Magic bell now summons thee.
Spread with viands good to taste,
Fairy table, prithee haste!"
and after a moment's pause he lifted the silver toy and rang it
cheerily.
Then--utter silence, save for Michael's drawing a deep breath or
two--and--oh, joy! the whirring sounds began to be heard--no mistake
about it, as they grew louder and nearer. Giles chuckled as he
whispered, "Some good honest bread and cheese, hey, Mike?"
But he laughs best who wins!
Michael made no reply. In another moment came the soft swing of the
invisible hinges--the floor opened, and up came the table. You could
almost have fancied that it or its burdens were laughing with pleasure,
for there was a merry clatter among the pretty china plates and
dishes--so closely were they packed, so many were they, though as the
whole finally emerged and settled down as it were, the table seemed to
grow longer, till there was ample space for its six guests. Then the
floor closed, and all was quiet.
Not so the three cousins.
"Hurrah in good earnest this time," cried Giles.
"Hush, my good fellow," said Michael, though his own face was by this
time one broad smile "they'll have come, I'm sure. I must fetch them
in," and he turned towards the door.
"Stay a moment," interrupted Hodge, who by this time was in high
spirits, busily lifting the covers and examining the viands, "stay, till
I tell you what there is for dinner. The giver of the feast should know
the fare."
"Well, then," said Michael, "tell me quickly."
"There's a couple of ducks," replied Hodge, "stuffed, and roasted to a
turn. How good they smell! And apple sauce and mashed potatoes, and a
plum-pudding--to be sure Christmas is not so very far off now--and a
whole pile of gingerbread snaps with whipped cream, and oranges galore,
for dessert. My word, but the brownies keep first-rate cooks and
caterers."
Michael had opened the door before his hungry friend had left off
speaking, but he heard Hodge calling after him, "Stop, stop, I've
forgotten the pork pie. Oh, my goodness, such a beauty!"
In another moment Michael had seized Dame Martha by the hand and was
leading her into the cottage, followed by Paul and Mattie, looking very
neat and clean in spite of their poor clothes, and in not a little
excitement at this visit to the kind young man who had been their first
friend in this strange land.
"I hope you've not been waiting long," said Mike.
"Oh no, thank you," the dame replied. "Just a very few minutes. We heard
the church clock strike the half-hour as we drew near."
The door was wide open. Hodge and Giles greeted the new-comers heartily,
Hodge adding that they'd better set to at once, before the dishes got
cold. But though Dame Martha had very good manners by nature and even by
habit, for in her better days she had been a much-respected upper
servant in an excellent family, she could not restrain an exclamation of
the greatest astonishment when she caught sight of the wonderful display
of good things, and perceived their appetising odour.
"My dear boy--Michael!" she cried. "What extravagance is this? And you
said it would be just a simple meal--'pot-luck' you called it, if I
remember right?"
"And pot-luck it is," he replied, laughing. "There's no reason that I
know of why pot-luck shouldn't be good fare, as I hope you will find our
dinner to be."
There is no need to tell you how the feast was enjoyed. To begin with,
it was flavoured not only with the "best sauce" of the old
proverb--hunger--but also with the excellent additions of friendliness
and gratitude and goodwill, and besides these even, there was a
mysterious feeling of graciousness and prettiness over it all, which I
am inclined to think must have been wafted with the viands from
fairyland itself.
Never had the children had such a treat, and being modest and unselfish
and far from greedy they enjoyed it all the more, nor was there any
necessity for their grandmother to warn them not to eat too much.
Every one had enough--indeed Hodge's appetite seemed equal to that of
two ordinary people--but yet when all had replied, "No thank you,
nothing more," to Michael's hospitable offers, the dishes looked by no
means empty, and though he made the children carry off a couple of
oranges each, for a little Sunday treat at home, the pile of fruit
scarcely appeared to have been touched. The thought did cross Michael's
head that he wished he could keep the remains of the feast in his
larder. But "No," he decided, "it would be greedy and might displease
the fairies."
So when the dame and her grandchildren, with many and many expressions
of gratitude, took their leave--though, by the bye, I must not forget to
tell you that what brought the poor things' pleasure to the _highest_
height was Michael's telling them that he would expect them at the same
hour and in the same way the following Sunday, "and every Sunday, so
long as my pot-luck continues to suit you," he added--well then, as soon
as the three had left he re-entered the cottage with his cousins and
carefully closing the door, rang the fairy bell for the invisible
attendants to remove the table.
It disappeared as it had come, obediently to his summons. Then Hodge and
Giles turned to him.
"The luck's with you, Mike, no doubt about it," they said, but without
any ill-will, it must be allowed.
"Let's count it as belonging to us all," said hospitable Michael. "It
shall be a fixed rule that you two dine with me every Sunday, same as
to-day. And as long as the good people favour us as they've done this
time, the least _we_ can do is to let those who are less well off than
we, share in our prosperity. I've a feeling that it's what old Uncle
Peter would wish."
"That's why you mean to have the dame and her boy and girl every
Sunday?" said Hodge. "Well, for my part I wouldn't take upon me to
object. They're nice-mannered children, and the dame's an old friend.
And there was enough and to spare."
Giles was looking very thoughtful.
"Yes, indeed," he exclaimed. "It's the right thing to do, and, as you
say, it's following after our kind old godfather. I say, Mike," he went
on, "maybe--I shouldn't be very surprised if that's how you've hit the
nail on the head--eh, what do you think of that?"
Michael stared. Such an idea had never occurred to him, and indeed he
scarcely understood what Giles meant. He thought of it afterwards,
however.
Then his cousins left him, and he began to wish he could manage to see
Ysenda to tell her the good news.
"She'll be as pleased as I am myself," he thought, "as pleased as if the
good luck had been her own. And after all, it's thanks to her I
persevered. By the bye, I wonder what I should do with that nice piece
of meat she brought me, to fall back upon in case of need. I shouldn't
keep it--maybe she'd like me to take it to the dame. I'll just have a
look at it."
He turned to the cupboard--it was a sort of larder with a wired opening
to the fresh air, which he had arranged himself, for he was very
neat-handed. But when he drew back the door, he started with surprise.
He could scarcely believe his eyes, and rubbed them hard to make sure he
was not dreaming! For there, neatly placed on the shelves, was not only
kind Ysenda's gift, but all the remains of the dinner--cold duck, pork
pie, plum-pudding, sauces, vegetables, fruit! almost as tempting a sight
as had been the viands on their first appearance, so daintily were they
all arranged, so clean and bright were the china and glass.
Michael really laughed with pleasure.
"If only I could tell Ysenda," he said aloud.
The opportunity for so doing was coming nearer, though he knew it not.
On their way home Dame Martha and the children met the farmer and his
daughter. Ysenda stopped to speak to them, and her father, who happened
to be in a very good humour, as he had made excellent terms for the sale
of his numerous stacks of hay, accosted the old woman kindly enough,
though he had been one of those who had called her very foolish for
accepting the charge of the penniless orphans.
"Well, dame," he began, "and how goes the world with you?" and almost
before Ysenda heard the first words of her reply, the young girl
guessed, what indeed she was already sure of, that Michael's trial of
the magic spell had succeeded--so bright and happy looked the dame, so
bursting with joyful excitement were Paul and Mattie.
"Oh, I am all of a tremble with thankfulness," replied Martha. "Such a
feast as we have had! Never was there a kinder host than young
Michael----"
"And, and," interrupted the children, forgetting their shyness, "we're
to have dinner with him every Sunday--just fancy that! And see what
we've got to take home for a treat," and they held out the beautiful
oranges.
"I _am_ pleased----" began Ysenda, but her father interrupted her.
"Young Michael, did you say," he inquired, turning to the dame, "young
_Michael_! How comes it that he can afford to give feasts? I thought it
was all he could do to keep himself--not to speak of feasting."
"And a real feast it was," said Martha, "roast ducks, and pies,
and----"
"Plum-pudding, and these oranges and apples," the children went on. "And
every Sunday, sir, every Sunday it's to be the same--dinner with him."
"Glad to hear it," said the farmer, rather shortly.
Then with a nod of farewell, and a sweet smile from his daughter, the
two walked on.
For a few moments neither spoke. They were near their own home by this
time. Suddenly the farmer exclaimed:
"Queer business this seems of young Michael's. He's a steady,
hard-working fellow, but none too well-off. Maybe old Peter left him
something after all--unbeknown to any one?"
He did not exactly ask the question of Ysenda, but he looked at her as
he spoke. He knew how very friendly she had been with the old man. She
smiled, and her pretty eyes lighted up.
"Maybe," was all she said.
But an hour or two later, when her father had finished smoking his
Sunday afternoon pipe, he called her.
"Ysenda," he said,--he was sitting in the porch, for the day was mild
for the time of year,--"Ysenda, I'm thinking about that young
fellow--Michael."
"Yes, father?" she said questioningly.
"You know that old Thomas is leaving us." Thomas was the farmer's head
man. "He's getting past work, and he's got some tidy savings put by. He
won't be badly off. I'm not sorry. I'd like some one younger and sharper
about the place, though I'd scarce have found it in my heart to dismiss
him. But he wants to go. I've been casting about for a new man. I wonder
how Michael would do."
"Was it what you heard this afternoon that's made you think of him?" the
girl asked, straight-forwardly.
The farmer seemed a little taken aback.
"Well--not exactly. But you see," he replied, "if so be that old Peter
did leave him something, well then, Peter was a wise man, a very wise
man--it shows he thought highly of the young fellow, and if he was to
come to me instead of Thomas, I'd as lief as not that he had a something
of his own. It would give him a better position over the others, you
see."
From her father's practical point of view, Ysenda did "see"; and when he
went on to propose that they should stroll round by Michael's cottage
for their evening walk, "just to have a look at things," she made no
objection.
"We might say we heard of his kindness to the dame, and ask about her
and how she's getting on," added the farmer.
So Michael, sitting ruminating by the fire, was not a little surprised
when, on opening the door in answer to a knock, he was confronted by the
two visitors.
"We thought we'd look in to--to congratulate you on your--your kindness
to our old friend and her grandchildren," the farmer began, very
amiably. "We've heard all about it from them, you must know."
Michael's sunburnt face had grown very red, first with the delight of
seeing Ysenda, and then by the startling word "congratulate." For he
knew that the secret confided to him and his cousins would be of no
value if it were made known to others, so that Peter had trusted to them
to keep it faithfully.
Ysenda seemed to guess his alarm, and with a smile and a whisper she
reassured him, even before her father had finished speaking.
"It is all right," she said. "I know you have won"; and later on, she
added, "It is what Peter hoped and wished for."
So nothing was wanting to Michael's satisfaction. He begged his visitors
to honour him by staying to supper, and when the farmer saw the good
fare so quickly and neatly laid before them, his opinion of Michael,
needless to say, rose still higher, and before he took leave of the
young man he had hinted at the proposal he was thinking of.
This was the beginning of a happy life for Mike. He became the farmer's
right hand, and before long his son-in-law. Nor in his prosperity did
Michael ever forget his old friends. Never a Sunday passed without his
cousins and his poorer neighbours--Martha and her grandchildren--being
his guests. Never, therefore, did the "good people" fail to respond to
his summons.
And even before Ysenda became the hostess on these occasions, she felt
that she might reveal to him the secret of the condition which in his
generosity he had unconsciously fulfilled.
"Peter told me what it was," she said. "The magic feast is only bestowed
on him who invites as his guests those poorer than himself. But had you
known this, the charm would have been lost. Your motive was pure
kindness--free from all selfishness, therefore you succeeded where
Hodge and even Giles, good-natured though he is, failed!"
[Illustration: "Your motive was pure kindness--free from all
selfishness, therefore you succeeded."]
"All the same, sweetheart," said Michael, "I feel that I owe my happy
fortune to _you_, as well as to dear old Peter and to the 'good people'
themselves. May I always have a grateful heart and remember those whose
lives are less favoured than mine."
The Weather Maiden
Once upon a time--it does not matter if it was a long ago "once," or not
a long ago one; it does not matter what country it was in, whether far
off or near at hand--it was just a "once upon a time," somewhere and
somewhen--a little girl sat crying quietly but very sadly, all by
herself in a queer room which I will describe. But first I must tell you
that she was not crying from temper, or from having been naughty and now
being sorry, no, she was just crying because she was lonely and unloved
and in a sense friendless. And it had not always been so with her. Some
years ago--to her they seemed many, for she was only twelve, but in
reality they were but few--she had had kind parents, father and mother
both, who loved their only child very dearly, though she was not a very
pretty or "taking" little girl. She was small for her age and more
thoughtful than clever or amusing. And now that the dear ones whom she
belonged to were gone, and her only home as an orphan, and a poor
orphan, was with cousins, who, though good worthy people, had adopted
her out of duty and did not understand the shy silent child, or care to
do so, it is not to be wondered at that she grew shyer and silenter and
often seemed what she was really far from being, stupid and slow and
even sullen.
Her new home--though "new" it no longer was to her, for it was now
nearly four years since Farmer Mac, as we will call him, had brought her
back with him from the desolate house where she had been so happy and
cared for since her birth--this new home was a large rambling old
farm-house. A busy beehive of a place, cheerful enough to its owners and
their sons, who were strong and active and hard-working from morning to
night, but to Merran a sort of incessant worry and bustle, of loud
voices and hurrying steps and noisy laughter, or noisier scolding, not
really as cross or angry as it sounded, but startling to her sensitive
nerves and childish timidity. So she grew duller and slower and thinner
and whiter, till at last those about her began to say she was in a
"dwine," and "maybe all for the best if so it were, for--" and at this,
voices were lowered--"it's plain to see the child's 'not all there.'"
And her aunt, as she had been told to call the farmer's wife, a strong
hearty woman, who had done and meant to do her best for the little
maiden, grew tired of worrying about her, and trying to feed her up and
turn her into the sort of girl a daughter of her own would have been.
Merran did her no credit, and the mixture of shame and pity Dame Mac
came to feel about her gradually grew into a kind of constant,
half-repressed irritation. She made her work, which of course was right,
the child would have pined and "dwined" still more had she been left
alone to do nothing but creep about and dream in corners, but the worst
of it was that what Merran did, or tried to do, seldom pleased her aunt.
As often as not, after telling her to sweep or dust, the dame would
snatch the cloths or brush out of her hand, crying that she'd rather do
it all herself than see the girl's feckless ways of going about the
work.
This had happened the day that this story begins. Merran had had an even
worse scolding than usual, and though she set her face hard and said not
a word in self-defence, when she got upstairs to the hiding-place where
first we see her, she let her tears burst out and sobbed and wept to her
heart's content.
There was a special reason for her aunt's vexation with her that
morning. Merran had had a soaking in the rain the day before, when she
had gone out without an umbrella and with the clean, freshly starched
and ironed frock on, which should have lasted her the whole week, as
yesterday had been Monday. Now it was not only limp and draggled but on
one side a mass of mud, for in her hurry to get home the child had
slipped in the lane, always a rather watery one from the overhanging
trees and want of sun, and fallen at full length, so of course there was
nothing for it but to have the unlucky garment returned to the
wash-house six days before it was due there, and as a punishment Merran
was now arrayed in an old stuff skirt, too short for her, which she
particularly disliked, and a kind of loose jacket or bed-gown once her
aunt's, in which, it must be allowed, she did look rather a figure of
fun, something like a very shabby Dutch doll.
"And Dirk will see me like this," she said to herself, "after the long
time he's been away. He will think me so ugly and untidy, and he's the
only person in the world who cares for me at all," and at these
thoughts her sobs redoubled.
Dirk was the youngest of the farmer's five sons, the youngest but by no
means the favourite or the spoilt one, as a youngest is generally
supposed to be. He was not as strong or fine a fellow as his brothers;
indeed as a baby he had been so puny and delicate that his mother was
half ashamed to let him be seen for fear of its being said or hinted
that he was a changeling. There was some reason for this, as the first
few months of his life had been spent in much wailing and crying, poor
little chap. And even when he got over this stage and grew into boyhood,
his position in the family was rather a Cinderella-like one. Yet to
those who took the trouble to notice and encourage him, he quickly
showed himself to be a sweet-tempered, cheerful and intelligent child.
So by degrees things had improved for him, and now when he was expected
home from a long sea-voyage on which he had been sent to strengthen him
after growing too fast, his relations were ready to welcome him back
with heartiness.
He was four years older than Merran, so when she first came to the farm
he was only a boy of eleven or twelve, sorry for the orphan, and in his
awkward way very kind to her. So naturally she turned to him
gratefully. But now he had been absent so long that she felt shy at the
thought of meeting him again.
"He'll be big and strong like the others now," she said to herself;
"he'll not think me worth speaking to, looking like a beggar-girl as I
do. Oh, oh, I wish I could die! I wish it wasn't wrong to wish I could
die! I wish I could fly away somewhere, quite, quite away. Everybody
dislikes me--even the doll-woman up there in the rain-house seems to be
laughing at me, 'cos I'm so ugly and stupid."
What she called the "rain-house" was one of those old-fashioned toy
barometers, or weather-tellers, now so seldom seen. It had been
discarded long ago, as broken and out of order, years before Merran had
come to the farm. She had never seen it except up on a high shelf in the
garret, standing among other old things, broken or chipped or useless,
and yet which Dame Mac, if ever she remembered them, had not the time to
sort or look over. Possibly too, unsentimental as she was, there were
certain objects among the "rubbish" which she had not found it in her
heart to burn or throw away.
This, the garret, was the queer room which I said I would describe. It
was large, as it covered a good part of the first story of the
farm-house, which was a long, rather low building, and only one end of
this second floor had been plastered and boarded and turned into
habitable rooms. And these, where some of the younger sons and
farm-servants slept, had a separate staircase; the garret was approached
by a ladder-like flight of steps leading to nowhere else. So Merran had
long ago appropriated it as a place of refuge for herself when her head
ached, or her cousins had been teasing her, or her aunt scolding. She
grew to love it dearly. There were queer corners where she could hide;
there were one or two small unglazed storm-windows, in whose eaves the
swallows built, and from which she had a wide view of the country, in
its own way a beautiful part of the world, for though flat and what some
call "tame," it was well wooded--the trees in summer and autumn, even in
early spring, when the first tender greens began to shimmer and sparkle,
were a sight to be seen, so lofty and spreading were they. And not very
far off, though too far to be perceived from the lower windows, was a
silvery glimmer which Merran knew was the sea.
She knew by heart every inch of the place and everything it contained.
She made up stories to herself about the old pieces of furniture--quaint
chairs short of a leg or two, a tumble-down chest of drawers, with a
marble top, which must, in the far past, have stood in a handsome,
perhaps in a beautiful, room; a cracked and blackened mirror or two; a
pathetic old cradle on rockers, which seemed asking for a baby to nurse.
Merran talked to and pitied them all; sometimes even she sang in her
very thin tiny voice to the cradle, "just to make it think it's not
empty," she would say to herself as a sort of excuse.
Among the things on the shelf, nothing interested her much except the
"rain-house." She had never been able to examine it, for it was too high
up for her to reach, and there was nothing in the shape of a ladder in
the garret. Now and then she had thought of climbing up by the help of
some of the chairs, but they were all too rickety to be of any use. So
she contented herself with fancies about the queer little cottage with
its two doors, out of one of which the woman could be seen peeping--the
man never appeared, and Merran used to picture to herself that perhaps
there was a pretty fairy garden behind the house, in which he was always
busy working, while his wife kept everything neat and clean inside and
cooked the dinner, pretending that the little woman only looked out now
and then just to wish her--Merran--good-morning.
But to-day she was too unhappy to have cheerful fancies about anything
at all, and she even felt vexed with the doll, imagining that its face
was laughing at her as she sat there crying, and as she gazed up at it
the fancy increased till she began to feel quite angry.
"You'd cry too, if you were me," she said at last. "You are up there
quite safe and snug--nobody to scold you, or order you about. _You're_
not forced to wear ugly dirty old clothes 'cos you got caught in the
rain--no, of course, you never come out in the rain. I wish I lived in a
country where it was always dry and clean, instead of muddy and wet."