always been so good to us and always given us the bit and sup, when
they scarcely had it themselves? I'd never do such a thing."
"But you'ld be leaving one of your own people in the place of it,"
Naggeneen answered, "and they'ld never know the differ. Or if they
did, it would be no matter. A woman makes a great hullabaloo when her
child looks sick and she thinks it's dying on her, but she doesn't
care at all after a little. And then, it doesn't die, and she thinks
it's her own child all the time, and there's no harm done. And His
Majesty here thinks it's going to do a power of good for all of you.
It's not, but he thinks it is."
"We'll never take a child from the O'Briens if I can help it," the
Queen said. "From the Sullivans I don't care, but not from the
O'Briens."
"We'll have to do it," said the King. "I don't like to hurt the
O'Briens myself, but it's for the good of us all, and it's our only
chance. These mortals are getting ahead of us that far, and they'll be
doing something next that will exterminate us entirely. We'll send
and get both the children."
The Queen urged again that the O'Briens had always been good to the
Good People and must not be harmed, but the King had his mind set on
Naggeneen's plan and he would hear of nothing else. It was settled and
it could not be changed. They must have both children. They should
live among the fairies till they were old enough to be sent out to
learn the ways of men. And they should always come back and teach the
fairies the ways of men that they had learned.
"And it's to-night we'd better be doing it, if we're to do it at all,"
said the King. "Now, who'll be the ones to go and be put in the place
of the children?"
Nobody seemed to care about going to play the part of a baby with the
Sullivans, or even with the O'Briens. Everybody was trying to get out
of the King's sight behind the others. "We'ld have to be lyin' still
all day," one whispered, "with never a dance to rest ourselves with."
"They might be puttin' holy water on us," said another, and all who
heard him shivered.
"There'll be all sorts of unpleasantness, anyway," said a third.
"Maybe they'ld find us out," said a fourth, "and then they'ld be
puttin' all sorts of horrible charms on us to be rid of us."
But the King called one of the women and told her that she must go and
stay in the place of the baby at the O'Briens. She whimpered a little,
but she knew that what the King said must be done. Then the King
looked around him and said, "Where's Naggeneen got to at all now?"
"Here I am to the fore," said Naggeneen.
"You'll go," said the King, "and you'll be put in the place of the boy
that's at the Sullivans."
"I go!" said Naggeneen. "Never a step. Didn't I tell you of the plan?
And that's enough. Now do it for yourself. I don't belong to you and
you know it. Do your own work."
"I'll not be disputin' with you," said the King. "Whether you belong
to me or no, you're in my palace along with my tribe, and you'll do
what I tell you. It's tired of you I've been this great while, and now
I've a chance to be rid of you. You'll go to the Sullivans and you'll
stay there and you'll grow up like their child. And mind you play your
part well and don't let them know what you are. If you do, they'll
work some charm on you and be rid of you, and then we'll have to send
back the real child, and all your own plan will be lost."
"And how will you carry out my plan without me?" Naggeneen asked.
"Don't I always tell you what to do? You'll want me a dozen times a
day."
"We'll not want you at all. You do tell us what to do and we do it
when we like, and it's small good ever came of it. And then, if we do
want anything of you, we know where to find you, and we'll easily come
to you. It's been done before. You was left in the place of a young
man that was taken away once before, and when the tribe that you was
with then wanted to talk to you they came to you, and we can do the
same if we like, but I don't think we shall like."
"That's just it," Naggeneen cried; "did you know about that time? This
time would be just like it. Do you know how they drove me off? I
couldn't help it then and I couldn't help it again. There's times when
it seems like there's a charm on me, and so there is, belike, and I
have to do a thing that it's bad for me to do. Do you know the whole
of it, how it was that time?
"It was a man that time, as you say, and not a child. Rickard the Rake
he was called, I remember, and a fine rake he was. Never a bit of work
would he do, but he'ld always be at every fair or wake or the like of
that. And so little good there was in him that the fairies in the rath
where I was then said: 'It's an easy thing it'll be stealing him away,
and serve him right, too, and he'll be handy for us, he's so good a
dancer.'
"I was ordered to be the one to be left in his place, though I knew no
good would come of it. And so one night, when he was dancing, we
struck him with a dart in the hip, and he fell down where he was. And
then, in all the bother and the noise that there was, it was easy to
get him away and to leave me in the place of him. So they took me up
and put me in bed and nursed me and did all they could think of for
me, and me all the time squirming and squealing, like it was dying I
was.
"They gave me everything I could think of to eat, and that was not so
bad, for I never lived better in my life; but it was worn out I was
getting, with lying there all the time and playing sick, and never a
chance to stir about or get any air or a minute to myself. And the
thing I was spoiling for was a tune out of the pipes or the fiddle.
Then they brought a fairy-man to look at me, and he said it was a
fairy and not Rickard at all that was in it, and I couldn't be telling
you all the bad names he put on me and the things he said about me.
And he said: 'Leave a pair of bagpipes near him, and maybe he'll play
them. You know well Rickard never could play at all, and so if he
plays them we'll know that it's not Rickard, but a fairy changeling,
and then we'll know what to do.'"
Just here I must stop Naggeneen in his story for a minute, to tell you
that when people in Ireland speak of a "fairy-man" they do not mean a
man fairy. They mean a man who knows all about fairies. The fairy-men
know all that the fairies can do, and they know the charms against
them and the ways to cure a sickness that the fairies have brought
upon anyone, and the ways to keep them from stealing the cream from
the milk and the milk from the cow. So the people have great respect
for a fairy-man or a fairy-woman, and they often send to one of them
for help, when they think that the fairies may have done them a
mischief.
"They left the pipes beside me," Naggeneen went on, "and then they
went away. Oh, it was then I had the terrible time all out. Oh, may I
never long for anything again as I longed to play them pipes! But I
knew that they'ld be listening and watching, and if they caught me at
it, I'ld have to pay for it, if they could make me. So I kept my hands
off them and only groaned and took on as if the dart in my hip was
killing me entirely.
"Then there was one hot afternoon, and everything was still about the
house, and it was the harvest time, and they all had a right to be in
the fields at work. And sure I thought it was there they were. And
then the wish to play the pipes came on me worse than ever before. And
it was then that it was like there was a charm on me, as I was telling
you. I had to do what I did. I could no more help doing it than a girl
can help dancing with us, when we get her in our ring on May Eve. But
first I opened the door a crack and looked out into the kitchen, to
see was there anybody there, and there was nobody. But they were all
in another room, as I found out after, waiting and listening. There
was the fairy-man and a fairy-woman and all the people of the house,
and some of the neighbors.
"But if I'd seen them all I dunno if I could have done other than I
did, the power, whatever it was, was on me that strong. And I took the
pipes and played. It was soft I played at first, and then the music
got the better of me and I went on more and louder, and I played tunes
and tunes. I could play as well then as I can now, and so the other
fairies, that had been without me for some time, must have heard me
playing, for soon I heard the rustle and the whisper and the patter of
their coming, and then they gathered round me, and I had been left
there lonely for so long that I kept on playing, to keep them with me.
"It was then the fairy-man and the fairy-woman began talking, and I
heard every word they said, as no doubt they meant I should. 'What'll
we do with the little beast at all?' says she.
"'We'll do something that's not too unpleasant at first,' says he.
'We'll take him and hold his head under the water, and see will that
drive any of the devilment out of him.'
"'Oh, the thief!' says she. 'That's not the way to treat him at all.
Let's heat the shovel and put him on it and throw him out the window.'
"'Ah, why will you be that cruel?' says he. 'Just let me heat the
tongs red hot in the fire and then I'll catch him by the nose with
them, and we'll find out will that make him go home and send poor
Rickard back to us.'
"'That's not enough,' says she. 'I'll go and bring some of the juice
of the lussmore that I have, and we'll make him drink it, and then if
he's a fairy he'll wish that he was a man, so that he could die, it'll
make that consternation inside him.'
"'We'll do the both of them things,' says he, and with that they both
started into the kitchen, and all the rest of the people after them.
But you may believe that by that time I was not there at all. I'd had
enough of their kindness and I didn't think it was right to wait for
any more of it. But I looked in at the window for a last glimpse of
them, and one of the women saw me, and she screamed, and then the
fairy-man made after me with the tongs, and I had to vanish
completely. And you know what would happen then. When they drove me
off, of course we had to send back Rickard, and there they found him
the next morning, asleep in his bed, as sound as ever he was in his
life.
"And that was not all. The lesson that he'd had was enough for him,
and he left drinking and fighting and swearing, and he helped his old
father and his brothers on the farm, and he was another man
altogether. And so it's as I told you. You can never get the better of
men, if they know anything, and all you do to hurt them only helps
them. And so it will be if you send me to the Sullivans."
"If you're done talking about it now," said the King, "you'll go to
the Sullivans and stay in the place of the child that we're to carry
off. It's not likely they'll be leaving any pipes or any fiddle about
for you to play on, and you can stay there quite comfortable.
"Off with him now!" the King cried to a dozen of his men, "and mind
you don't come back without the child. And the same to you," he said
again to others of his men; "take the woman and leave her in the place
of the child at the O'Briens'."
The two parties were off, like two little swarms of bees, the one with
Naggeneen and the other with the woman. The rest of the fairies
waited. The Queen sat on her throne, with her face turned away from
the rest and hidden in her hands. The King, with a troubled face, sat
looking straight before him, not moving an eye or a hand. The others
stood as far off as they could go. Nobody played; nobody danced;
nobody laughed or whispered. They waited and watched and listened.
Then there was a little murmur and buzz of one of the parties coming
back. It was the one that had been to the Sullivans.
The King looked up and seemed to look through the fairies without
seeing them. "Have you the child with you?" he asked.
"We have," said the leader.
"And where's Naggeneen?" the King asked.
"Lying in the bed beside Mrs. Sullivan," the leader answered, "and
squealing like a pig under a gate."
"Give the child something to eat and make him comfortable," said the
King.
The Queen turned suddenly around. "Don't give him anything to eat
yet," she said. "We've nothing here but our own food. You couldn't
give him that. What did you bring him here for? Was it not so that you
could send him out again, as he grows up, to learn to do the things
that men do? And if he touched a bit of our food or our drink, you
know he could never leave us."
"That's the true word," said the King. "Here! Some of you go to the
O'Briens' and see is there any milk left out of the window. And bring
back enough so there'll be some for the other child, when we get her."
As the fairies set off on this errand there came a sound like the
whistling of the wind through the door, and those who had gone to
bring the O'Briens' child were back. They were back in a whirl and a
rush and a scramble and a rout. They were all screaming and crying and
whimpering and gabbling and gibbering together, and they all fell and
sprawled together in a heap before the King. In the midst of them was
the woman who had been sent to take the place of the O'Briens' child.
"What for are you here without the child?" the King cried. "And what
are you all doing there on the floor, like fish tumbled out of a
basket? Get up and tell me what's wrong with you! Where is the
child?"
The fairies all choked and gasped and groaned and tried to speak. Then
the leader of the party staggered up to his feet and stammered out:
"The child is where it was before we went for it. We could not bring
it; we could not take it; we could not touch it. You might as well be
asking us to bring a lily from the fields of heaven."
"And why could you not take it?" the King asked. "Was the mother
holding it so fast in her arms? Could you not make her look the other
way while you'ld be taking it? Could you not put some charm on her so
that she'ld let it go? Or was she praying all the time, so that you
could do nothing with her? Or was she making those signs over it that
none of us can stand?"
"No, no," said the leader, so low that they could scarcely hear him;
"no, it wasn't that; the mother was doing none of them things. The
mother was dead!"
For a minute everybody was still. The Queen started and looked at the
leader of the party and leaned toward him. All the others gazed at him
too. Then the King said, "And why did you not bring the child?"
"I'm after telling you we couldn't touch the child," the leader
answered. "I went to take it, and all at once I felt burning hot, and
like I was all dried up into a cinder, and I think they must have
drawn a circle of fire round the child. And then I had that fearful
feeling that you have when you're near a horseshoe nail. There must
have been one somewhere about. You couldn't mistake that feeling--as
if needles of ice were going all through and through you. And so I was
driven back and could get no nearer to the child."
The woman who had been sent to take the place of the child was
standing near the King now, though she could scarcely stand at all,
and her face was all wet with tears. "But they made me go nearer to
the child than that," she cried. "These others pushed me close to her,
so that I'ld take her place and give the child to them. And I felt
burned up like a cinder, too, and then I felt the icy needles, and
then worse than that. I felt as if I was all cut across and across and
through and through with flaming swords, and torn with red-hot saws.
Not the way it is when you divide yourself, so that you can be in two
places at once. Anybody can do that, and it hurts no more than cutting
a lock of hair, but this was--oh! there's only one thing could do
this. There was a pair of open scissors lying close to the child, and
I almost touched them!"
She could say no more, and there was no more to be said. "You
couldn't get the child, then," said the King, "and there's the end of
it. Nobody could, if they did all them things. I dunno how it is," the
King went on, half to himself, "a child lies there with a pair of
scissors open near by, and a horseshoe nail close to it--maybe hung
around its neck--and a circle drawn around it with a coal of fire, and
it never minds it at all. It sleeps and wakes and lies there as
peaceful and happy and quiet as if there was nothing at all out of the
common about it. I dunno how they can do it. They're queer people,
these mortals. We can't get the girl. They was too clever for us. But
we've got the boy, and we'll do the best we can with him."
[Illustration: ]
VI
LITTLE KATHLEEN AND LITTLE TERENCE
The next morning John O'Brien was sitting alone, when there was a
knock at the door. Then Peter Sullivan opened it, said "God save all
here!" and came in.
"God save you kindly!" John answered.
"It's distressed we are," said Peter, "to hear of the death of poor
Kitty. Ellen would be here with me to tell you so, only bein' in bed
herself and not able to stir, and what'll come to all of us I dunno.
I'm that disturbed about her I dunno what I'll do at all. I left her
with one of the neighbors and came to see your mother about her. But
sure it's you has the great grief on you already, whatever comes to
us. It's not only you I'm thinkin' of, but it's the child, left with
no mother. Oh, it's a terrible thing."
"My own mother can bring up any child," John answered. "Have no fear
of that. It's us that knew Kitty that'll feel the loss of her."
"And how is the child doing, anyway?" Peter asked.
"She looks fine and healthy, glory be to God!" said John.
"It's a girl, they tell me."
"It is."
"Do you know yet what you'll call her?"
"We'll name her Kathleen, after her mother," said John.
"Then you'll be calling her Kitty, like her mother, I suppose."
"No--no," John answered, slowly; "I don't think I'll call her that.
The child will be always Kathleen. I dunno if I can tell you how I
feel about that. It was a name for a child, more than a
woman--Kitty--and yet, now that she's gone from me, I've a feeling
like it was something more than the name of a woman--like it was
something holy, like the name of the blessed Mother of God. When I
think of that name now, I want to think only of her, and I wouldn't
like to be calling even her own child by it. It's Kathleen I'll call
her--nothing else."
"You're right about all that, no doubt," said Peter; "but I can't be
staying here, and Ellen and the child at home the way they are. You
have your child left, and you say it's healthy--thank God for that
same!--but it looks like I might have neither wife nor child."
"Don't say that, man alive," said John; "what's the matter at all
then?"
"I can't stop discoursin' here," Peter answered. "I came to ask would
your mother, being a knowledgable woman, step over for a bit and see
can she tell at all what's the matter with Ellen and the child. There
was a doctor there, but he seemed to do no good, and Ellen said your
mother would know more than all the doctors, so I came to ask would
she come. And if you care to come yourself, I'll be telling you how
they are as we go along, but I can't stay here; it's too long to be
away from them."
"Mother is with the child," said John; "I'll speak to her."
He went into another room, where the baby was sleeping and his mother
was sitting beside her. He told her why Peter had come. "Step
downstairs," said Mrs. O'Brien, "and ask Mrs. Mulvey will she sit by
the baby till I'm back. Then I'll go with him. And you'd better come,
too, John; the air will do you good."
John went down to another of the tenements in the house and came back
with their neighbor, Mrs. Mulvey. "If you'll be so kind," Mrs. O'Brien
said, "sit here by the baby till I'm back, and I'll not be long. And
mind you keep everything as it is, unless she wakes, and then you'll
know what to do as well as I, for you've children of your own. But
don't disturb the pair of scissors that's there beside her, and don't
take off the horseshoe nail that's hung round her neck."
"And what's them things for?" Mrs. Mulvey asked, with wonder in her
eyes.
"Why, to keep the Good People from stealing the child," Mrs. O'Brien
answered. "Did you never hear of those things? Don't you know the Good
People can't stand the touch of iron, or even to be near it? And
especially a horseshoe nail they can't stand. And the scissors, too,
they couldn't come near, and then leaving them open they make a cross,
and that keeps the child all the more from the Good People."
John and his mother left Mrs. Mulvey with little Kathleen and went
with Peter. "And what's wrong with Ellen, then?" Mrs. O'Brien asked.
"I dunno that there's so much wrong with herself, as you might say,"
Peter answered. "I think it's more than anything else that she's
worried about the child."
"And what's wrong with the child, then?"
"There's everything wrong with the child," said Peter. "It's not like the
same child at all. Last night he was as healthy a boy as you'ld wish to
see--quiet and peaceable and good-tempered and strong-looking, for his
age. And now this morning he's thin and sick-looking, and there's black
hair all over his arms, and his face is wrinkled, like he was a little
old man, and he does nothing but cry and scream till you can't bear it,
and twist and squirm till you can't hold him. It's like he was
fairy-struck, only I don't believe in them things at all."
"Did you watch him close last night?" Mrs. O'Brien asked.
"Part of the time," Peter answered, "but I dare say we was both asleep
other times."
"Was Ellen careful about her prayers last night, and were you so,
too?"
"I can't say about that," Peter said. "We might be letting some of
them go, such a time as that, you know, and make it up after."
"Yes," said Mrs. O'Brien, "make it up after by losing your child! Was
there any iron anywhere about him?"
"I don't know that there was."
"And did you make a circle of fire about the place where he was
lying?"
"I did not."
"The child's not been struck," said Mrs. O'Brien; "not the way you
mean. It's not your child at all, but one of the Good People
themselves, that's in it. They've stolen your child and left a
changeling in the place of it."
"It's the same way you always talked, Mrs. O'Brien," said Peter. "I
don't believe them things."
They had come to Peter's door by this time. They found Ellen lying in
bed, looking frightened half to death, and beside her was the baby, or
the fairy, or whatever it was. It was not crying loudly now, but it
was keeping up a little whining and whimpering noise that was quite as
unpleasant to listen to as a good, honest cry. Its face looked thin
and pinched and old; it had a little thin, wispy hair on its head
where no baby of the age that this one was supposed to be has a right
to have any. Its arms and hands were thin and bony. It looked weak and
sick, but it was rolling and wriggling about in the liveliest way. It
would give a spring as if it were going straight off the bed upon the
floor, and when poor Ellen caught at it to save it, it would roll back
toward her, stop its crying for a second, and seem to be laughing at
her, and then it would do the same thing again.
"It's plain enough," Mrs. O'Brien said, as soon as she saw it. "It's
one of the Good People. But it's quick enough we'll be rid of it and
have back your own child. Bring me some eggs."
"I'll have nothing of the sort now," said Ellen. "It's bad the poor
child is with some sickness or other, but it's my own child, and I'll
have nothing done to it that's not to do it good. If you know anything
that'll help it, Mrs. O'Brien, tell me that, but don't be sayin' it's
not my child."
"I'll not hurt the child, whatever it is," said Mrs. O'Brien, "but
there are ways to tell whether it's your own child at all or one of
the Good People. If you find it's one of them, then it's easy to do
more, but in the meantime it's not harmed."
"I'll not have you trying any of them things," said Ellen. "I'll not
have you saying it's not my child, and I'll not be thinking of such a
thing myself. You see how poor and sick it's looking. If there's
anything you can do for the child, do it, but don't be talking that
way any more."
"Ellen," said Mrs. O'Brien, "you don't know what you're talking about
at all. Wait now till I tell you what was told to me when I lived in
Dublin, and I think that it was not far from there that it happened.
It's about a woman that talked as you do. A sailor's wife she was, and
there was a child born to her while her husband was away at sea. She
thought he'ld be home soon, and so she wanted to put off the
christening of the child till he'ld be back. So she waited and waited
for a long time, and her husband did not come. The neighbors told her
she was doing wrong to wait so long and she ought to have the child
christened before anything would happen to it. But she wouldn't listen
to them.