the kind. If Terence wanted to see her, it was his business to find
her, not hers to find him. After that she thought still more. Terence
had no way of finding her. She had never told him where she lived,
and he might spend the rest of his life searching for her and never
find her. And then she had promised him that she would come back. She
had tried so hard to keep that promise already that most people would
have said it was right for her to give it up now, but she had a
feeling that a promise which she had made to Terence must be kept. She
said to herself that it was because he had been so kind to her when
she was in the hill.
So she spent all the time she could near the pool, in the hope of
seeing Terence. And what do you think happened? She did see him. One
afternoon as she was walking along the same old path toward the gate
at the corner of the Park, she saw Terence come through that gate and
down the steps. And now you will never in the world guess what she
did. I suppose you have believed this whole story till now, but I am
afraid you will not believe this. I should not believe it myself, if I
did not know that it was so. But there is no doubt about it. She
turned and walked straight back along the path, and tried to get away
without letting Terence see her. Don't expect me to explain it. I
don't blame you for being surprised. It was the most wonderful thing I
ever heard of. A sensible girl like Kathleen too!
But Terence had seen her and he walked swiftly along the path and
overtook her. "What makes you try to get away from me?" he said.
"I don't know," said Kathleen.
"Didn't you want to see me?" he asked.
"Yes," said Kathleen, "I wanted--I don't know--oh, yes, I did want to
see you! How is the little Prince?"
"The little Prince is very well," said Terence. "You promised that you
would come back, you know."
"Yes," said Kathleen, "and didn't I try? But how could I get through
those hard rocks? I don't suppose it was your fault about the rocks,
though. How are they getting on with their triangles?"
"They are not getting on at all," Terence answered. "You promised that
you would come back, and then, when you saw me you tried to run away.
What made you do that?"
"Oh, but I tried so hard to find you!" Kathleen said. "You don't know
how hard I tried."
"But what made--?"
"I don't know; I just couldn't help it."
You notice how uninteresting Terence and Kathleen's conversation was
getting. They kept on with it, however, dull as it was. They turned
and went up over the hill to the blockhouse, and then down the steep
path on the other side and back along the north end of the Park. "Do
you come here often?" Terence asked.
"I have been here very often," Kathleen said, "trying to keep my
promise to you."
"I am here," he said, "nearly every day, at about this time; will you
come again?"
"Yes," Kathleen said, "if you would like me to."
They were close to the pool again now. "See that bright star up there
in the west?" said Terence.
Kathleen turned to look at it. "It is Venus," she said. Then she
turned back toward where Terence had stood. He was gone. She looked up
and down the path and all around, but she could not find him. She went
up to the pool. The rocks were just as usual--just as close, just as
hard. She tried the water again to see if she could stand on it. She
could not. Terence was gone and she went home to think about it.
She thought about it and she thought more about it, but she could not
understand it at all. So she very sensibly gave up understanding it.
She kept her promise and met Terence again near the pool. And then she
met him again and a few times more. Every time he would make her look
away from him for a moment, or wait till she did look away, and when
she looked back he would be gone. It did not take her long to find
out that he did not want her to see him go, of course, and so one day,
when she turned her head away she turned it back again quickly, and
saw him standing close to the pool with his face toward the rocks. She
watched him for a moment while he stood there, and neither of them
moved. Then he said, without looking around: "Let me go, Kathleen; I
can't go while you're looking."
So she turned away for another instant, and when she looked again he
was gone.
I don't know how many times Terence and Kathleen strolled about the
Park in this way, or what they talked about, or just how long a time
went by, and I suppose that all these things interest you as little as
they do me. But there is no doubt that one day, as they were walking
together and talking together of whatever they found to talk about,
they came face to face with Terence Sullivan. He passed them as if he
had not seen them, but his face was black.
The next day he came to see Kathleen, and he said to her: "Do you
think I don't know who that was with you in the Park yesterday? And
does your father know? He will, if I tell him, and what will he say,
do you think, when he knows that you're meeting that fine boy without
his knowledge? If I see the two of you there again I'll tell him, and
I'll be watching for you too. What do you say to that now?"
"I say nothing to it," Kathleen answered; "what did you think I would
say?"
"What did I think you would say? What did I think you could say?
Nothing, of course. And is that all you say?"
"That is all," said Kathleen.
And that was all. He tried his best to get her to say more, but she
would not. But it did not take her a minute to think what to do. And
it was so simple that she wondered why she had never thought of it
before. It was a wonder, too, that Terence Sullivan did not think of
it himself and know that she would do it. But he was not clever in
some ways, though he was so clever in others.
The next day Kathleen met Terence in the Park, and she said to him:
"Terence, we must not stay here for a single minute. You must come
straight home with me. I want you to see my father and my
grandmother."
And Terence went straight home with her and she told her grandmother
who he was--and indeed she had told her of him before--and that she
had met him in the Park. Her father came soon and Terence was
introduced to him too.
After that Terence came often and Kathleen seldom met him in the Park,
though they still walked there sometimes. Mrs. O'Brien and John were
immensely pleased with him. It was the strangest thing to see how much
he liked to be in a house, just because it was a house, and how
wonderful the ways of people who lived in a house seemed to him. When
he and Kathleen sat together in a corner of the room and John sat
reading a paper and Mrs. O'Brien knitting and reading a book at the
same time, it was as astonishing a sight to him as it would be to you
to see a dozen mermaids playing at the bottom of the sea.
"Isn't it beautiful?" he whispered to Kathleen.
"Isn't what beautiful?" Kathleen asked.
"The way you live here," Terence answered. "All these years, you know,
I have just come out of the hill to go to school, and then I have gone
back again. I have seen the people outside, but I never was in one of
their houses before. And don't you ever dance?"
"Why, of course we do," Kathleen said; "we go to balls sometimes, and
to parties where there is dancing, and then--"
"But do you never dance here, where you live?"
"Oh, yes, sometimes we do, but the rooms are not large enough to do it
very well, you know."
"I never thought before," said Terence, "of people's not dancing all
the time that they were not at work or eating or sleeping. You know
there in the hill they dance a good deal of the time, and I get so
tired of it that it seems to me as if they danced all the time. I
think it is delightful not to dance. And what is your grandmother
doing? Is she studying?"
"Why, no, she is only reading."
"But what does she read, if she is not studying?"
"Why, I don't know; a story, maybe, or history, or poetry, or a
sermon, or--it might be anything."
"Will you tell me about all those things some time?" Terence asked. "I
have heard people tell stories, but I never read a story, and I never
read anything except books to help me learn to make railways and
telegraphs, so as to teach it to the people in the hill. That is all
they think of when they are not dancing."
And Terence wondered like this at everything that he saw, and he often
told Kathleen how tired he was of living in the hill and how much he
wished that he could live outside among the real people, as he called
them, instead of with the Good People. Once Kathleen tried to take
Terence to see Peter and Ellen, and then a strange thing was
discovered. Terence could not go there. When he came to the corner of
the street where Peter and Ellen lived, he turned straight around and
walked the other way. "This is the way," Kathleen called, and she
hurried back after him.
When she came up with him he turned again and walked with her as they
had been going at first. "I don't know why I did that," he said. "I
didn't mean to. It was as if my feet turned me around and brought me
back."
By this time they were at the corner again, and Terence did just the
same thing over. He turned square around and walked back. He could not
help it. He tried it again and again and he could not turn that
corner. If you had been there and had seen him trying it, you would
have thought that it was the funniest sight that you ever saw, though
it may not sound so funny to tell about it. Kathleen was vexed that
Terence could not go where she wanted him to, but she laughed till she
had to sit down on a doorstep and rest.
Terence did not understand it any more than Kathleen did, and
afterward he tried it again, but it was of no use. He begged her not
to tell her father or her grandmother, because, he said, it would make
him look so ridiculous. But one day, when he and Kathleen were on
their way together to the O'Briens' house, as he came to the last
corner, Terence turned around and walked away. "I can't go home with
you to-day," he said. "I don't know why it is. I can't walk that way.
It is just the same as when I try to go to the Sullivans'."
He went back to the Park and Kathleen went home alone and found that
Peter and Ellen were there. Then she simply could not keep herself
from telling her grandmother all about it. Afterward she wished that
she had not told her, for her grandmother laughed a little and nodded
and looked as if she knew everything, and she would tell nothing.
So the Hill Terence came to the O'Briens' so often that he felt quite
at home, and everyone there was glad to have him come, and if he
stayed away for as long as three or four days, they wondered what had
become of him. And all this, you may suppose, did not improve Terence
Sullivan's temper. He and the Hill Terence never met except that one
time in the Park, but he knew all about it. And he talked with
Kathleen about it sometimes, too, and it made her very uncomfortable.
He talked in the same way that he did the day after Kathleen came back
from the hill, of his having something to do with the Hill Terence and
of the harm that he could do if he chose. He never said anything that
Kathleen could understand, but he always made her afraid. She told the
Hill Terence about it, and she told her grandmother about it. Her
grandmother seemed to understand it perfectly, and she told her not to
be afraid. Terence did not seem to understand it at all, and he told
her not to be afraid.
Then one day, when Terence Sullivan had been talking to her in the
same way and had been looking at her in a more terrible way than ever
before, she told her grandmother that she could not bear it any
longer. If something could not be done to make Terence stop talking to
her so, and looking at her so, she should ask her father to let her go
away somewhere.
"There's nothing for you to be afraid of," her grandmother said, "but
if you are afraid and if it troubles you so much, we will see what we
can do."
Then Mrs. O'Brien went to her own room and came back with something
which she gave to Kathleen. It was a little crucifix, made of iron.
"It was this," she said, "that I touched you with to bring you out of
the circle when you were dancing with the Good People. Hang it around
your neck, and if Terence troubles you, hold it up before you and
before him. I have always said that Terence was one of the Good
People, and I never believed it more than this minute. If he is one of
them, he cannot come near the cross, and the iron will be a terror to
him too. If he tries to come too near to you, touch him with it, and
then we'll see."
"Why can he not come near the cross?" Kathleen asked.
"Because," Mrs. O'Brien said, "the Good People are a kind of spirits,
and no spirits can do you any harm if you hold the cross before you,
or if you make the sign of the cross. Did I never tell you what the
Good People were? They were angels and lived in Heaven once. When
Satan and his angels rebelled against God and were driven out of
Heaven, the angels that are the Good People were driven out too. They
were not good enough to stay in Heaven, and they were not bad enough
to fall as Satan and his angels fell, so some of them stayed on the
land and some of them stayed in the sea. And so they will live till
the Day of Judgment, and then, some say, they will vanish like dew
when it dries away; and some say that they will be saved like the
souls of Christians. But we do not know."
"You do not know," Kathleen repeated, "if the Good People will be
saved or not? They were very good to me, though they kept me away from
home so long, and I should like to believe--"
"I have read of one of them," Mrs. O'Brien went on, "who looked in at
the gate of Heaven, and an angel told him that he could come in, if
he could bring with him the thing which was counted in Heaven the most
precious in all the world. And he found it and brought it and went
into Heaven. But for the most of them--the Good People themselves do
not know whether they are to be saved, and we common people do not
know, but they say that priests know. And sometimes the Good People
themselves have tried to find out from them.
"There was a troupe of fairies dancing one night on a green near a
river, and they were all having the merry kind of time that you know
better than I do, Kathleen. But they stopped all at once and ran to
hide themselves among the grass and behind leaves and weeds. For they
knew, in the way that they have of knowing, that a priest was coming,
and the Good People cannot bear to be near a priest.
"The priest who was coming had been on some errand at a long distance
from home, and he was a long way from home still. Indeed, he was just
making up his mind that, as it was so late, he would not try to go
home at all that night, but would ask for a supper and a bed at the
first cabin he should come to. And well he knew he would find it and
welcome.
"And true for him, close by where the Good People had been dancing, he
came to a cabin and knocked at the door. The man and his wife who
lived there were proud enough to see the priest in their house and to
give him all that he asked, and the trouble that was on them was that
they had no more to give. For there was nothing to offer him but
potatoes, though they were as good potatoes as there were in Ireland.
"It was only a little while ago that the man of the house had set a
net in the river, and he thought that there would hardly be a fish in
it so soon. But then he thought that there could be no harm in
looking, so down to the river he went to try could he find something
for the priest's supper more than the potatoes. And true enough, there
in the net was the finest salmon he ever saw. He was about to take him
out, when the net was pulled away from him by something that he could
not see, and away went the salmon swimming down the river.
"It may be that he said things to the fish that I wouldn't like to be
saying after him, and at the same time he looked around to see what it
was that was pulling his net. And then he saw the Good People.
"'Give yourself no trouble about the fish,' one of them said to him.
'If you'll only go back to your house and ask the priest one question
from us we'll see that he and you have the finest supper that was ever
seen.'
"Now the man thought that it was not safe to be talking and making
bargains with the Good People, so he said: 'I'll not have anything to
do with you at all.' And then he thought neither was it safe to make
them angry with him, and so he said again: 'I've no wish to offend you
and I thank you for your offer, but I can't take it from you, and I
don't think his Reverence would like me to do that same.'
"Then the one that had spoken first said: 'We'll not ask you to take
anything you don't want, but will you ask the priest one question for
us?"
"'I see no harm in that,' said he, 'for sure he needn't answer it if
he doesn't like; but I'll not take your supper.'
"'Then,' said the little man, 'ask him if we are to be saved at the
Day of Judgment, like the souls of Christians, and bring us back word
what he says, and we'll be grateful to you forever.'
"He went back to his cabin and found his wife and the priest sitting
down to supper. 'Your Reverence,' said he, 'might I ask you one
question?'
"'And what might that be?' said the priest.
"'Will you tell me,' said he 'will the Good People be saved at the Day
of Judgment, the same as Christians?'
"'You never thought of asking that yourself,' the priest said; 'who
told you to ask it?'
"'It was the Good People themselves,' said the man, 'and they are down
there by the river, waiting for me to tell them what you answer to
it.'
"'Go and tell them, then,' said the priest, 'that if they will come
here and ask me that or any other question themselves, I will answer
them.'
"So he went back and told them what the priest said, and the instant
they heard it they all flew away over the grass and up into the air
and vanished. Then he went back to eat his potatoes with the priest,
still feeling sorry that he had lost the salmon."
"But still I don't see," Kathleen said. "You say that the cross will
help me against Terence if he is one of the Good People, because they
are a kind of spirits. But why wouldn't it help me against him just as
much if he wasn't one of the Good People--if he was just a bad man?"
"No, no," said the old woman; "that little bit of iron will keep you
against any evil spirit, and never one of them dare come near it; but
no poor human creature with a soul to save, no matter how wicked, was
ever turned away from the blessed cross, or ever will be. The cross
was made for them. And now, dear, you have been crying and your eyes
are all red. Go to your room and try to make them look better. There
might be someone to see you before long, and you wouldn't like your
eyes to look that way."
Someone did come to see Kathleen before long, but, as it happened,
neither she nor her grandmother stayed to see him.
Kathleen scarcely knew that she had been crying till her grandmother
told her, but she had. She went to her room and looked in the glass
and was surprised to see how red her eyes were. And just at the same
instant she saw the little gold box of green ointment, just under the
glass, where she had left it, and where it had been ever since that
night when she came back from the hill. Then she remembered how the
Fairy Queen had given it to her to put on the little Prince's eyes,
and how she had done it, and how bright his eyes looked when she
touched them with the ointment. She wondered if it would make her eyes
look bright, too, and take the marks of the tears away from them. She
took a tiny bit of the ointment on her finger and just touched each
eye with it. It did make them look brighter; there was no doubt about
it.
The next instant Kathleen started away from the mirror and across the
room with a little frightened gasp. For, looking in the glass, she
had seen a dark form pass behind her, as if it had just come in at the
door of the room. She knew who it was without turning around. It was
Terence Sullivan. He was still close to the door now, and she was
across the room. She had the little iron crucifix in her hand and she
turned and faced him.
"What are you doing here?" she said.
Terence only stared at her, for an instant, more surprised than she
was herself. Then he stammered: "What--what am I--"
"What are you here for?" said Kathleen. "Why do you follow me like
this? I won't let you. Go away."
Terence was a little more himself now. "Which eye do you see me with?"
he cried.
"With both eyes, of course," said Kathleen.
"This for both of them, then!" Terence cried, and he struck at
Kathleen's eyes with his fist.
She raised her hand quickly to ward off the blow, and Terence's hand
touched the iron crucifix. The blow did not reach her eyes. Terence
started back from her and fell upon the floor. Only for an instant
Kathleen saw his face. His eyes blazed, but the rest of it was as if
he had been dead. Somehow he found his way out of the room, Kathleen
could scarcely see how. He did not rise, but he seemed to run like a
beast running for its life. Kathleen followed him out of the room and
to the stairs. She saw him just leaving the house by the door. And yet
she could not see how he went, for the door was shut.
Kathleen ran downstairs to find her grandmother and to tell her what
had happened. Mrs. O'Brien listened and then she said: "Kathleen, you
have been thinking too much about Terence and you have got too
nervous. Nobody has come into the house since you left me, only a few
minutes ago."
"But I saw him, grandmother," Kathleen answered, "and it was all just
as I told you. How could I see him if he did not come?"
Mrs. O'Brien sat and thought for a few minutes. "What did you do
before you saw Terence?" she asked.
Kathleen thought for a minute, too, for she was so much excited that
she could scarcely remember. "I had been crying," she said, "as you
told me, and I put some of the ointment in the little gold box on my
eyes to see if it would make them look better."
"It was that," said Mrs. O'Brien. "I've heard the like of it before.
When you have touched your eyes with that ointment you can always see
the Good People, whether they want you to or not. That was why he
tried to strike your eyes, and if he had struck them he would have put
them out. You will always see the Good People now wherever you meet
them. They don't like to be seen except when they choose, and so they
may try to do you harm, and you must be careful. Keep the little cross
always by you.
"And now come with me," the old woman went on. "I have had enough of
this, and I will have no more."
"Come with you where, grandmother?" Kathleen asked.
"To the Sullivans," the old woman answered.
* * * * *
It was only a little while after they had gone when the Hill Terence
came to the door. "Mrs. O'Brien and Miss Kathleen have gone to the
Sullivans'," the servant told him.
"Will they be back soon?" he asked.
"I don't think so," the servant said; "it was only a few minutes ago
that they went away."
"I will go to the Sullivans' and find them," Terence said.
Now that, you know, was about the most remarkable thing that Terence
could say. He had tried to go to the Sullivans' so many times and had
found so many times that his feet simply would not take him there,
that he had given up trying long ago. But now he resolved that he
would go, and, more than that, he had a feeling such as he had never
had before that he must go.
He knew the street and the number, though he had never been there. He
started off as if there could not be the slightest doubt of his going
wherever he wished to go. He walked quickly through the Park and past
the little pool as if he had never seen the place. He came out of the
Park at the other side and went on till he came to the corner which he
could never turn before. He turned it as if it had been any other
corner. It did not even surprise him to find that he could. He thought
that he was doing all this just because he was so determined to go
just where he chose, but he had never felt anything like the force or
the determination or whatever it was which was drawing him straight
on.
He reached the house and went up the steps. The door was open, and,
instead of ringing, he went straight in. But what he did next was the
strangest of all. He could not have told you why he did it any more
than he could have told you why he did anything else. Instead of
knocking at the door or going into any room that he passed, he went
downstairs to the door of the kitchen. There, just for one instant,
he stopped--the first instant that he had stopped since he left the
O'Briens' house. Then, still without knocking, he pushed the door open
and went in.
[Illustration: ]
XI
THE OLD KING COMES BACK
When Mrs. O'Brien and Kathleen left home they walked through the Park
and to the Sullivans'. Peter was away. Terence half sat and half lay
on the floor in a corner. He held his right hand behind him and
covered his face with his left arm. His whole body shook as if he were
riding in a cart over a rough road. Ellen sat close to him, trying to
soothe him and trying to get him to tell her what was the matter.
When Mrs. O'Brien and Kathleen came in Terence seemed to try to make
himself smaller, but he did nothing else. "Ellen," said Mrs. O'Brien,
"come outside the room here for a moment; I have something to tell
you."
"Look at Terence there," Ellen answered; "how can I leave him when
he's that way?"