She took Ellen by the hand and led her, and Ellen followed. There was
something in Mrs. O'Brien's look now that told her she would have to
come. "Now look at me," said Mrs. O'Brien, when they were out of the
room; "do I look as if I would mean every word I said, or do I not?"
Ellen did not answer, and Mrs. O'Brien said: "Ellen, when it was only
your own affair I told you what you ought to do, but I let you take
your own way. But now it is Kathleen's affair and John's and mine, and
it is time that I had my way. Look at me, Ellen, and tell me, do I
look as if I meant to have it?"
Again Ellen looked in the old woman's face and said nothing for an
instant. Then she looked down again in a confused way, and said: "I
must go back to Terence."
"Ellen," said the old woman, "go down to the kitchen. We'll follow
you, and Terence can come, too, if he likes, and I think he will."
Without a word Ellen went down the stairs. Mrs. O'Brien called to
Terence: "We are going to the kitchen; you can come if you like."
Mrs. O'Brien and Kathleen followed Ellen, and Terence followed them.
He slipped down the stairs like a bundle of rags. He stole into the
kitchen after the others and half sat and half lay in the corner, as
he had done in the room above, only he did not cover his face with his
arm, but kept his eyes on Mrs. O'Brien to see what she was going to
do.
"Now, Ellen," Mrs. O'Brien whispered, "put your largest pot on the
fire, put water in it, and let it boil."
Ellen looked at the old woman as if she were begging her not to do
this. The old woman looked back at her, and then she did it. She put
the pot on the fire and the water in the pot. "Now bring all the eggs
you have in the house," Mrs. O'Brien said.
Ellen was past asking questions now, and she brought the eggs. It
always takes a long time for water to boil, and it seemed to all of
them as if it took hours for this water to boil. While they were
waiting not one of them spoke and they scarcely moved. Terence was all
but holding his breath, and his eyes, red and staring, were now upon
Mrs. O'Brien and now upon Ellen, and never at rest. Kathleen looked at
Terence and clutched the little crucifix in her hand. But she need not
have been afraid of Terence; he knew the crucifix as well as he cared
to know it.
After a long time the water boiled. Mrs. O'Brien waited till it was
boiling as hard as ever it could, and then she whispered to Ellen:
"Break the eggs now; keep the shells and throw away the rest."
Poor Ellen could not guess what it all meant, but she broke the eggs,
laid the shells carefully aside, and threw away the rest.
"Now," said Mrs. O'Brien, "put the shells in the pot."
Ellen did as she was told.
"What are you doing, mother?" Terence called from his corner.
"Tell him you are brewing," Mrs. O'Brien whispered.
"I'm brewing, Terence," said Ellen, scarcely loud enough to be heard.
"And what are you brewing?" Terence asked again.
"Say egg-shells," Mrs. O'Brien whispered.
"Egg-shells, Terence," Ellen said.
Terence sprang to his feet. "Egg-shells!" he cried. "For near six
thousand years I have lived on this earth, and never till this minute
did I see anybody brew egg-shells!"
Mrs. O'Brien had turned upon him before he had done speaking. "Six
thousand years, is it, that you've been on this earth?" she cried.
"Then go and spend the rest of the years where you spent the six
thousand! You've been long enough here! And send back the child that
was stolen when you came here!"
Terence sprang toward a window. Ellen stood in his way; he struck her
in the face with his open hand and threw her on the floor. After that
nobody saw him but Kathleen. She saw him go toward the window. It was
open just a little crack. Before her very eyes he grew smaller and
smaller, till he scrambled and rolled and slipped through the crack
and was gone.
That very instant the door opened and the Hill Terence came in. He saw
Ellen lying on the floor, and, without noticing anyone else, he went
to her and lifted her up. Ellen looked in his face, started back from
him for an instant, still gazing in his face, and then caught him in
her arms and cried, with her voice all full of tears, "It's my own
boy--my own boy--the one I always saw in my dreams! Don't come near
me, any of you, or you'll wake me and it'll be another dream! Oh, let
me keep this dream while I can!"
"You'll keep this dream always, Ellen, dear," the old woman said.
"Have no more fear. This is the dream that's for all your life and
forever."
It was about that time, or it may have been a little later, that Peter
came in. They told him all about it as well as they could. "It's glad
I am that it all came out so," Peter said, after they had completely
bewildered him by trying to make him understand the story; "it's glad
I am. And yet I did like to hear Terence play the fiddle."
"I can play the fiddle a little too," the new Terence said.
"Oh, yes, indeed he can!" said Kathleen. "Bring the fiddle and he will
show you."
Peter brought the fiddle and Terence played, and the fiddle sang a
great song of gladness--the song of a soul born to find itself a full
man all at once.
"Ah! don't you see now? Don't you see now?" Kathleen cried. "That
means something!"
* * * * *
The fairies in the hill were dancing their endless dance, when
Naggeneen, as if he had been lifted up in the air and dropped, was
suddenly among them. They stopped the dance and gathered around him.
"What for are you back here?" the King asked.
"They drove me out!" Naggeneen cried. "I knew they would! I told you
they would! I told you you could do nothing and I could do nothing!
It's the only wonder that they didn't drive me out long ago."
"What do you keep your hand behind you for?" the King asked.
"I couldn't tell you that," said Naggeneen; "I couldn't say the words
that I'ld have to say to tell you."
"And how did they drive you out?"
"By brewing egg-shells."
"And do you mean," the King cried, "that you let them catch you with
that old trick? I thought you was clever."
"Let them catch me! I couldn't help what they did! I tried to help it,
but it's a spell that's too strong for me or for any of us. If I was
to get a soul by it, I couldn't help saying: 'What are you doing,
mother?' and then I couldn't help saying how long I had been on the
earth. Ah, didn't I always tell you mortals was more powerful than us,
if they only knew how? What are our spells and our charms to theirs?"
"And where is Terence, then?" the King asked.
"He's not come in yet," somebody answered.
"You know where he must be by this time," said Naggeneen. "He's back
with his father and his mother by now. Where else could he be?"
"There'll be no geometry to-night," the King said. "It's all done;
we've failed in that. We'll always be as we are, as you told us,
Naggeneen. So now be as you were yourself and give us a tune to dance
by. We was dancing when you came in, but it was no good music we had."
"I'll not play any more," Naggeneen said; "that's all done too. But I
have something more to tell you. Kathleen O'Brien can see us, whether
we like it or not. Some fool of you must have given her the ointment
when she was here, and now she has used it on her eyes. She saw me
when I meant to be invisible, and by the same token she can see any of
you any time, whether you want to be seen or not. Now you know it's
the rule that she must be blinded in some way. Any of you can do it
that likes. I've had enough and I warn you. She carries something that
none of you can face, if she uses it. But you can watch your chance
and do it when she's asleep or in some way off her guard."
An angry murmur ran around when Naggeneen said this. The King was
about to speak, but the Queen spoke first. "Never a one of you shall
harm her," she said. "Look what she did for me and the little Prince,
at that time when we can do nothing for ourselves. And how good her
grandmother has always been to us; and her mother, when she was alive.
I don't care if she sees everything we do; no one of us shall ever
harm her or anyone that belongs to her."
"You are right," the King said, "and it's ordered as you say."
"And she's not to be blinded, then?" said Naggeneen.
"She's not to be harmed," the King answered. "I forbid you ever to
touch her, Naggeneen, and none of us ever will."
"Don't fear for me," said Naggeneen. "I'll never go near her. I've had
enough."
"And we've all had enough," said the King; "so now, Naggeneen, play
for us."
"Leave me be," said Naggeneen; "I'll never play for you again. King,
did you ever lose what you cared for more than all the world? When you
do, you'll know more than you know now, with all your age and with all
your power. I told you once how I carried off the Princess of France
and how Guleesh na Guss Dhu stole her from me. I cared nothing for
her. It was only the soul that I'ld get from her that I wanted. And
this time it was only the soul that I wanted, too, at first, but I
loved this one in the end. But a soul will always find out another
soul, and there's nothing for one like us, that has no soul. Oh, I
couldn't even tell her like a man. All I could do was to be always
frightening her and threatening her, and I knew all the time that it
would drive her away from me at last, or me away from her. And I'll be
like the rest of you till the Last Day, and then it's not even a
little smoke that there'll be left of us. Dance and play and do what
you like, but leave me be."
Naggeneen turned away from the King, pushed his way through the crowd,
and threw himself down in a corner of the hall, with his face against
the wall. The rest did not dance any more that night. Naggeneen had
frightened them, as he always frightened them when he chose.
After that for a time everything went with the fairies as it had gone
at first, except that Naggeneen was not among them. Sometimes he was
in the hall by himself and sometimes he was out of it by himself, but
he never danced with the others, he never talked with them, and he
never played for them.
One day the King came to him as he sat in his corner alone and said,
"Naggeneen, we are all going to the wedding. Will you come with us?"
"Leave me be," said Naggeneen. "Why would I want to see it? I don't
know if I'll ever go with you or do anything with you again, or with
anyone, but I know I'll not now."
All the people who were passing St. Patrick's Cathedral could tell by
the looks of things that if they waited long enough they would see
somebody come out. So a good many waited. After a while they saw
Terence and Kathleen come out and get into a carriage.
"Look," said Kathleen: "do you see them? They are the Good People!
Don't you see them all around us, in the street and in the air, and
everywhere? I remember every one of them--the funny little men and the
pretty little girls. Oh, you goose, you have lived with them all your
life, and still you can't see them except when they want you to. But
my eyes are different, and I can see them always. Here is one of them
coming close to the carriage. It is the King. Yes, Your Majesty. What
do you think he says, Terence? He says that they are never going to
try to put my eyes out and are never going to do me any harm at all,
and that I am never to be afraid of them."
Presently the people who were waiting outside the Cathedral saw John
O'Brien and his mother come out and get into another carriage.
"Shaun," said the old woman, "I'm wishing that poor Kitty--Heaven rest
her soul!--could be here to-day."
"I was thinking that same, mother," said John.
"I think she sees it all," said his mother.
"I think so," said John.
"Shaun," said the old woman again, "isn't it all as well as it could
be? Isn't my old King back with us, and isn't it the luck of
O'Donoghue that we've found again?"
* * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
* * * * *
FAIRIES AND FOLK OF IRELAND. $1.50
THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE. $1.50.
THE COURT OF KING ARTHUR. $1.50.
THE WAGNER STORY BOOK. $1.50.
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Fairies and Folk of Ireland
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OTHER BOOKS BY MR. FROST
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The Wagner Story Book. Firelight Tales of the Great Music Dramas.
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The Jack of All Trades
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End of Project Gutenberg's Fairies and Folk of Ireland, by William Henry Frost