_THE MAGIC BOAT._
Morning came, and Eva awoke, to find that she was all alone in the
palace, and to wonder at the utter stillness around her. There was
no song of birds to be heard,--no fall of musical waters,--no merry
children’s ringing laughter and sweet voices. To all intents and
purposes the palace seemed as deserted as it had been the day before.
And wondering at all this, Eva rose, and went out of the palace to look
for her companions.
They had returned; but when she saw them she understood why everything
was so still. For, instead of the merry songs and joyous games and
dances with which they had been accustomed to begin the day, they were
gathered in little groups, and every face wore a sad and mournful
expression. They seemed troubled, and every now and then one of them
would point to the brook, and then shake her head; and Eva was going to
ask them what could possibly have happened, and what the matter was,
when they saw her; and then the whole crowd came around her, and before
she could say a word, they exclaimed, with one voice:
“Oh, Eva! Eva! what have you done? You forgot your promise; you went to
the brook, and you heard its story?”
Then it came into Eva’s mind that she must leave the children, who
seemed so sorry for what she had done, and she hung her head and said,
timidly:
“I could not help it.”
“It is true, and only what we feared,” one of them said,--the same one
who had spoken to Eva through the door. “We knew how it would be before
we left you. You could not help it, for it was Fate, and no promise can
bar the power, no wishes change the will, of Fate.”
Then Eva began to tell them her story. And they all listened, and when
she told them how the green toad had pulled her dress, another of the
children spoke and told Eva that the green toad was Aster’s friend, and
would do all it could to help him. That, just before she came to the
valley, it had been there and told them she was coming. And then Eva
finished her story, and begged them to let her go.
“We cannot keep you,” they said to her, “even if we wished it. We
would like to keep you with us; but the green toad has commanded us to
help you, so far as lies in our power. But we cannot save you from the
dangers of the way. THEY, who are more powerful than our Queen, have
forbidden it, and will not allow us to tell you what these dangers are,
or how you can avoid them or escape them. That you will learn on the
Enchanted River, down which you will have to go, and we must, if you
ask us, furnish you with the means of reaching it. You cannot go there
unless we help you, and we cannot keep you here if we would.”
“Will I find Aster?” Eva asked.
“That will depend upon yourself,” one of the children said, exactly as
if she was telling a story she had heard. “If Aster had obeyed you,
as he should have done, and as he was expected to do, your journey
would have ended here, in this Valley of Rest, and we, who are the Dawn
Fairies, would have been able to take his flower from the Night and
Shadow Elves; but the loss of part of his coat gave them power over
him, because Darkness always swallows up Light whenever it can; and so,
just at the entrance of this place, on the verge between Shadow and
Dawn, they succeeded in luring him away from you.”
Then they told Eva that for a certain time, which had now expired,
Aster’s enemies had been able to prevent her seeking for him. “During
that time,” they went on, “we were permitted to receive you; but then
since Aster’s friends have been able to speak to you by means of the
brook, though they can do nothing to rescue or to help him, for you
are the only person who can release him from the power of the Elves of
Shadow-Land; and since you have heard the voice, and are willing to
follow it, we can only, much as we would like to keep you with us, help
you, and let you go.”
“Has she no choice?” another asked. “Could she not, if she chose,
remain with us, instead of exposing herself to the dangers through
which she must pass?”
“I would rather go,” Eva began, “if I may choose.”
“You are right,” the first one who had spoken went on. “It is your
fate, and,” using, as Eva remembered, words that Aster had spoken long
before, and which seemed to be a proverb among the elves and fairies,
“it will be, because it must be.”
And then Eva heard, above the voices of the children and mingling with
them, the words which had come to her along the waters of the brook,
but spoken this time more plaintively than ever:
“Eva! Eva! help me!”
And the children heard, for they said:
“You will not hear those words after you leave our valley. For, in the
region through which you must pass, Aster’s friends have no power; you
will have to depend wholly upon yourself. And”--as the waters of the
little brook, by whose margin they were standing, began to ripple
along faster, and murmur louder, while the musical fountains began to
play, and the birds to sing--“and now you must leave us: everything is
in readiness, and the time has come.”
Then, with Eva in their midst, the children began to walk slowly along
the brook, which no longer brought Aster’s voice with it. On they went,
through the calm valley; not, however, as Eva had expected, to the door
in the rock through which she had entered, and which she had never been
able to find again,--though she had looked for it the day before, but
in the opposite direction,--towards the cavern in which the waters of
the brook disappeared. She asked why she was not to be allowed to seek
for Aster among the rocky, stony wastes in which he had disappeared.
“Because that is all over, and you cannot go back into the Past,” was
the reply. “Nothing, which has once happened there, or been seen there,
remains in Shadow-Land.”
They had come, by this time, to the cavern, and Eva saw that its roof
was higher above the brook than it had been the day before; and that,
floating on the water, which was here as smooth and still as glass,
there were a great many pure white lilies, and that every now and
then a speckled trout would jump from the water, and send a shower of
crystal drops to sparkle on the green leaves around the white lilies.
“There lies your way,” the children said, pointing to the cavern and
the brook. “But we must give you the means of going down the brook to
the place where it meets the Enchanted River. Beyond that we cannot
help you. We can only send you, in our boat, down the brook.”
At these words Eva looked up in great surprise, for no boat was to be
seen, and she could not imagine where one was to come from. But then
one of the children clapped her hands, and, as she did so, a lily-bud
slowly rose from the water, and then opened, till it was larger and
whiter than any of the other lilies. And then, while all looked on
in silence, the pure white leaves of the lily fell into the water
and melted away in it like snow; and then another waved her hands
in the air, and immediately, on the stalk from which the lily-petals
had fallen, there grew a pod. And when the pod had stopped growing, a
third, stooping by the brook, dipped her hands into the water, and the
lily-pod detached itself from its stem, and came floating to the bank.
Then the one who had clapped her hands took the pod out of the water
and laid it on the bank. The second opened it and taking from out of
it six round speckled seeds, laid them in the hands of the third. Then
the third threw these six seeds, one by one, into the water, and as
each seed touched the water it changed into a beautiful, large speckled
trout; and one by one the six trout, gently moving their fins, ranged
themselves in a line, their heads to the bank, and remained there,
waiting.
Then the three children, lifting up the empty lily-pod, placed it
gently upon the brook, and Eva saw that, as it lay on the smooth
waters, it had become a little boat. And then the six trout, one by
one, swam from the line which they had formed, and ranged themselves
around it, one at the bow and one at the stern, and two on each side;
and while she looked at the tiny boat it grew longer and broader, and
at either end it rose in a graceful curve, finished at bow and stern
with an open lily-cup; and then the calm surface of the water broke
into a thousand little ripples, rocking the lilies to and fro, which
bent as though they were saluting the little vessel, along whose sides
the tiny waves flowed caressingly.
The children then told Eva that everything was ready, and that it
was time for her to enter the boat which they had prepared for her,
and which the six Fish Fairies would guide down the brook. But Eva
hesitated, for the boat, she thought, was too small for her. One of the
children, seeing that Eva hesitated, told her not to be afraid, for the
boat was built in such a way, being a magic boat, that it would hold
any one for whom it was made. So Eva did as she was told, and, stepping
lightly into the boat, she found that it was just the right size for
her; though she did not exactly know if it was she that had grown
smaller or the boat which had grown larger.
As she sat down, the children told her to be careful and eat nothing
except what the trout, who were to guide the boat, would bring her; and
in return she was to take care of them, and let no one molest them, for
the Fish Fairies are the weakest of all the fairies, though they can go
where the others dare not even be seen. When the boat had taken her as
far as it could, it would leave her, and return to the Valley of Rest.
Then, all joining hands, the children began to sing; and this is what
they sung:
Little boat,
Gently float,
With your sweet freight laden;
Evil charm
May not harm
Eva, the earth-maiden.
On her way,
Night and day,
Bear her onward ever;
Till she land
On the strand
Of th’ Enchanted River.
On this spot
Linger not!
’Tis the appointed hour!
Little boat,
Onward float,
Led by magic power.
As the last words were sung, the boat, apparently of its own accord,
moved into the centre of the brook, its bow pointing to the cavern.
Then it paused for a moment, till the six speckled trout could come and
take their places around it. And then, with a smooth, gliding motion,
it went towards the entrance of the cavern, which suddenly raised its
arch so as to admit the magic boat. When it was just under the arch,
the boat stopped for a moment, and as Eva looked back, she saw that
the children were already going back to the palace, singing as they
went,--the bright, rosy light, and the rainbow-surrounded fountains,
and the beautiful birds, seemed more charming than ever in contrast
with the Dark Unknown into which she was going.
Then the boat shot forward again, and the arch of the cavern, which
had been raised to allow the boat to enter, dropped behind her like a
curtain, shutting out the Valley of Rest from Eva’s sight.
The rest she had enjoyed there was over,--her wanderings had again
begun.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]