate for – ”
“For how long?” said Con, timidly.
But Frisken did not answer, and Con, who was rather in awe of him, thought it best not to press the enquiry. The fairies did not go on dancing, however. They were fond of variety, evidently, whether they ever got tired or not. They now all “adjourned” to another part of the forest, where a grand banquet was prepared. What the viands were, Con had no idea, but he little cared, for they were the most delicious he had ever tasted. He was not a greedy boy by any means, but he did enjoy this feast; everything was so charming; the fairies all reclined on couches made of the same soft green moss as that on which he had found himself lying when he first awoke, and all the time the invisible musicians played lovely, gentle music, which, had Con not winked violently, would have brought the tears to his eyes, for, somehow, it made him think of home, and wonder what his mother was doing, and whether she was in trouble about his absence. It did not seem to affect the fairies in the same way; they were chattering, and joking, and laughing, just as merrily as ever; once Con caught Frisken’s eye fixed upon him, and almost immediately after, the music stopped, and the games began. What wonderful games they were! I cannot tell you half of them; one favourite one you may have heard of before – they buried a seed a little way in the ground, and then danced round it in a circle, singing some queer wild words which Con could not understand. Then they all stood still and called to Con to look; he could hardly believe his eyes – there was the seed already a little plant, and even as he looked, it grew, and grew, and grew, up into a great strong tree; and as the branches rose higher and higher, the fairies caught hold of them and rose up with them into the sky, till the tree seemed to be covered with fruits of every shape and colour. Con had not recovered his amazement, when they were all down again, ready for something else. This time, perhaps, it would be the mouse game – a dozen or two of fairies would turn themselves into mice, and Frisken and one or two others into cats, and then what a chase they had! It puzzled Con quite as much as the seed game, for he was sure he saw Frisken gobble up two or three mice, and yet – in a moment, there they all were again in their proper fairy forms, not one missing! He wished he could ask Frisken to explain it, but he had not time, for now an expedition to the treasure caves was proposed, and off they all set, some riding on fairy piebald ponies about the size of a rocking-horse, some driving in mother-of-pearl chariots drawn by large white cats, some running, some dancing along. And, oh, the treasure caves, when they got there! All the stories Con had ever heard of – Aladdin, and genii and pirates’ buried riches, none of them came up to these wonderful caves in the least. There were just heaps of precious stones, all cut and polished, and, according to fairy notions, quite ready for wear. For they all helped themselves to as many jewels as they wanted, strung them together on silk, with needles that pierced them as easily as if they had been berries, and flitted about as long as the fancy lasted, wreathed in diamonds and rubies, and emeralds, and every sort of brilliant stone. And then when they had had enough of them, threw them away as ruthlessly as children cast aside their withered daisy-chains.
And so it went on without intermission; incessant jousts and revels, and banquets, constant laughter and joking, no pain, no fatigue, no anxiety. For the fairies live entirely and completely in the present, past and future have no meaning to their heedless ears, time passes as if it were not; they have no nights or days, no summer or winter. It is always the same in fairyland.
But some things puzzled Con sorely. Strangely enough, in this realm of thoughtlessness, he was beginning to think as well as to fancy, to wish to know the whys and wherefores of things, as he had never done before. Now and then he tried to question Frisken, who, he felt certain, knew all he wished to learn, but it was difficult ever to get him to explain anything. Once, I was very nearly saying one day, but there are no such things there – Con could keep no count of time, he could have told how many banquets he had been at, how many times they had been to the caves, how often they had bathed in the stream, but that was all – once, then, when Frisken seemed in a quieter mood than usual, Con tried what he could do.
