"There's something very queer about this book. It seems all in a muddle,
somehow!"
Then there was silence, and Christabel realized that the people in the
book had turned her out! She was no longer a little girl in a book, but
a little girl in real life. She looked round and saw her Big Sister,
still writing.
"I don't want to be in a book any more," said Christabel. "Real life is
nicer. In real life one can at least say what one thinks one's self,
instead of always saying what other people think."
"Don't be too sure of that," said her Big Sister.
_THE FAIRY WHO WAS LOOKING FOR A HOME_
Little Fairy Flitterwing had no home. Whenever he settled down in a
place something happened to turn him out. If he found a comfortable
rosebud some one would come and pick it, and then it died and he was
homeless again. If he chose a pink-edged daisy to live in, the gardener
would mow the lawn at once. He grew very tired of wandering about the
garden, and he determined at last to go out into the world in search of
a home.
It was quite a small garden, in the middle of a town. Flitterwing felt
rather afraid of venturing into the streets, because he knew there would
not be many fairies there, and not many nice places for a fairy to live
in. So he was a little sad and anxious as he flew over the high brick
wall of the garden and looked about him. He found himself in a queer
little yard, not nearly as nice as the garden, with a pavement of round
stones and an ugly brick house at one end of it. There never was a more
unlikely place for a fairy to find a comfortable home. Flitterwing was
on the point of flying back again over the garden wall, when he caught
sight of something green at the further end of the courtyard. Some grass
had grown up among the stones.
"The very place for me!" said Flitterwing to himself. "No one is likely
to disturb me here, and I can fly across to the garden whenever I feel
lonely."
So he found a cosy corner between two stones, where the grass was thick
and soft, and there he made up his mind to stay. It was not, of course,
the very best kind of place for a fairy, but, after all, it was quiet
and near his friends, and he was terribly tired of moving about from
rose to rose and from daisy to daisy. So he thought he would make the
best of it.
Very soon he felt quite at home in the grass-patch at the end of the
yard. Every morning, of course, he had to attend to the grass and see
that it was always fresh and green, for it is the business of every
fairy to take care of the place he lives in. He does it instead of
paying rent. Then, after polishing his wings nicely and making them
shine like opals, he would fly across the brick wall and have a chat
with the grass-fairies and flower-fairies in the garden.
His life went on in this quiet and comfortable way for some time.
But one morning poor Flitterwing received a great shock. He was very
busy cleaning the grass with a dewdrop, and thinking how strong and tall
the blades had grown since he first began to take care of them. They
were a good deal taller than himself now, and he was not able to see
over them. So, when he heard a heavy footstep clattering across the
yard, he peered between the blades of grass to see who was coming.
"Oh dear, oh dear," he cried, "here's that dreadful gardener! I'm sure
he's going to turn me out!"
He quickly dropped the crumpled cobweb soaked in dewdrop with which he
was rubbing the green blades, and folding his wings closely round him he
hid himself in the grass, and waited to see what was going to happen.
The gardener was carrying a basket in one hand, and in the other a tool
with dreadful prongs. He was going to pull up the grass that had grown
among the stones! Poor Flitterwing's nice new home was going to be
spoilt!
One by one the tufts were dragged up by the roots, while the sharp
prongs clinked against the stones and the gardener's fingers crumpled up
the blades of grass that had looked so green and fresh a few minutes
before. Flitterwing was terribly frightened.
"The sooner I get out of this the better," he said to himself, skipping
away from the gardener's big fingers. Then he spread his wings and flew
up and away, over the wall and over the garden and on and on. He went on
flying, flying, till all his friends were left far behind and he came to
strange streets such as he had never seen before. Still he went on
flying, flying. You see he was extremely anxious to be very far away
from the gardener with the big fingers and the terrible, sharp prongs.
At last he became dreadfully tired. It would be impossible, he felt, to
go on flying much longer, so he looked about him for shelter. He saw an
open window, and beyond it a large cool room. Here was shelter at all
events, so he flew straight in. There were a number of tables and chairs
in the room, and at each table a man sat writing; but Flitterwing was
too much frightened to see anything. He only wanted to find a place
where he could hide and rest. A large ink-pot stood on a table, and just
inside the ink-pot was a little ledge where a fairy might rest
comfortably. Flitterwing lost no time; he darted into the ink-pot and
sat down on the ledge. In a few moments he folded his tired wings about
him and fell fast asleep.
Now, the room into which Flitterwing had flown was a place where a great
deal of business was done. Every day a number of men sat there adding up
figures and writing letters about dull things that neither you nor I
could understand. If you have done many sums, you will agree with me
that no sensible man could really like spending all his time in adding
up pounds, shillings, and pence. Very few of the men in this big room
really liked it. Some of them wanted to be playing cricket or golf, some
would rather have been reading books or listening to beautiful music;
and every one of them was longing to be in the country among the flowers
and the fairies. And there was one among them--a little man with a pale
face and a thin coat--who wished above all things to be making poetry.
There were two good reasons against his doing this. In the first place,
he was obliged to earn money, and this is more easily done by adding up
figures than by making poetry; and in the second place, he did not in
the least know how poetry ought to be made.
On the sunny morning when Flitterwing took refuge in the ink-pot the Man
in the Thin Coat was very busy. There were rows and rows of figures
waiting to be added up, so that there seemed to be no end to them. A
large sheet of paper was before him on which he was doing these sums,
and the figures were arranged in terribly long columns--and no doubt you
know how unpleasant that is. Suddenly something glittered in the air for
a moment and then disappeared. It was so bright that it caught his eye
and made him lose his place. He thought it was some beautiful kind of
insect with the sunshine caught in its wings.
"It was like a messenger from the summer!" he said to himself.
Then he dipped his pen in the ink-pot and went back to his sums.
He had been working busily for some time when he noticed something very
curious. His pen was not writing figures at all! He was thinking about
figures, and he wished to put figures on the paper, so it was a very
strange thing that his pen was writing words all the time. The words
were arranged in short lines with a capital letter at the beginning of
each line.
"Dear me, how annoying!" he said to himself. "What can I have been
thinking of? This will never do."
So he took a fresh sheet and began again.
He imagined that he was copying all the figures on to the clean sheet of
paper, for that was what he intended to do. He wrote the figures very
quickly, as he thought, because he wanted to make up for lost time. Then
he glanced at what he had written--and threw down his pen angrily.
There were no figures at all on the paper; nothing but line after line
of words. He began to think he must have got a sunstroke.
"This is really terrible!" he muttered. "I must pay more attention to
what I am doing."
So he took another clean sheet of paper and began again.
It was no use; the pen refused to make a single figure.
Then the Man in the Thin Coat was in despair. He pushed the paper away
from him and threw himself back in his chair.
"There is something very serious the matter with me," he said to
himself. He did not notice that another man had come up to the table and
was gathering together the sheets of paper that lay on it. This was the
person who paid the Man in the Thin Coat for doing his sums for him. He
had a round face and a big waistcoat.
"Come, come! what's this?" he said, looking at the sheets of paper.
"Poetry, I declare! So you're a poet, are you? That's all very well, but
I don't pay you to write poetry."
The poor Man in the Thin Coat looked very much disturbed. When you come
to think of it, it is a disturbing thing to find you are writing poetry
when you imagine you are doing sums.
"I couldn't help it," he said meekly.
"Yes, yes, that's the excuse they all make," said the Man with the Big
Waistcoat. Then he took up the papers and began to read. There was
silence in the room while he was reading the poem that the Man in the
Thin Coat had written by mistake; every one left off working, and
watched with great interest to see what would happen. The silence lasted
for some time.
"Dear me!" said the Man with the Big Waistcoat at last. "This is a very
beautiful poem!"
Then he began to read aloud.
The poem was about the summer; about the sunshine and the blue sky and
the singing larks that were far away from that ugly room. It seemed as
though the far-off fields and the glory of the sun had been really
brought there, to the tired men who sat listening. And to each man as he
listened came a dream of the thing he loved best. To one man the room
seemed to have turned into a garden; the scent of a thousand roses was
in the air, and the colours of a thousand flowers. Another man thought
he was in a field, lying under a tree and looking at the pattern of the
leaves against the sky. And another saw the sunshine sparkling on the
dear sea, and the little ripples running races on the sand. But the Man
in the Thin Coat saw more things than any of them.
And while they were all listening to the beautiful poem about the
summer, little Fairy Flitterwing slipped out of the ink-pot and flew off
to play with a sunbeam on the window-sill. The sunbeam showed him a very
comfortable scarlet geranium that was growing in a window not far off,
so Flitterwing went to live in it, and found a safe home at last.
And the Man in the Thin Coat went back to his sums. He was happier than
he had ever been before, because he had written a beautiful poem. He was
never able to write any more poetry, and he thought this was rather odd
until, years afterwards, his little daughter guessed the truth. He had
just finished reading to her his poem about the summer.
"Why, Daddy," she said, "there must have been a fairy in your ink-pot
when you wrote that!"
_THE BOX OF DREAMS_
Long ago there lived in a far country a little girl called Gretel, whose
mother was dying. Before she died she said to Gretel--
"I am very poor, and I have no money to leave for you after I am gone. I
have nothing to give you but this box. It was given to me when I was a
child by some one who was wise and good. You must be very careful of it,
for it is full of Dreams, and they are hard to keep safely. You must
never open the box except when you are alone, or the Dreams will fly
away. But keep them safely till your hair is grey, and something will
happen to surprise you."
Gretel took the box and hid it safely, and said nothing about it to any
one. Her mother died a few days afterwards, and then Gretel was sent
away to be a little servant, and to work very hard. She had to get up
early, and light the fire, and feed the pigs, and she had to wash the
dishes and scrub the floor, and do a great many other things, so that
there was very little time for anything but work. All the time her box
of Dreams was hidden away upstairs in her little trunk, underneath her
Sunday frock. Often, when she was working in the kitchen, or in the
farmyard among the hens, she was thinking of her box of Dreams; and
sometimes when she was quite alone she would open it and look inside.
The first time she opened the box she felt a little bit frightened, for
she had never seen any Dreams before, and she was not sure what they
were like; but when she saw them, soft and pink and downy, like lovely
sleeping birds, she was not frightened any more.
"Oh, but they are pretty things!" she said to herself. "How I hope I
shall be able to keep them safely till my hair is grey! They look as if
a breath would blow them away, out of the window and over the hill!"
For a long time she was very careful not to let any one see her pretty
rosy Dreams. Indeed, she never spoke of them; and the old farmer's wife,
whose servant she was, little guessed that anything so strange as a box
of Dreams was hidden upstairs in the garret, underneath Gretel's Sunday
frock.
The farmer and his wife had a son about the same age as Gretel. His name
was Eitel. He was a big, clumsy sort of boy, and not very clever; but
Gretel had very few friends, so when Eitel was kind to her and talked to
her over the fire in the evenings she was very glad. Sometimes he
carried the big bucket for her when she went out to feed the pigs, and
sometimes in the summer they made hay together in the field on the
hillside. In this way they became great friends. Gretel told Eitel
everything that had happened to her since she was a little child; and
one day she told him about her box of Dreams.
"Let me see them, Gretel dear," said Eitel.
"Oh, but I mustn't!" said Gretel. "No one must see them till my hair is
grey. If any one sees them they will fly away, out of the window and
over the hill."
"What are they like?" asked Eitel. "And what are they for?"
"They are lovely," said Gretel, "but I don't know yet what they are
for."
"Come, let me see them," said Eitel coaxingly. "I believe I see a grey
hair on your head, Gretel."
It was really a bit of white thread, but Gretel thought her hair must be
growing grey, so she ran upstairs and fetched the box of Dreams down to
the kitchen. She opened the box very carefully, and Eitel peeped in.
_Pouf! Pouf!_ Half-a-dozen soft rosy Dreams fluttered out from under the
lid, and hovered in the air for a moment like wisps of pink mist. Gretel
shut the box with a snap, and tried to catch the floating Dreams with
her fingers. But it was too late. They floated higher and higher,
farther and farther, out of the window and over the hill.
"Oh, Eitel," cried Gretel, sobbing, "I have lost my Dreams--so many of
them--so many of them!"
"Well," said Eitel, "I don't see that there's much to cry about. They
were only pink fluff after all! I wouldn't cry about pink fluff if I
were you!"
So Eitel went out of the house whistling, and thinking that girls were
sometimes very silly; while Gretel carried her box upstairs, crying, and
thinking that boys were often very unkind. As soon as she was in her
room she opened her box again, and found to her great joy that it was
still half full of beautiful Dreams.
She soon made friends with Eitel again, but she never spoke to him any
more about her box of Dreams.
As the years went by Gretel became first a big girl and then a grown-up
woman, and still she had to work for her living. She lived in a good
many different places, sometimes with nice people and sometimes with
people who were not kind to her; but wherever she lived she had to scrub
and sweep, and get up early and go to bed late. She still kept her box
of Dreams safely in her little trunk, hidden under her Sunday frock.
Since the time that she had lost so many of her Dreams she had never
opened the box except when she was alone. She was afraid of losing some
more; and, besides, she did not like it when Eitel laughed at her and
called her pretty Dreams "nothing but pink fluff." So she made up her
mind to wait till her hair was really grey.
It seemed to her sometimes that this would never happen! Her hair was
browner than other people's, she thought, and was not going to turn grey
at all. But though the time seemed so long to her, she was as a matter
of fact still a young woman when she discovered that there were two grey
hairs growing among the brown ones. She was combing her hair at the
time, and the moment she saw the grey hairs she dropped the comb, and
clapping her hands for joy ran quickly to get her box of Dreams out of
her little trunk. She was so much excited that her trembling fingers
could hardly undo the fastenings of the box.
When the box was at last open she was still more excited. Her mother had
promised that she should be surprised, but she had not expected such a
strange and delightful and altogether wonderful surprise as this! You
could never guess what had happened! Her pretty rosy Dreams had all
turned into jewels more splendid than any you ever saw or heard about!
Every kind of precious stone was there--emeralds and pearls and fiery
opals, glowing rubies and sea-blue sapphires, besides a great many
strange stones whose names you have never heard.
Gretel gasped.
She sat on the floor beside the box, and stared and stared. She could
hardly believe that the glittering things were real, and she could not
believe at all that they belonged to her. At first she expected every
minute that they would disappear, and she was afraid to touch them; but
presently she took courage and lifted them out of the box one by one.
Then she took them to the light, and they looked still more beautiful
than before.
As Gretel sat on the floor near the window, with the many-coloured
jewels glimmering and shimmering in her lap, she came gradually to
understand that when her mother gave her the box of Dreams she gave her
great riches.
Gretel lived to be very old, but she never lost her jewels. She was able
now to show them to all the world without any danger of their flying
away, and as time went on the people flocked to see her and her jewels.
Eitel admired them as much as any one, but he could never be persuaded
that the fluffy pink things he had once seen had really turned into
these shining and wonderful stones.
_THE FAIRY WHO HAD ONLY ONE WING_
I am going to tell you now about a fairy who lost one of his wings. His
home was in a white rosebud, which one would imagine to be a nice, safe,
comfortable home for a fairy to have. And yet it was while he was in the
white rosebud that the terrible accident happened which left him with
only one wing.
All would have been well if he had stayed in the country. But one day a
man came with scissors and snipped the white rosebud off the tree, and
packed it in cotton-wool, and sent it off to London. Of course the fairy
had to go too, and a very uncomfortable journey he had. There were a
number of other flowers packed in the same box, and in each flower there
was a fairy; so they were all able to grumble together. But you can't
grumble with any real comfort when you are packed very tightly, and have
to talk through a good deal of cotton-wool.
At last the journey was over, and the rosebud was taken out of the
cotton-wool and put in water. Then the fairy crept up from the heart of
the rosebud, and put his head over the edge of the petals and looked
about him.
There were flowers all round him: flowers in pots, flowers in glasses,
flowers lying on the table, flowers in baskets, and great bunches of
flowers in the big window. The truth was that the rosebud was in a
flower-shop, but he did not know this. He only knew that it was very
pleasant to be again in a place that was full of flowers and fairies.
He thought he was going to enjoy himself; but that was because he did
not know how cruelly fairies are sometimes treated in flower-shops. The
people who arrange the flowers have a horrible way of trying to kill the
fairies; and this is what they do. They take a dreadful, sharp piece of
wire and poke it through the very heart of the flower, and then fasten
it tightly round the stem! You will see at once that nothing is more
likely to hurt a fairy than this. Indeed, he would certainly be killed,
if it were not almost impossible to kill a fairy.
The little rosebud-fairy was lying comfortably curled up, deep down
among the white petals of the rose, when suddenly he saw coming through
the walls of his home a sharp glittering point!
"Oh dear!" he cried, trying to scramble out of the way.
But that was no use, the glittering point came nearer and nearer.
"Oh dear--oh dear!" he cried again. "Where is it coming to? Oh--it's
coming this way--the horrible thing. _Oh--oh--oh!_"
It was no wonder that he cried out. The dreadful wire had caught one of
his beautiful gossamer wings, and dragged it, and torn it, till there
was nothing left of it but some little shreds of fluttering gauze.
"What shall I do?" he wailed. "How can I fly with only one wing, and
what is the use of a fairy that can't fly? What shall I do?"
He picked up the torn pieces of his wing and wondered if he could mend
them. But he soon saw that it was impossible, so he folded them up
carefully and laid them inside the rose-petals; and ever afterwards
there was a faint tinge of pink deep down in the heart of the rosebud.
For a long time, long after the rosebud had been tied up with a sprig of
fern and put in the window, the poor little fairy went on moaning and
sighing over the loss of his wing. He was still sighing when a little
girl came into the shop. If the fairy had not been hiding among the
petals of his rosebud he would have seen at once that she was the kind
of little girl that the fairies always love; a little girl with bright
eyes and a laughing face--altogether a very nice little girl. She
pointed to the white rosebud and said--
"I want to buy that rosebud, please, for Granny's birthday."
In another minute she was walking along the street with the rosebud in
her fat hand.
Then the fairy crept up from the heart of the rose and looked over the
edge of the petals. The little girl saw him at once and was not at all
surprised.
"There you are!" she said. "I wondered when you would look out. Of
course I knew there was a fairy in the rosebud, or I wouldn't have
bought it. It would have been no use, you see."
"What a very nice little girl!" thought the fairy. "She seems to have a
great deal of sense."
The little girl went on: "Poor thing, I see your wing has been torn off.
That nearly always happens to the fairies that come from flower-shops.
But I dare say Granny won't mind. She sees very few fairies. I am going
to leave you at Granny's house because it is her birthday. Now remember,
you're to be very nice to Granny, because she sees so few fairies."
By this time they had reached Granny's house. Granny lived all alone in
a very splendid house in a great square. The house had a great many fine
things in it: handsome furniture and valuable china and grand silks and
brocades. But there was not a single fairy in it, and a house that has
no fairies in it is a very dull place.
Granny was sitting alone on her birthday. She looked round the great
drawing-room and thought there were a number of empty chairs and sofas
in it. That made her feel very lonely. No one had been to see her on her
birthday; she had had no presents or letters; no one had noticed her
birthday at all. If there had been any fairies in the house Granny would
not have felt so lonely, because the fairies are always good company.
But poor Granny had quite forgotten all about the fairies; it was so
long since she had seen any.
Then a footman brought the white rosebud into the room, with a message
from the little girl with the bright eyes and the nice laughing face.
Granny sat for a long time with the white rosebud on her knee. She felt
happier than she had been all day. She sat so still that the fairy
thought he might safely peep out and see what was going on. To his great
surprise Granny noticed him at once; he had not thought it at all likely
that she would see him, for she was not the kind of person who often
sees fairies. Probably she would not have seen him if she had not been
so sad and lonely.
"Why," she said, "it's a fairy! It is years since I saw a fairy. I
thought I should never see one again."
When the fairy saw that Granny was glad to see him, he crept out of the
rosebud and sat on her wrinkled hand, and talked to her.
"Poor little thing," said Granny, "you have lost one of your wings.
Well, it was not likely that any but a one-winged fairy would find his
way in here."
Then she sighed. So the fairy, to cheer her up, told her all about the
lovely garden he had left behind him in the country--the garden where he
had lived before the man with the scissors came to cut the rosebud. He
told her about the other roses and the fairies that lived in them, and
the tall hollyhocks whose fairies were so prim and old-fashioned, and
the sweet, shy love-in-a-mist whose fairies always wore veils when they
went out, and the sunflower-fairies who had never been taught that it
was rude to stare, and the dear unselfish verbena fairies who made the
world so sweet for other people and never thought of themselves. Then
Granny remembered all sorts of things that she had forgotten for
years--fairies she used to know when she was a little girl, and the
stories they used to tell her. She told some of the stories to the
rosebud fairy, and they talked together for a long time. Granny was
happier that evening than she had been for a great many evenings. She
said to herself that her birthday had been a very nice one after all.
"Won't you come and live with me?" she said.
The fairy looked round the room.
"Well," he said, "I should like to stay very much, but I really don't
see any place here for me to live. My rosebud will soon die and be
thrown away."
"But if I were to keep the rosebud always, even when it was dead? Would
you stay then?"
The fairy thought for a moment.
"I tell you plainly," he said, "that I don't like the idea of living in
a dead rosebud. But I know it's done sometimes, and one mustn't be too
particular when one has only one wing."
"I'll ask the little girl who brought you here to come and see you
often," said Granny, "and you and I will go out to-morrow and buy some
picture-books for her, and some chocolates, and then we shall all three
enjoy ourselves together."
The fairy nodded happily.
"That settles it," he said. "I'll stay."
_THE LITTLE BOY FROM TOWN_
If you spend all the year in a big town it is a fine thing to have a
summer holiday near the sea. Otherwise you never have a chance of making
friends with the sea-fairies or the mermaids, who are the most
delightful playmates in the world. You may know all kinds of other
fairies, and be quite intimate with them, but as long as you live
nothing can ever make up to you for not knowing the sea-fairies.
Little Michael was eight years old, and he had never met a sea-fairy,
for he lived in a great town. Then at last his father and mother and he
went off for a whole month to the seaside. There were sands there, very
hard and yellow and good to make castles with; and there were lonely
caves with dripping walls; and there were heaps of slimy, green seaweed,
and shells, and rocks for climbing on. Best of all, there were plenty of
fairies. Michael made friends with all the fairies of the sea and shore;
but his greatest and best friend was a Mermaid who lived in a cave.
The roof of the cave was wet and green, and its floor was pebbly, with
here and there a rock. Every day Michael came and sat on one of the
rocks and listened to the Mermaid's stories, and to the soft, lapping
sound of the little waves. The Mermaid told him such stories as he had
never heard before, for she had not always been in that cave, but had
swum in deep seas and lived on many shores. She told Michael of places
where the sea was warm and green, and the rocks were made of coral, and
palm-trees shaded the mermaids when they played upon the sands. She
told him too of bitter seas that were made of ice, so that no mermaid
could swim in them; and of towering icebergs shining in the sun; and of
white mist-fairies, who turned the hair of mermaids into a shower of
icicles. Then she told him of sailors who had been her friends, and how
some of them were sailing far away, and some of them were drowned, and
how all of them were good playmates.
While Michael listened to these stories his eyes were very round and
wide open, and often his mouth was open too. He had never enjoyed
anything so much before, and he thought it would be dreadful when the
day came for him to leave the dancing sea-fairies and the Mermaid's
cave, and go back to the big town where he hardly ever saw any fairies
at all. One day he said--
"Mermaid dear, I want something to take back to town with me; something
to make me remember the sea-fairies and you, and to make me think of the
sea for ever and ever."
"Tell me what you want," said the Mermaid, smiling; "and if I can get it
for you, I will."
"Well," said Michael, "it's rather a big thing I was thinking of.
Perhaps it's too big to ask for. But you see the Bay is full of
white-horses to-day. Do you think you could possibly catch one for me? I
think if I could take home a white-horse from the Bay, I should remember
the sea for ever and ever."
The Mermaid slipped off her rock and dived into the deep water. A few
moments afterwards Michael saw her far out in the Bay, with her hair
floating in the wind, and her tail glittering under the waves. There
were a great many wind-fairies playing about that morning, and that was
the reason that the Bay was full of white-horses, for when the
wind-fairies are playing on the sea they always ride white-horses.
Michael climbed a high rock and stood on the very top of it, and watched
the Mermaid. It was grand to see her gliding through the water, chasing
first one white-horse and then another, diving and darting and dodging,
and enjoying herself all the time.
"Quick, quick!" cried Michael. "You nearly had him that time!"
But she was not quick enough, for the white-horse was far out of reach
even as she threw out her white arms to catch his mane.
The chase lasted a long time, for though mermaids can swim better than
most people, a white-horse on the sea is one of the hardest things to
catch. At last, however, Michael clapped his hands and shouted--
"She's got him, she's got him! Hurrah--now I shall have a white-horse to
take home with me, and to make me think of the sea for ever and ever!"
If it had been a fine sight to see the Mermaid chasing the white-horse
across the Bay, it was far finer to see them come prancing back again.
The Mermaid was not swimming this time, but riding on the back of the
angry white-horse, who plunged and galloped across the Bay, tossing his
long mane. And the Mermaid tossed her golden hair and laughed, because
she was enjoying her ride. Michael laughed aloud too, because when the
white mane and the golden hair streamed up together upon the wind they
were very beautiful to see.
And now a very curious and unfortunate thing happened. The wind-fairies
suddenly grew tired and went to sleep, every one of them. Now when the
wind-fairies go to sleep, the white-horses always dive down below the
sea and go to sleep too. Before the Mermaid had reached the shore she
was swimming again, for her white-horse had suddenly disappeared and
left her with nothing to ride. He had gone to sleep below the sea until
the next time the wind-fairies wanted to play.
"Oh, Mermaid dear," cried Michael, "what have you done with my nice new
horse?"
"I am very sorry to tell you," said the Mermaid, lying down on the sand
to rest herself, "that he has gone below the sea to sleep. It is really
most unfortunate, but when a white-horse wants to sleep you can't stop
him."
"Oh dear, oh dear," said Michael piteously, for it was a great
disappointment. "I did so much want to have a white-horse to make me
think of the sea for ever and ever."
"Wouldn't anything else do instead?" asked the Mermaid, who was very
kind.
Then Michael noticed that every time a little wave reached the shore it
broke on the rocks in a shower of coloured jewels. He pointed to them.
"Bring me some of those, please, Mermaid dear," he said.
So the Mermaid took a large shell, shaped like a saucer, and waited on a
rock till a little wave came in and sprinkled the rock with jewels. She
held out her shell to catch the jewels, but as soon as they touched the
shell they changed into water.
"Look," she said to Michael, "the jewels have melted."
"Oh dear," said Michael, "what am I to do? I am going back to town
to-morrow, and I have nothing to remind me of the sea!"
"Do you really and truly wish to think of the sea for ever and ever?"
asked the Mermaid.
"Of course I do," said Michael.
"Then I will sing you the Sea Song," said the Mermaid, "and after that
there will be nothing that can make you forget the sea."
So while Michael sat on the rock and looked at the sea, the Mermaid sang
him the Sea Song, which mermaids have sung to sailors ever since the
first ship was built. It is a song that no one ever forgets. It is like
the voice of the sea calling, calling; and there are many people who
hear it always, even in their dreams. If they are people who have to
live in towns, or in country places far from the sea, they are not very
happy.