EDWARD, and Children._
MRS. L. Edith, how much trouble you have given me! Where have you
been? Why did you bring that girl back?
EDWARD. Where do you think I found her? In the House of Correction.
MRS. L. In the House of Correction! My daughter! Edith Landor!
EDITH. Mother, I have something to say to you; will you not walk down
the path with me? I shall come back soon, Lisa. Be gentle, girls.
FIRST GIRL. So you are a gypsy. A pretty game you have been playing!
What made you steal Edith's clothes?
LISA. I did not steal them; she changed with me.
GIRL. That's a likely story. Your mother beat her, and made her give
them up.
LISA. My mother did not beat her; she never beats any one. O, yes, she
punishes Julia sometimes.
GIRL. And you very often, I think.
FANNY. How can you speak so to her? See, you have made her cry. Never
mind, little girl; we know you did not mean to do any harm. I believe
what you say. Edith is always getting into mischief in some way.
LISA. You will be good to me; you will be like Edith, will you not?
EDITH, (_walking with her mother._) You knew all this, and you
sent the child away from your home, to wander houseless, and be led
into all kinds of evil. You love me, and take care of me, your own
child, and yet you let so many children suffer and do wrong, and do
nothing to save or help them. O mother!
MRS. L. I have been very thoughtless. I have never realized these
things until now.
EDITH. But, mother, now that you do, you will not send this poor child
away. Let her live in Jane's cottage; you know there are spare rooms
there; and I can teach her to read and sew, and she will be so good!
Will you not let her stay?
MRS. L. Yes, Edith, have it as you please.
EDITH. Lisa, you are going to live in a nice cottage of ours in the
grove, and I shall teach you to read and write, and we will walk and
play together, and be so happy.
LISA. And mother too?
MRS. L. No, I cannot have the gypsy woman about the place. What could
she do here?
EDITH. But she will not be a gypsy woman if she lives here. She will
become like one of us, and be very happy here with Lisa.
MRS. L. These gypsies never change; their vagabond ways are in the
blood. You can do nothing with them. She will be for wandering off,
east, west, and north, and be like a caged lioness when she is in the
house.
EDWARD. They are not real gypsies, mother. I have heard the neighbors
say they are poor people, who have assumed the gypsy mode of life to
tell fortunes, and impose upon the country people.
EDITH. O, yes, mother, they do not seem like real gypsies. I know you
can make of her what you will, if you will only let her come.
LISA. Do let her come--she is so good to me! I will not leave her. I
will go wherever she goes.
MRS. L. Well, she may come too; we will try it, and see how it will
answer.
EDITH. Dear mother, how can I thank you enough? She shall come this
very night. Edward, cannot we get her out of jail?
EDWARD. It will be impossible, I think.
ELINOR. (_rushes in_.) Lisa! my child!
LISA. Mother, mother, have you come? (_Throws herself into Elinor's
arms_.)
MRS. L. How did you come here, woman?
ELINOR. O, I ran away; they have not caught me this time. Come, Lisa,
we must be off like lightning.
LISA. Mother, we are going to stay here, and live in a nice cottage,
near Edith.
ELINOR. Who said so? They are laughing at you.
EDITH. Yes, it is true. Lisa is to be my little scholar.
EARNING ONE'S OWN LIVING.
“What a shame, girls!” exclaimed Anna; “Clara Morton's things have
been sent for, and she is not coming to school any longer. Her father
has failed, and they are to give up house and furniture, horses and
carriage, and the girls are going out to earn their own living.”
“Not really?” said Fanny.
“Why, every one knows it.”
“You do not mean to say that Clara Morton is going to earn her own
living,” said little Effie. “The last person in the world! Why, I do
not believe she ever sewed a stitch in her life. She never even
brought her own books to school, but had them carried for her by a
boy.”
“But there are other ways of earning a living besides sewing. Clara
plays beautifully, and could give music lessons as well as----;
well--perhaps not as well as Mr. Cantari.”
“No, indeed! Can you not see one of his queer smiles at the idea of
one of us girls giving lessons?”
“I know it. How flat one feels, after playing a piece so splendidly,
to turn round and meet, for one's only applause, that incomprehensible
smile! Poor Clara! I hope that smile will not meet her, wherever she
goes in the world. I am sure it will haunt me, for I can never see it
without a dim apprehension of the possible fate that awaits our
lessons and accomplishments in that formidable ocean into which our
school days are to empty.”
“Your geographical comparison is very natural for you; but as I do not
pride myself upon my acquirements in that branch, I confess I do not
see what it has to do with Mr. Cantari's smile.”
“You do not take music lessons, I believe, Miss Erudition; and perhaps
the forebodings of examination day would be a comparison in which you
would be more at home. I only hope poor Clara will not be reminded of
it by the world into which she has fallen.”
“Now do tell us, Anna, what you mean by the world.”
“Why, the world is--the people that laugh at every thing we school
girls do. Not exactly that, but the people who know how every thing
should be done, and give one of Mr. Cantari's smiles at our way of
doing it; they do not always know how, either. It is not that--it
is--it is--you girls sitting there, calmly watching me extricating
myself from my definition. Well now, into this world, whatever it is,
Clara has dropped, just as if she had been riding in something, and
the bottom had come out, leaving her standing on the actual ground;
and the poor child must walk on her feet which any little barefooted
beggar girl can do better than she.”
“That reminds me of a funny adventure which happened to me, when I was
a little girl, in India,” said Effie.
“In India! O, do tell us about it.”
“You know I was born in India, where the people--that is, the people
who are any body--never think of walking, but ride in palanquins
carried on men's shoulders. These coolies, as they are called, are
just like horses here, and one never thinks of their having any will
of their own, or any thought, but of trotting patiently all day under
the palanquin. As for me, I hardly knew there was such a thing as the
ground, till one day the palanquin bearers, for some reason which I
never understood,--a quarrel among themselves I believe,--suddenly set
the palanquin down on the ground, and left me all alone in a strange
part of the city, crying, and begging the passers by (who did not
understand a word I said) to carry me home; but I never should have
reached there if I had not been found by some one who knew our
family.”
“What a wonderful adventure, to be sure!”
“Well, I thought I had something to tell when I began. I am sure I
know now what you mean by Mr. Cantari's smile. But it was not so much
my little adventure in itself, though that always seemed something
till now; but after that I never could get the palanquin out of my
head. It seemed to me that all the people in India lived in
palanquins, except the poor people, and that they were nothing but
bearers. No one did any work, not even the servants, for every
servant seemed to have another under him, though, to be sure, there
must have been some at last with their feet on the ground, trudging
along to carry on the household. But this was always a puzzle to me,
and I used to wonder if some time every thing would come down to the
ground, like the palanquin; for the bearers were human beings after
all, and I had found, for once, at least, that they had wills of their
own. But this was, I suppose, something like the fear of the Indians,
which some of you say you always had when little children. I do not
think it could have troubled me much, however, for I remember I used
to lie all day in a hammock, reading story books, with a half-waking
and half-sleeping sense of the poor story writers being palanquin
bearers, to carry us about so delightfully, without any thought or
trouble on our part. But really, now, was it not natural to be
reminded of all this by Clara's situation? Was it not, Miss Revere?”
“Yes, Effie,” answered Miss Revere. “And probably we could each of us
remember a similar impression, if we would recall the circumstance in
our lives which brought us into closest contact with the reality of
life, which Clara is now finding, I fear, so different from her
school-girl ideas of it For my own part, you have reminded me of my
earliest years, when my palanquin, also, was set down with a shock I
have never forgotten.”
“Why, were you ever in India, Miss Revere?” asked Fanny.
“No, dear, but Effie has already hinted that the country of palanquins
is not so far from us as that.”
“Do tell us about it, Miss Revere. I have always longed to know your
history, for I was sure you had one. You seem to be so apart from us
girls, and to do every thing as if you had done it before, and as if
you stood so far back, that things which make us happy or unhappy are
only things to be looked at by you, just like Leonora, who is always
quietly sketching us, when the greatest excitement is going on.”
“I will tell you, if you wish, all that is to be told of a life,
which, with one exception, has been without events, that would appear
such to any one but myself. It will only, therefore, be the result,
and not the history of my life, which I can tell you, and that rather
for the pleasure I shall have in exacting the same of you, than for
any I shall take in recalling my own. I say there has been but one
event in my life; it was that which left me an orphan. O girls, we
speak of Clara's coming down to the ground; we speak of seeing our way
clear, and treading on solid ground; these are expressions of those
whose feet only would walk upon the ground, while their hearts and
eyes are on a level with those about them, who have never known how
hard to the forehead is the ground, when all we love lie beneath it;
how one hides her face in terror from the vacant air, finding her only
refuge in the earth, where lies all her grief. But I do not wish to
bring my dark robe among your gay dresses.”
“O Miss Revere!”
“Tell me if you think it possible for one who is absolutely alone in
the world to be happy, after having once been so with others?”
“I cannot imagine being alone, any more than I can imagine a sound,
without being there to hear it,” answered Anna.
“Poor Mr. Polanco, in the Darien expedition! Was not that absolute
solitude? After being left to die alone by his companions, who were
forced by starvation to desert him, think of his bones being found
long after, stretched on the grave of his friend, who had been buried
a day's march behind!” said Miss Revere.
“I know. Was it not frightful?” said Anna. “Can you imagine a solitude
so appalling, that a dying man would drag himself a whole day's march
(poor men! it was but a few miles in their condition) to find in a
grave some semblance of human society.”
“As if a drowning sailor, in an Arctic sea, should swim to an island
of ice,” said Kate.
“Only think how many have gone down in the sea with nothing in sight
but the waves; and people have fallen down precipices, and known they
were going, and no one has ever known what they have felt. We only
hear about those who are saved. I would give any thing to know the
last thoughts of those who have never been heard of.”
“But, Anna, is it not the same to every one at the last moment?”
“Perhaps so; but it seems different.”
“Ah, Anna,” said Miss Revere, “that _seems_ is the old story of
the palanquin again. Just as we _seemed_ safer the other night,
when we all huddled together in one room, in the thunder storm.”
“What an awful night that was!”
“And yet here we all are, safe. I never could have believed, years
ago, when I was lying alone in a heavier night than that, that I
should ever be sitting here tranquilly telling of it.”
“O, yes, do tell us the rest.”
“If I should tell you all, it would only be answering my own question,
'whether one could be happy after being left alone in the world by all
whom she loved.' Little thing as I was then, I learned that there is
no comfort from others, no diversion from a great calamity. Every
thing that one clings to for help is only the sailor's block of ice,
which is itself water. May you never know how utterly alone one is in
a great sorrow; but if you ever should, may you find yourselves, as I
did at last, taking root in the very ground on which you fall, and
drawing a new life from the reality of your desolation. Thus I had to
earn my own living; and you can judge if Clara's lot can seem a hard
one to me, who have known so well what poverty is.”
“Why, Miss Revere, how can you speak of poverty? I thought you had
every thing you wished,” exclaimed Effie.
“Dear child, I believe it is only those who have been unhappy, or in
some way thrown out of their natural life, who can understand
comparisons. We must all earn our own living in some way, and always
in the way in which our life is different from all others.”
“I wish, Anna, you had not told about the sailor swimming to that
awful ice. I do not see the use of thinking of such things before they
happen. I am sure I shall never dare to go to sea,” said Kate.
“How did you feel, Fanny, when you were out in the boat, in the middle
of the ocean?” asked Linda.
“Why, was she ever at sea?”
“And in a real shipwreck, my dear.”
“What, Fanny here? Do, pray, tell us all about it.”
“I thought every one knew about it. And yet I remember when we
landed,--for we were picked up by another ship,--and I thought every
one in the city would be thinking of nothing else, how strange it
seemed that no one thought much about it. We went up to a hotel, and
every one was seeing to his own baggage, and every thing going on just
as if nothing had happened. I suppose this is why I have never talked
more about it.”
“But tell us; you know we shall be interested in it. I have always
wanted to hear about a shipwreck from some one who had actually been
in it.”
“And then it was not so much the actual wreck. I think I rather
enjoyed it,--what I remember of it,--and I suppose I was too ill most
of the time to take much notice. But the voyage I remember
distinctly, or rather after a certain time, for I was so young that my
first recollections were about that ship, so that it seems to me as if
I had been born upon the ocean. I remember playing dolls in the cabin
just as if I had been in a house; and although it rocked about
terribly, the vessel was so large, with all kinds of other cabins and
forecastles, and holds, which I heard them speak of, but had never
seen, that I never thought of it as actually floating on a deep sea,
and separate from every thing else; for we were really, you know,
thousands of miles out on this immense ocean. But I always thought of
it as something like the floating bridge at the salt water bath,
fastened in some way, at one end, to the place we had left,--of which,
however, I had no recollection,--and at the other end to the place to
which we were going, about which I had almost as little idea.
“I must have been kept in the cabin, I think, by my nurse, for I
remember so distinctly the first time I climbed up the steep stairs,
and found myself alone by the side of the ship. Now I think of it, I
must have been on deck before, for I have a confused sense of the
glittering of the sun on the waves, which seemed very near, and the
spray, and the wind in the ropes, and altogether like a city or a band
of music; perhaps there was music on board, though I don't remember
hearing it again. But now it was after sunset, and there were no
little sparkling waves, but great, solemn swells rolling, as if their
loneliness, out there in the middle of the ocean, was too awful to
think of, out to the gray edge of the sky, so far and vast all around,
with nothing to hold on to, and then swelling up so deep against the
side of the ship, and lifting it up,--that great, heavy vessel,--as
they passed under; and then I felt for the first time the motion of
the whole ship, and the depth of the sea beneath it, and understood
what some one meant who had said one day at table, that there 'was but
a plank between us and eternity.' I had some sense of what he meant
when he said it; but there were so many planks in the ship, so many
decks, one below the other, that I never thought till now, that, last
of all, there must be one plank along which the deep water was always
washing, and if this should give way, we should go down 'with every
soul on board!' These words I had heard said by a very solemn man, a
passenger, who was also, I think, the one who spoke of the plank and
eternity. After this they were always sounding in my ears, and at
night, after lying awake, trying not to listen to the wash of the
water against the side of the ship, and not to feel it heaving up on a
great wave and then sinking down--down--till I felt certain something
would give way, and we never should come up, I would fall asleep, and
dream the ship had sunk, and 'every soul on board' was tossing alone
on the waves, with 'only a plank between him and eternity.'
“I forgot to say that we had a captain whom I loved very much; he was
so kind and polite to us all, and at the table particularly, was so
attentive to me, that I thought the ship would be safe so long as he
was in it. He was very young and handsome, and I thought he sat at the
head of the dinner table like a real nobleman. And so I believe he
was, as I heard one of the sailors say one day,--a gruff old fellow he
was,--that nobody but a lord's son would ever have given such an order
as that, whatever it was. I heard him say, too, one day, to a
passenger who looked as if he had something to do with vessels, that
if the captain had earned his own living, as he had, at the ropes, he
would have known something or other from a marline-spike. He said,
too, that ships never would be safe so long as captains who had never
'served up' were appointed over the heads of old salts, like himself.
“I felt dreadfully troubled to learn that the ship was not considered
safe by an old sailor; but I could not make out what he meant by
saying the captain had not 'served up,' the only use of those words
which I had ever known being in reference to the dinner, about which
the captain was always very particular with the steward. I at last
asked one of the sailors, who laughed, and said it meant that the
captain had not come up from the forecastle, but had come in at the
cabin windows. After this I gave up asking questions of the crew, and
puzzled myself alone over their queer sea terms; but I took all the
more notice of their ways towards the captain, and soon found that he
was not so great a man with them as with the passengers. What knowing
looks they would give each other, when obeying his orders! There!--I
knew when you were speaking of Mr. Cantari's smile, it reminded me of
something like it that had happened years ago; it was that look, of
those sun-browned, good-natured sailors. I seem to see the captain
now, standing so handsome and gentlemanly on the deck, the color
mounting into his face as he gave some order about taking in sails, or
tightening ropes, or such things, and the crew going about this way
and that, and looking sidewise at each other, with that good-natured,
wicked smile; I do believe the captain was more afraid of that than he
would have been of a pirate ship. There was one old man, in
particular, who was more grave than any of them, and never moved his
face, but had an odd way of smiling with his eyes at the men, and
putting out his cheek with his tongue; and the captain's voice always
seemed to be a little tremulous when he was giving an order while this
man was standing by. I was very fond of him still; but it was a great
shock to me to find the crew thought so little of one in whom I had
placed such unbounded confidence. What was to become of us now in
case of danger?--though of that I thought less than of that awful sea
which lay day and night beneath us; and now, more than ever, there
seemed to be but 'a plank' between me and it, now that the captain was
no longer between the plank and me.
“Then I thought how safe and careless of danger the sailors seemed to
be, and that it must be because they knew the ship so well, knew every
timber in it, and where it was, and how strong it was; and I
determined I would learn too, and asked the captain to tell me all
about it; but I found his knowledge of it did not reach much below the
cabin floor, and the passengers could tell me little. Then I said to
myself, I will go to the forecastle and 'serve up,' for I had found
out by this time what that meant; and this, Miss Revere, was really
what you would call 'earning my living.' I learned from the crew, and
particularly from the same old man who troubled the captain so much
with his silent smile, and who would cut little ships, and parts of
ships, and put them together for me, so much, that at last I could
stand upon the upper deck and know every deck below, and the principal
timbers of the frame down to the very keel. I suppose I could not have
known all this very well, such a child as I was; but I had learned
enough to feel safer and to feel the motion of the waves through the
whole ship, up to the planks on which I stood; so that I felt no
longer like a loose piece of ballast, rolling helpless about, but as
if the ship were a great living thing, and I was its spirit and life.
About that time I used to go to the bow of the ship, when great waves
were buoying it up, and repeat, with my hair streaming behind my
head,--
'And the waves bound beneath me, as a steed
That knows his rider!'--
some lines that I had heard from a passenger; till one day I turned
round, and there was the old sailor putting out his cheek, and winking
to one of the men; and I ran off as if I had seen a shark, and I
believe I never went forward of the cabin after that.”
“But, Fanny, how could you remember so well what happened when you
were such a mere child as you must have been then? What you say does
not sound like a very little child,” said Effie.
“I dare say many of the things I am telling were at the time very
indistinct and confused; but if I should tell them in the same way,
they would not have form enough for you to see them. Then I cannot
remember the voyage in course,--day after day,--but particular times I
remember just as distinctly as if they had happened yesterday. If I
should confuse a little what I felt then with what I have felt since,
it would be perfectly natural; for I do feel sometimes as if I had
never left that ship. I wonder if we never have but one thought all
our lives? That ship was then the whole world to me, and now the whole
world seems the ship. And that carries me back to one splendid
night,--the only perfectly beautiful night in the voyage,--in fact it
is the only night I remember; I suppose the nurse usually kept me
below for fear of the night air. That night there was a great deal of
noise and talking in the cabin, and I stole away to the deck. All was
stillness and starlight, with a gentle sound in the sails like the
cooing of a dove, and every thing as if it had been going on so for
hours. A few long swells reached to the horizon, and I could see their
waving lines against the sky, and the light came up from beyond them,
so that the whole world seemed to be ocean, and the ship the only
living thing, swaying on its bosom as lightly as Anna's cross, (what a
beauty it is, Anna!) and the top of the masts sweeping over whole
tracts of stars, and the stars blinking as if keeping time with the
dipping of the vessel, till it all seemed a dance, ship and stars
together, the stars seeming ships in an ocean of space, and the ship
to hang in a liquid sky, and I,--there I was alone on the deck, my
world under my feet; and who knew but that in each of the stars was a
being whose steed bounded beneath him as intelligently as mine? Would
not these sometimes speak each other, as the passing ships? Perhaps
they do now, I thought, in a way as much finer as the ocean on which
they all sail is larger than ours; and by listening attentively
perhaps my ear will become fine enough to hear them. Now, what are you
laughing at Kate?”
“Only to think how Humboldt would look, to hear you describing the
world which you had conquered so scientifically.”
“Just as if I felt so now, and did not know that only a little child
as I then was would ever have such magnificent ideas of itself. I
don't believe even then I looked any wiser than you, when you came to
school with your new Geology, walking as grand as if you were treading
on the old red sandstone.”
“Now don't, Fanny! We all feel proud enough of our new studies; it
seems like having attained the greater part of a science to have
bought the books; but we feel humble enough to make up for it on
examination day.”
“But all the time you have not said a word about the shipwreck,”
suggested Effie.
“O, yes, the shipwreck!” exclaimed the girls.
“I know that is all you want to hear; but you have put me out, so that
I shall make but a short story of it. Besides, as I said before, that
was the least part of it.”
“Not long after that splendid night, I was called up on deck by the
cry of a sail in sight, which, you know, is the great event at sea. It
passed at some distance, though near enough for us to see it
distinctly; but it was a clouded sky, and the waves, dark and
foreboding, left such a dreary space of water between it and us, and
the poor ship looked so forlorn and helpless, tumbling about on the
great loose waves, that all my old fear came back. I thought perhaps
there were those on board that dismal little bark who thought, as I
had, that they were carrying the centre of the world along with them;
and perhaps there were hundreds of other such, scattered all over the
sea in their poor little cockleshells, and our great ship would seem
as little and helpless to them as theirs to us. After the ship was
out of sight, and I was looking off indifferently in that direction,
all at once the back of an immense fish arose out of the sea and
disappeared. Perhaps it was the coming up of a storm which spread a
gloom over the sea, and made that huge black thing so awfully distinct
and lonely; but it was the most fearful sight I had ever seen. There
was that creature, out there in the middle of the ocean, in a security
frightful to think of, and we in an artificial fabric, which, at best,
was only the 'single plank.' To feel as safe as the fish, was now my
only desire, and I tried to give up all thought of the ship, and
commit myself boldly to the waves,--as I had heard Arion did, who was
saved by the dolphin,--not really, you know, but I could not even
imagine it; when it came to the last point, I could not even think of
plunging into the deep sea, and I went to bed dreadfully depressed,
partly owing, I dare say, to the mournful sound of the rising storm in
the rigging. All I remember afterwards was dreaming the fish had
changed into a mermaid, and was holding out her arms to me, and
waiting for me to make up my mind, and I was thinking that if I leaped
into them, the sea would have no power over me, and then plunging down
and finding not her arms, but the cold sea, then waking up and
actually feeling the cold water dashing over me, and a moment after,
some one seizing me, and hurrying me on deck amid shrieks and
screams,--and then finding myself in a little boat, crowded with wet
people, and tossing about in the dark, not knowing which was sea,
which was sky. Only one thing I remember after this, and that
is--after the storm had gone down, and the boat was rising and falling
on the great swells, the sailors resting on their oars, and a
clergyman in the boat offering up a prayer, and then reading from a
little wet Bible about Jesus walking on the water and holding out his
hand to Peter, telling him if he had faith he could walk on the sea,
as he did. I thought this was better than Arion and the dolphin, and I
could really understand how it could be, though it is all gone now. I
can only remember lying, crying, in the bottom of the boat. I was so
happy and weak,--for I think we had nothing to eat after we left the
ship,--and I would keep falling asleep and seeing some one stretching
out his hand to me, and saying 'It is I; be not afraid;' then half
waking up, and hearing some one say, in a solemn tone, 'But a plank
between us and eternity,' and if it had not been for something, 'every
soul on board'--and that is the last recollection I have of any thing,
until we were coming into port in another ship; and every thing, as I
said, was just as if nothing had happened, only I was very weak, for I
had been quite ill; and the captain, when he saw me coming on deck,
caught me in his arms and kissed me, which he had never done before,
and the grave old sailor with the queer smile gave me _such_ a
hug. The smile was all gone now, and when we left the ship I saw him
shaking hands with the captain, with the most serious face I ever
saw. I had overheard the old man telling some one the captain had
shown he had the real grit in him, and if he had not had the
misfortune to be born a gentleman he would have been as good a sailor
as ever did something or other, I forget what; as if he had said he
would have been as good a sailor as he had shown himself a brave man.”
“Is that all?” said Effie. “I thought when you came to the shipwreck
it would be something grand and dangerous.”
“I suppose you would like to hear that the ship was struck by
lightning, and went down in the middle of the ocean, with every soul
on board but me, and that I drifted for days on a single oar, and at
last came to a savage coast with a horde of wild Arabs ready to pounce
upon me the moment I should be dashed upon the beach.”
“That would be nice.”
“Or to have had me swallowed by a shark, thousands of miles out of
sight of land, and then you might have told the story for yourself.”
“O, I did not mean to complain of your story; and I dare say if it had
happened to one of us, it would have been the greatest event in our
lives.”
“Just like my night in the woods which Fanny's starlight night
reminded me of. I have been thinking of it ever since she came to that
part.”
“There, Linda! I knew you were thinking of something else than my
story, and I believe that is the reason it began to sound so flat
towards the end.”
“But I should not have thought of it, if it had not been for what you
were telling; so that it shows I really was interested, as you would
believe, if you knew how much it was like that night of my own.”
“Do tell us about it, Linda; were you out all night alone?”
“The whole night long. But I begin to think it was not so much of an
event after-all; you girls are so critical. It seems to me sometimes
we are like those stones which are full of caves, and grottoes of
crystal inside, to ourselves, while to others we are only common
paving stones.”
“But you must remember it is just so with all, and not contrast the
inside of your paving stone with the outside of others',” said Anna.
“I was thinking whether there was outside enough to my little
adventure to make it worth telling. But if it is thinner than that of
the rest, it will be easier to break open.”
“There, Linda, you have let that stone roll long enough; now let it
rest with me and gather moss.”
“I understand you, Ella. You are off now on one of your fairy stories,
and I shall have one listener the less. Well, I am glad of it, for I
shall not have you looking at me in your calm way all the time, and
thinking how much better you could tell the story.”
“O Ella, let us have the fairy story, and call it the paving stone if
you please. Never mind if it is not clear to you yet, but think as
you go along,” said Fanny.
“No; leave me alone. Perhaps it is nothing, and I know too well that
no story is good for any thing, unless one knows what it is going to
be before one begins.”
“I hate stories with morals; they are just like going in the cars,
where all you think of is the end of your journey,” said Kate.
“But unless you know where you are going, you would never go at all.”
“But it is so pleasant to go off for a day's walk without knowing
where you are going, and with nothing to do but to enjoy what you
see.”
“Exactly as I thought when I set out on the adventure which led to
that eventful night. But you were about to say something, Ella.”
“I was only going to say that things never look so well to me as when
I have some place to go to, and see them on the way. But the
adventure.”
“O, I set out without knowing whither I was going, though I found
something so like a moral before I was through with it, that my story
would be nothing without it.”
“That may be, but you will not tell it in the same way.”
“No, for I know well enough where it leads to, and my only fear now
is, that incidents on the way will not seem interesting enough to make
it worth the telling.”
“Leave that to us, Linda; and now for the adventure.”
“You remember what a time I had with Madam Irving, three or four years
ago; you were here, Fanny, and you, Miss Revere--you remember, of
course.”
“When you ran away from school and frightened Madam Irving almost to
death, and were so glad to get back again?” said Fanny.
“Well, I will not dispute you.”
“But do not look so resigned about it. If you could only have seen
the contrast between yourself leaving the school room with the air of
Queen Catharine leaving the court, and your first appearance on the
morning after your return!”
“I suppose I did look rather cowed; but if you had gone through what I
did! It was all very well the first night, though I slept on the floor
of a miserable little hut,--well, I may as well compress it, for I see
you know something about it,--in the bed, then, of that little ragged
berry girl who lives up on the mountain. I slept on the floor at
first, but it was so cold that I had to give in.”
“You might have foreseen, then, how long you would hold out with Madam
Irving.”
“Now, Fanny, you know I have always said--but it's no use. Well,
girls, I lay awake most all that night arranging my plans for the next
day. When I left the school, I had some vague idea of going home on
foot,--three hundred miles, you know,--with nothing but that little
bundle, (how long it took me to make up that bundle! I thought I never
should get off;) but then I feared I should be sent back, and the idea
of facing Madam Irving after taking leave of her as I had done--”
“Yes, it did come hard; I really pitied you.”
“Fanny, you are too bad. Well, my mind was made up that night, and
every thing was clear before me for the next day's campaign. It seems
that word made a great impression on that little, impertinent
Jenny. She was here the other day at the door with her berry basket;
and when she saw me, do you think, she looked up sidewise, with the
smile those girls have, and said, in a subdued way, 'Campaign.' I
wished she were in Guinea. To think of the solemn way in which I had
talked to that girl about the importance of the step I was to take,
and confided to her all the reasons for my leaving a society with
which I could not agree, and giving up all the associations in which I
had been born, and which were at variance with my views of life, and
living henceforth dependent upon no one but myself; for I was really
quite eloquent, I assure you, and inspired her with such enthusiasm
that she readily agreed to follow me, and share, as my servant, the
fortunes of the new life which opened before me. Poor thing! She had
nothing to lose, and every thing was gain to her. She had nothing to
come down to, either; for with her bare feet she was as near the
ground as she could be, and I had still a pair of shoes between me and
the rough fields over which we rambled all that day, though I did
think of taking them off at first, as I did not wish to have any
advantage over her. I found, however, before night, the advantage was
altogether on her side, for she made nothing of stones, and brambles,
and bushes, that put me out of breath, and tore me all to pieces. What
a sight I was that evening as we came to an overhanging rock on the
mountain side, and chose it as our camp for the night. The sun was
just setting over an immense tract of country, entirely new to me; and
I might have been on the Cordilleras for any thing that I recognized
in that scene. It occurred to me, that, although, when out on a ride
or a walk before, I always took notice of every thing, here I had been
a whole day, and had actually never thought of looking up from the
ground. And even now, with all that splendid view and sunset before
me, and the feeling of being fairly embarked on a new life, where
school and civilization were already so distant that they were not to
be thought of, yet I am ashamed to say, the great subject that
occupied my thoughts was our supper. We had provided against that
event, which we had looked forward to half the afternoon--a great
store of blackberries, which I had conscientiously refrained from
touching, though I was as hungry as a bear.”
“What an expression for a young lady!” said Kate.
“I really believe we all should be bears if we lived out doors, as I
did, for any length of time. Besides, any one who has seen you look at
the baskets when we have a picnic!”
“Ah, yes! On the mountain when I'm tired of gazing at a great, vague
view.”
“You know I think as little of such things as any one when we are at
home; but when we are out for the day, I declare a biscuit on a rock
looks more picturesque than any thing in the landscape,” said Kate.
“That's a confession!”
“I believe you would all say the same, if you would acknowledge the
truth, except Leonora; and I suppose a tree or a rock looks just the
same to her as a luncheon basket would to us.”
“You are always talking about the picturesque, Kate, like every one
else except Leonora. Now, once for all, what do you mean by it?” asked
Anna.
“Leonora, you must answer for me, for I am sure you ought to know, if
any one.”
“I was thinking that you had already defined it as well, perhaps, as
it could be. But if I should tell you all you have reminded me of by
your comparison, we should never hear the end of Linda's story, in
which I was becoming quite interested. I was thinking what a good
sketch she would have made, sitting a little way down that mountain
side with the ragged berry girl, and that great sunset before them.
So you must let me go on quietly with my drawing, and while Linda is
finishing her adventure, I will be finding a point of view for my
thoughts, which are just now rather indefinite. If I knew precisely
what the picturesque is, perhaps I should not be sketching it; but if
you must have a definition, perhaps this will do for the present--to
say it is the look of home which things have in a strange place; and
perhaps, to a party of hungry girls, a prettily-arranged lunch on a
rock, in the shade of a beech tree, with the light glancing up under
it from a bend of brook below, would be as near an approach to that
look as the circumstances would permit.”
“I wish you had been with me, Leonora, instead of that little imp of a
berry girl. It was just that sense of not being at home that made
that mountain life, at last, so unbearable to me. Yet home without
that seemed so flat and lifeless, down on a dead level, with not a
street or garden but could be counted and measured. I thought if I
could only have a hut on the mountain side, with a goat or a dog, or
something to give life to it.”
“With a little girl or an old woman to do the work,” said Effie.
“And some of us to come and take tea with you every other afternoon,”
said Kate, “out in front of the house, with that great view before
us. Would it not be charming?”
“Would you believe it! I talked with that child as if she had been my
dearest friend, and I should be afraid to tell you how near I crept to
her side that night, as we slept under the shelf of rock. What I
should have done without her I do not know. I knew the next night, as
you shall hear; for, do you believe, that creature, after all I had
done for her--”
“What had you done for her?” asked Kate.
“Why, I had--well, I had treated her like a friend, besides giving her
fourpence for carrying my bundle, and another for her share of the
blackberries, though I never thought of it till this moment, I believe
she had picked them all. In the morning, after waking rather cold and
with a feeling as if I had been jolted all night on a rough road,
though nothing could be more different from travelling than that still
rock,--how still it was, and every thing else too in that early dawn,
every thing gray and unsocial!--I tried to call out to break the
silence; but the sound of my voice frightened me. Just then the sun
began to stream over the tops of the trees, and a blue-jay pierced the
air with a scream, as if from the heart of the wilderness, and yet as
if he had a right there which I had not--as if he was at home while I
was only thinking of it. There was a harsh warmth in that single note,
as if the sunlight was to him what a good fire would have been to me,
which I believe I needed sadly, for it was at that time in the autumn,
when the nights are cold, though the days are so warm. I said that the
sense of not being at home was at last unbearable; I had not come to
that point yet, and I resolved, come what might, that I would stay on
the mountain till I should feel as much at home as the blue-jay, for I
felt how really splendid such a life was, even though I had had no
breakfast; for I forgot to say that, seeing a house at a distance,
down the mountain, and having a little money left, after what I had
given the day before to that ungrateful girl, I gave it all to her, to
go down and buy something for us to eat. Just this once, I thought,
and then we will live like the birds and the squirrels. Yes, said I to
the distant house, as if it were the civilized world, I have now
parted with the last link that binds me to thee, and repeated aloud,
in the excitement of the moment, 'I have burned the ships behind me! I
have cast the die, and passed the Rubicon!' I must tell you that after
I had given utterance to these words, I turned round involuntarily to
see if there were not half a dozen of you girls behind me; and nothing
can give a better idea of the solitude of the place than that you were
not. My only auditor was a little striped squirrel, who disappeared
with a chit, leaving an acorn with the marks of his teeth upon it,
which I picked up, wondering if I could not also live upon acorns. I
bit it, and found it could be eaten in case of necessity. Now, I
thought, I can be entirely independent of all the unnecessary comforts
of civilized life. Wherever I may be, I can earn my own living by
adapting myself to the place, and assimilating to myself the fruit of
every situation.”
“The what?” said Effie.
“Well, I cannot remember exactly what I was philosophizing about. The
other day I found in one of my old dresses that very acorn with the
marks of my teeth and those of the squirrel upon it; I tried to bite
it again, but it was so hard that I could make no impression upon
it. Then it brought all that day's questioning back to me, and I
thought if I had only finished and settled it then, while it was new
and soft, I could have made it clear for my whole life perhaps,
instead of letting it go as I did, till it is so hard now that I must
leave it where it is, and go back to that girl, for whom I waited and
waited until I was almost famished. Then I looked around, and there
were the rocks all waiting so silently, and looking as if they had
been waiting for ages, and could wait ages longer; and there was I,
like that single blade of grass growing in the crevice of one of them,
with only a summer to see and know them all. I could bear it no
longer, and rushed wildly down the mountain in hopes to meet the girl;
for any human face, even hers, would be better than that eternal
silence. The motion restored my courage, and before I had gone far I
felt ashamed of what seemed a retreat. I wonder if any of you ever
feel so about any thing that you particularly dread, that if you do
not meet it then and overcome it, it will come up again and again all
your life, each time more fearful than before, and harder to
conquer. I felt so then, and determined I would not give way; so I
turned to retrace my steps; but I had rushed down at such a rate, that
I could not remember the way, and taking, as I thought, the general
direction, I went up and up, till I lost myself in a labyrinth of
rocks, that grew higher and higher, and I saw that I had taken
entirely the wrong way. But I was too tired to go farther, and finding
some bushes covered with blackberries, which I suppose no one but
myself had ever seen, I began to pick them for my late breakfast. When
I had picked enough,--and if you ever want to know how good
blackberries are, you must pick them, as I did, when there is nothing
else to be had,--thinking I had time enough before me to find my way
out, I sat down in the shade of a rock, and gradually lost myself in
that great dream of a day. What a day it was! I wondered if they were
always such on the mountains; it seemed to have an existence of its
own, and I could understand how a day can be as a thousand years. The
insects murmured, and buzzed, and chirped about me, as if they had
such a sense of it, and were concentrating all life into their little
existence, perhaps as long to them as my life to me, which I am sure
would not be long enough to remember and tell all that I thought of in
that day.
“Then at last I began to come back to my former life, which seemed
already so far back, and to think of a little, common school day, and
what you were all doing. They have had the forenoon recitations, I
thought; they have had dinner, and now,--where can that girl be? I
exclaimed, as I looked up and saw that the sun had left one side of
the ravine in the shade, and that I must hasten to find my way out.
But the farther I went, the more I became involved, and at last I
became aware, all at once, that I was lost. It was as if some one had
made the announcement to me, and I received it at first with calmness,
or as if it was felt suddenly by something within me, and had not yet
come to my understanding; but I knew it was coming, and though I was
perfectly calm, a great deal more so than I am now in telling it, I
walked quickly to a place where I could sit down, and when I reached
it, trembled so that I had to lean against a rock for support. I did
not then comprehend my situation, or hardly think of it. I only felt
frightened about myself, and thought if I could only get my breath, or
if my heart would beat, or stop beating, whichever it was, and the
tremor would pass off, I could look the danger calmly in the face. At
last I recovered so far as to feel all that had burst upon me at once
come back, step by step, till the truth of my situation stood before
me, solid and bare as those cruel rocks. It was late in the afternoon
when you could see, in the sunbeams over the shaded ravine, every
insect; not a breath of air stirring the leaves, and the great cliffs
overhanging, as if just ready to fall. The silence was stifling, and
I tried to scream; but the sound of my voice was so faint and
childish, among those great rocks, that I threw myself on the ground
in an agony of terror, and if I had ever wished for a good cry, I had
it then. If it had been on the open mountain side, or any where else
but shut in there among those rocks!--but I really felt they were
closing in upon me, and would crush me. I cried till I was too weak
for fear, and then I found myself thinking of the blade of grass in
the crevice of the rock, and I seemed to be that grass blade, and
lifting at one end that whole weight of rock, never to get out of the
place till I succeeded; and then I thought of the tender flower stem,
which I had read of, lifting the heavy clod, and I tried to be quiet,
(if I struggled or moved I knew I should be crushed,) and to pervade
that whole mass with the gentle pressure, till I could lift it from
off me. This sense seemed a new breath of air in my lungs, to keep the
mountain from pressing me flat beneath it; and now I seemed to myself
breathing my own life into the inert mass, till imperceptibly it
became lighter and lighter, and at last I was free.
“When I waked up the stars were shining over me, and I seemed to be
set into the dewy ground, I had lain there so long. I positively
thought for a moment I had been actually crushed, instead of only
dreaming it, and that my body lay dead beneath me; for I could neither
stir hand nor foot, and every thing seemed so cold and distinct about
me. I saw a moment after that this was because I was chilled through
by the night air and dew; but the sensation was so pleasant--to feel
free like a spirit--that I remained just as I waked. How I did think
of every thing that night! There I was, lost; but I had lost all fear
of that, so long as I was sure of being there myself. This seemed a
new starting-point, which it was strange I had never thought of.
Suppose I should be where I had been in the morning; I should know
almost as little where I was as now; for without that girl's help I
could never find my way back to the school; and if I were there I
should still be lost, unless I knew my position in respect to every
part of the world; and if I knew all that, still the earth would be a
ship without a compass, unless I knew its place in reference to all
the stars. The only place that I felt certain about, after all, was
where I was, for I kept coming back to that; and then it seemed to me
I was a ball of yarn, that had unrolled as it went, and now all I had
to do was to wind it up to where it started from. Would not this lead,
I thought, at last to the point from which all things have their
place? Then I remembered the long, sharp teeth of that little
squirrel, and how every animal has an organ which enables him to earn
his own living in his own way, and it seemed unreasonable to think
that man had not one to enable him to follow that clew. I had thought,
at one time, of praying for a direct interposition of Providence,
which I had heard was the shortest way of leading one out of trouble,
for it seemed so much more direct, the clear space above, with nothing
between me and the stars, than to be losing myself farther and farther
among those black woods and rocks. But then, I thought, what is prayer
but feeling our way along that thread? and is not my _sense_ of
this the faculty by which I may follow it up? That thought was like a
new sense of touch, and I felt the thread within my hand, and was
certain that every thing has within itself the way out.
“While these thoughts were passing through my mind, they seemed
gradually to become audible, and when they passed away, the same tone
went on; and as I listened, I could hear, in the stillness of the
night, the dripping and flowing of some little stream, far back in the
mountain. As soon as it was light, I followed the sound, and then the
brook, till it led me down the mountain to the open fields; and where
do you think, girls, I came out? Why, up there on the cleared part of
the mountain, directly in front of the school house.”
“I saw you when you came in at the gate,” exclaimed Fanny; “and what a
sight you were! But that is always the way; we always come back to
where we began. It is the reason, I believe, why we never have better
stories nowadays.”
“You must allow there is some difference between coming back to the
beginning, and merely being there because we have never been away. As
for the story, I told you at the outset that you had nothing to
expect. But come, Leonora; I have given you time for your point of
view, as you call it; or perhaps, as I have come to a full stop, I can
furnish you with one.”
“You could not give me a better, for I have been thinking all along
that your story would almost do for mine.”
“Do look, girls, at what Nora has been drawing,” exclaimed Kate. “Here
we all are just like life, only so much better. How charming it is,
when we are all going on so, without thinking of any thing but what we
are doing, to find we have been making a scene for some one else! It
is just like sitting talking in a boat, and looking up suddenly, and
finding ourselves afloat on the lake.”
“And you know I always enjoy more sitting on the shore, and seeing
you, than being in the boat myself,” said Leonora. “It seems odd,
perhaps, that such a scene of life as that is should remind me of
Linda when she waked up and thought she was lying dead beside
herself. But did you ever, Linda, feel more alive than at that
moment?”
“I believe I had never thought of myself at all before. You know I
said that all the time I was so troubled because I did not know where
I was, I never once thought of being any where.”
“That, to be sure, is the most important, for it would be hardly worth
while to go round the world to find where our house was situated, and
to come back and find it occupied by some one else. That is often the
case with those who travel from home, and I believe we must come back
every night to be sure of not losing it.”
“How every thing brings in every thing else!” said Kate. “I believe
you will never begin.”
“I soon learned that,” answered Leonora, “and that brings me to the
beginning of my story, if you will have it that I am to tell one,
though I would rather tell it in my own way, by drawing the
illustrations to Linda's, which, as I said, would almost answer for
mine; but why should it not, as we were each to tell something in our
experience resembling Clara's?”
“Poor Clara! I had almost forgotten her,” said Fanny.
“None are poor but those who think themselves rich. How proud I felt
of my first poor little drawings! How well I remember them! The house,
and the fence before it, and the lattice in the garret window, and
then the great elm and the brook, and by degrees the distant hill
behind, for I kept adding to my pictures as I advanced, having to go
back farther and farther for a point of view, till at last the hill on
the outskirts of the village, overlooking the whole, was my favorite
spot for sketching, if I may dignify my stiff little achievements by
such a term. Still it was the house that was the centre of the
picture; but, as Kate says, one thing leads to every thing, and I
found there was no end to the things I must introduce; and yet they
did not seem to belong to the house, but to be fastened to it in some
way. I could not get them off, and remember, when some one was saying
that a painter of his acquaintance could not get his pictures off his
hands, feeling a certain pride in knowing that I was contending with
one of the regular difficulties of the art. But at last I succeeded,
in some degree, in getting my picture right, and did not altogether
disbelieve what every one said at home, that it was beautiful. As I
was led, however, farther and farther back, by the necessity for a
wider view, the house began to have rather a subordinate look; but
still it was my home, and nothing seemed a picture without it. As yet
I had had no instruction, as you would easily believe if you should
see my productions of that period, until one day, as I was bending
over my drawing board, (I was very particular about my drawing paper
then, and always had the best,) and had just got in the house, a shade
fell across my picture, and looking up, I saw a young man with camp
stool and portfolio slung across his shoulder, looking down at my
work. I drew a little back, that he might see it better, rather
pleased that he should see that I also was in that line. He glanced at
the landscape, then looked again at my sketch with a smile. He had not
said a word, and yet the opinion of all my family, aunts, cousins, and
all, admiring my picture on a thanksgiving day after dinner, would not
have weighed a straw with me against that smile. Yet he asked me to go
on with it, which I did lest he should go away, looking up now and
then, and seeing him regarding my work with the half-curious interest
with which one would watch an ant-hill, till at last I threw down my
pencil, and asked him if he would not oblige me with a sketch of his
own.
“He gave one look at the landscape. What a look!--it was a new
revelation to me in art,--like an eagle taking in the whole view at
one sweep. He seemed to hold every hill and valley fixed with his eye
as in a vice, and to weigh the place and proportion of every thing as
in a balance, on the firm line of his mouth. All at one glance too;
for, without unstrapping his camp stool, he placed his portfolio on
his knee, kneeling on the other, and hardly looking up twice, handed
me in a few minutes a complete sketch. I say a complete sketch, for I
had not known till then that a sketch may be as complete as a finished
picture. But I forget that my story also must be a sketch, and I will
not spoil it by details which cannot be interesting to you.
“As soon as I saw his sketch, I found, to my astonishment, that he had
left out the house altogether; and even the village he had put away at
one side as of no importance. On mentioning the oversight, he took
out his eye-glass and looked at the house, asking me what particular
importance I attached to it. I timidly replied that I lived there.
“'Ah,' he exclaimed, and apologized for his omission, saying he would
not forget so important a feature in the landscape. 'Come' said he,
'you shall be my guide over these hills, to which I am a stranger.
Let us forget the house for a while, and look up a new view of the
village, which does not come in very well here.' How strange it seemed
to me that he should speak of the village where I had been born, as a
thing to be introduced here or there at his convenience. Already his
words seemed to set it afloat; but when, after a long detour, leaving
it quite out of sight, we came suddenly upon the edge of the mountain,
where the whole valley lay like a toy village almost directly under
our feet, it was like a fairy enchantment. There was the actual
village, every house and garden in its place, so near that it could be
seen distinctly, and yet so far down that it had a foreign look. Then
he took out a spy-glass, and adjusting it, handed it to me. 'Now for
the house,' said he; and after carrying the tube over half the
village, I exclaimed for joy. There I was directly at the gate; it was
at the back of the house, and the forenoon work was going on as
usual. My father was standing at the door giving some silent direction
to the man, who seemed to answer him without saying a word, and Jane
was going about like a historical personage, hanging out clothes.
“It was exactly as if I had been looking at a place I had been reading
about in some old book; and yet the persons were so familiar to me,
more so than ever. I handed the spy-glass to the stranger that he
might share my delight, but he did not care to look. 'That is the
way,' said he, 'all places look to me. To the artist the familiar is
strange, and the strange familiar.'
“I only thought the remark was strange, and wondered if it would ever
be familiar to me.
“Then he went on to describe the village as if he were looking at it,
with me, through the glass. 'Do you see the old woman at the window,
looking down the street? And the man asleep on the church steps? And
the single figure crossing the green?' Just as if they were all
regular figures in a picture, and not people who happened to be there
at that moment, as they really were.
“'Now for something new!' he said, putting the glass in his pocket and
leading me over the mountain. But nothing seemed new to him. He
appeared to look at every view we came to as if he saw it for the
first time after a long absence, and remembered every tree and stone
in it. When I told him so, he sat down, and opening his portfolio in a
place unlike any I had ever seen before, and not, I thought,
particularly interesting, he began to sketch, and to tell me at the
same time, so that I should not be tired, the old story which we have
all read, (the first, I believe, we ever read,) but which I let him
tell, it was so new as he told it, about the little child that was
carried away by the gypsies, and years after, when they came back to
his native country, strolled off till he came to the house where he
was born; and the sense by degrees came over him that he had been
there before, and it all became clearer and clearer, until at last the
gate and the doorstep were no dream; and as he went over the whole
story, he would give a touch here and a touch there, that seemed to
waken a recollection in me, as if I were the little child he was
telling about, coming nearer and nearer, till, with a few strokes, he
finished the picture; and there, to be sure, was our very house, and I
_was_ the little child he had been telling about. It was all
perfectly clear to me, though it is a mystery even now how he could
have made it so. When I looked again, I saw it was not exactly our
house; and yet it looked even more like it than if it had been, and
there was nothing in it that I could have altered without spoiling the
picture.
“Then he would walk on, and sit down again and take another view with
a different house, but with the same home-like look, and yet exactly
suiting the landscape. And at last he would draw places without any
houses at all, and yet as if a human being was looking at them, to
whom they were in some way a home, just as he drew my bonnet and
portfolio on the edge of a hill, so that any one would have known I
was somewhere about.
“As we went back, at the close of the day, every object he pointed out
seemed to light up with a life of its own, and every step we took was
like finding a bird's nest in the grass. He parted with me in the
road, saying that he had left his horse somewhere on the hill where he
had found me in the morning, and that he should remember the day with
pleasure.
“As for me, I thought, as I walked slowly homeward towards the fading
sunset, that I never should remember any thing else. When I have read
since of the great days of Creation, which are believed to have been
years of our time, I have thought of that day, and it has not seemed
necessary that the old time should have been different from ours. It
seemed an age since I had left the village in the morning, and every
thing looked as it does when we go home at the end of term.”
“We seem so much older, too, then,” said Fanny, “and as if we had seen
so much, and should meet ourselves at the gate, little things as we
were when we left.”
“I thought of myself, and my little sketches of the morning, as if I
had been a tame pigeon pecking about before the door, with its little,
short feet; and now I had seen the eagle which I had heard of, and his
great wings had opened for me all the wide space behind the rim of the
hills which enclosed the village. And yet it looked all the more like
home for being encompassed with that great region. Every thing looked
so old, with a new meaning, and as I approached the house, it looked
as it had when I saw it through the spy-glass, and the gate, as I
opened it in the stillness of the twilight, seemed to say, with its
creak, 'The familiar made strange;' for these words were to me like a
sentence in old German text in an English book.
“As I was dressing for tea, I heard the sound of a horse's hoofs, and
a moment after a knock at the door. Could I ever know the meaning of
those other words of his, 'The strange made familiar,' as I did when I
heard it in the sound of the stranger's voice?
“He had called with my portfolio, which he had carried for me, and I
had forgotten to take from him. I heard my father inviting him in, and
when I went down, there was my eagle sitting at the tea table, bending
forward, courteously, to take a cup from my sister, like any other
visitor.
“'You see I am keeping my promise,' he said, 'not to forget the house
which I treated with such neglect in the morning.'
“I was too bewildered with the joy of my surprise to make any reply;
and taking my seat, which happened to be next his, I could only sit in
silence, and try to comprehend my happiness. It was as if I understood
perfectly the answer to some riddle, without knowing what the riddle
was. The china on the table, and the people, had always given me the
feeling of being fixed to it, like a doll's tea set, where the table
and dishes are all in one piece; and it made no difference how learned
or profound my father's visitors might be; when they spoke it gave me
the unpleasant sensation of taking up your cup and having the saucer
come with it.
“Then, too, we were all so near at home, that we never gave each other
room; and if we did, it was by going away entirely.
“But here was a person who set every one off at a respectful distance,
himself among the rest, and yet preserved their relation to himself
and each other by encouraging their peculiarities, outside of that
limit, and set us all agoing by placing us at the right point of view,
with, in some mysterious way, the common sense of the whole party as
spectator; so that we were like figures in a landscape, which, while
we were looking at them, I knew, without knowing why, to be ourselves.
“Even grandmother, who always comes dead upon a stranger, and there is
no shaking her off, could not get within the charmed circle, but had
to keep in her orbit; and really she appeared like quite an
entertaining old lady, and all the more so for her peculiar style of
conversation, which is apt to be the family consternation at table.
Our little group that evening reminded me of a system of stars
revolving around each other, with a general motion of the whole in
reference to some point without, which I had a sense of, though I did
not understand it; but I felt sure that our stranger did; and this, I
think, was what attracted me towards him, for I felt the need of
something out of the sphere of everlasting praises for wretched little
drawings, which I knew were only good so far as their defects showed
there was something better. Now, he stood on the outside of all the
things that he drew, and I knew he could see them as they were.”
“I am sure I am on the outside of all you are saying,” interrupted
Kate. “Which of us was it who hoped to get rid of moralizing by
calling upon Nora for a story?”
“Pictures themselves, as Anna said, may perhaps have no moral; at
least, they are not so prosy in telling it as I am; but those who have
no moral, no idea, are not usually the persons who paint them. But I
see I have been going out of my province; for a picture, whatever else
it may be, should be intelligible, and the painter's account of
himself ought to be no less so. So I will not tell you how I learned
from one person, who had a place to stand upon, how nothing can be
seen as it is by one who has none. I have at least learned to prefer
standing on my feet to having even so excellent a teacher as Mr. Moran
for palanquin bearer.”
“No doubt he would be glad if we all would relieve him, in the same
way, of a burden which he carries with such resignation,” said
Anna. “But he certainly will be much indebted to you for the valuable
information you can give him in regard to your fixed point, although I
believe the only point he thinks of when here, is that on the clock,
which marks the end of his hour.”
“I am not so presumptuous as to think a school girl's ideas could be
of any value to an artist like him, though, if we may believe men,
they all draw from us their best inspirations. Perhaps, after all, it
is the destiny of us girls, in some unconscious way, with the finer
instinct which men attribute to us, to spend our lives in winding up
Linda's ball of yarn for them to throw out again.”
“Thank Heaven the ball is wound up so far!” said Kate. “Now, Ella, do
break off the thread, and give it to the fairies to play with.”
“O, yes, Ella, do! After all this scraping and tuning, let us have the
dance at last,” said Effie.
“Positively I have not a word of it ready,” answered Ella. “I thought
of something when I spoke, but it was like turning a kaleidoscope;
with every turn it became something else. And then I began to listen
to Linda, and to Leonora, and my story became so confused with theirs,
that you would not know it for a fairy story, if I should tell it to
you; but if you will let me off until I disentangle it, Anna, I know,
will take my place, for she never wants a moment's notice. If you
should wake her up in the middle of the night, and ask her for a
story, she would immediately begin with 'Once upon a time,' and go on
telling it after we were all asleep. Come, Anna, take the
kaleidoscope, and I will give you the princess, the castle, the grim
father, and the disappointed suitors for beads to put in it. So give
it a turn, and let us see what it will be.”
“There was once a princess, who was the most beautiful who had ever
been seen--”
“O, of course!” interrupted Kate. “Who ever heard of a princess, in a
story, who was not?”
“Did you ever hear, my dear, of one who was so beautiful that of all
her maids of honor (each of whom was so beautiful herself, that a
whole village would go crazy about her if she but drove through it)
not one, however they might dispute for the preference among
themselves, ever thought of raising the least pretension to beauty in
her presence? There never was but one such, and that was my princess.
“Although her father, who was the wealthiest and haughtiest prince of
all that region, lived in a castle so grand and stately, and although
in sight of the highway, separated from it by grounds so severely
elegant and august, that except for the beautiful princess no one
would have ventured to approach it, yet it was open to all, and many a
bold youth, who had heard of her fame, preserved his courage all along
the avenue, until he reached the stately front door, nor remembered,
until it was opened by the awful footman, that he did not know whom to
ask for.
“For it seems the people, through the influence, probably, of the
maids of honor, had begun to copy the manners of the court, and every
pretty girl in the country had begun to fancy herself a princess; and
one day when her father was walking through the town, he was so
annoyed at hearing every third child called by his daughter's name,
that he went home, and shut her up in the castle, and declared she
should never again be called by any name, until some one should come
who would give her his own. You may be sure there were not wanting
youths who would have been happy to present her with such a gift; and
it was not long before she numbered among her suitors the princes of
all the provinces in the kingdom, each of whom had appeared at the
castle gate with full assurance that his name would be one which the
princess would be only too happy to accept. But their names were not
so powerful at court as at home. The maids of honor, each of whom was
a princess in her own country, did not fail, like mischievous things
as they were, to take advantage of the confusion arising from there
being no name for the princess, to go down when any one was announced,
in one of her dresses,--of which you may imagine the number when I
tell you she never wore the same twice,--and impose herself on the
unsuspecting visitor, as the princess whom he wished to see. What
fun, to be sure, all the rest must have had, listening at the
half-open door of the next room, to hear the protestations, one after
another, of these poor, deluded lovers, each to a different lady! They
did not once think what troubles might arise among so many suitors,
each of whom considered himself as the chosen one, if they should
happen to meet where the princess was the subject of conversation.
However, this very circumstance, which occurred, turned out for the
benefit of the princess, if not of the suitors; for a young nobleman
in their company, hearing them disagree so widely in their
descriptions of her beauty, very naturally concluded that each had
seen a different one, and that neither, perhaps, had seen the princess
herself. So he called the next day to see for himself, and soon found,
charming as the young lady was who came down to see him, that she was
assuming the air of a higher personage than herself; for one who knows
what he seeks is not so easily put off by appearances. So he took
leave, and coming next day in disguise, beheld another lady; and so
every day, until he had seen them all, and satisfied himself that he
had not seen their mistress. With all their grace and beauty there
was an air about them as of reflected light, and he fancied he
detected now and then a listening kind of look, as if the main life of
the house was going on somewhere else. Yet he did not wonder at the
passion of the suitors, for each of these maids of honor was so
lovely, that the lifetime of almost any man would not have been too
much to devote to her. But he looked at them as one looks at the moon
when waiting for the daybreak, and was not long in sending a message
by the footman, that brought down the princess herself, who entered
the room in all her loveliness, leaning upon the arm of her father. A
single glance sufficed to tell the youth that she was indeed the
princess that his heart had foretold, but also that he never could win
her without the consent of the stern old monarch upon whom she
leaned. Nor did he feel dismayed, for he also valued that ancestral
pride, nor without reason; for in the veins of the poor young nobleman
also ran the blood of a royal line, although the sword that hung at
his side was all that was left him of its former glory; and the old
king might have seen it flashing in his eye with a trace of the old
splendor, as he boldly asked the hand of his daughter. But though the
father frowned, the daughter smiled, for the glance of the youth had
sparkled in her heart, as if it were already the marriage ring upon
her finger.
“'Come hither,' said the sire; and the youth followed him to the
balcony which overlooked the country about the castle. 'On every
side,' said he, 'farther than the eagle's flight can measure in a day,
behold my domain. Think'st thou I will permit this inheritance of my
fathers to go into the hands of a man of yesterday? Let him win it,
then I may know that he can keep it. Go down again, and look up over
the castle gate, and see the escutcheon of this house. No heraldic
device is that, but the veritable coat of arms which the founder of
this house placed there as the seal of his work. Know also the
traditionary challenge to whoever aspires to the hand of the daughter
of the house. Only as an equal can he win her from her father's hand,
who will condescend to meet in arms none but those who can take down
and wear that armor.' Then with an inclination of the head that seemed
to freeze the air about him, he dismissed the youth, who feared him
not, but saw in him only the massive foundations of that stately
castle, from the upper window of which the fairest princess in the
world waved him a farewell of hope.
“When he was outside the gate he looked up, and there was the coat of
arms, not, as one would suppose from the careless glance usually given
on entering the door of a palace, an ornamental escutcheon,--though of
enormous size, as befitted the proportions of the edifice,--but the
veritable arms themselves, which must have come down from a race of
giants. Even if he could have worn them, it would have been impossible
to take them down, as they were built into the wall of the house, and
indeed seemed so essential a part of the structure, that it was, as it
were, the face of the whole front, and could not be taken away but
with the whole body. No wonder he felt for a moment disheartened, as
he stood before the frowning portal; and perhaps he would have turned
away in despair, had not his eye caught at that moment the merry faces
of the maids of honor peering out, one over the other, at the side
windows, and been drawn thus to a golden gleam at the great oriel
window above, which was no other than the radiant face and arm of his
princess; and although she disappeared the next minute, yet that light
seemed for a moment to lift, from within, the whole dark castle, and
to fall upon the device on the shield of the escutcheon, which was so
effaced by time, that he had not observed it before. With a smile that
would have become the stern face of the lord of the castle himself, he
gayly turned, and walked down the long avenue, not for years to
return, touching now and then the hilt of his sword, as one would pat
the neck of his war-horse, which was pawing for him to mount; and well
did that sword deserve his trust, for though it was his all, a king's
ransom would not have purchased it. It had been the sword of his
greatest ancestor, and possessed the charm of giving to the arm of its
wearer the strength of every one it overcame.
“But before he left, in return for the information the deluded suitors
had so unwittingly given him, he told them of the arms, and the
condition upon which the princess was to be won. Did he not fear that
in his absence the prize might be carried off by one of these other
suitors, so much more powerful in name than himself? Or had he a
reason of his own for keeping them from their own dominions?
“Now, each of these suitors was the ruler of one of the provinces of
the kingdom, and each had been attracted thither by the fame of the
princess's beauty. In the old time the kingdom had belonged to a race
of giants, and the provinces were departments, bounded by no
territorial limits, and the tenure upon which they were held was the
right of the strongest.
“In the mining district, the ancient ruler had been the mightiest
smith.
“In the forest he had swung the largest axe.
“And so, through all the provinces of that kingdom, each ruler had
been the master of his own craft. But the ancient heroes, thinking the
posterity of the strong are the strong, and that no state is safe
unless maintained by the same power which won it, had left a
challenge, each, on his castle gate, which was open to all who should
come in after times; and whoever should accept it might contest with
its occupant the possession of the castle and its domains. In former
times this challenge had been no empty form; but for many years no one
had appeared to accept it, and it now hung at the castle gate
unnoticed, as a portcullis, whose chains have rusted with centuries of
peace.
“Now, the rulers were absent, with no thought of their provinces,
wasting their strength in useless efforts to take down the king's
armor, not dreaming that they might be losing their own and fighting
among themselves in rivalry for the hand of the fair princess, whom
neither of them had ever seen. How many of them flattered themselves
that they should succeed in single combat with the old monarch, whom
they could not even meet in his grounds without awe, cannot be known,
but the coat of arms had many a tug from that day; and we can imagine
the feelings of each suitor, as he retreated ignominiously down the
long, straight avenue, the subdued laughter of those tantalizing maids
of honor behind him, at the windows, stiffening his elbows, and
twitching his knees, till by the time he reached the highway, he was
breathless, as if he had been fighting the ancient wearer of the armor
himself.
“Meantime, where was the youth upon whom the princess had smiled? In
the remotest hamlet of the kingdom, disguised as a peasant; in his
hands the charmed sword had become an axe, with the fame of whose
exploits the woods still ring. Nor was he long in winning the strength
of every woodman's arm, and with the last stroke the axe in his hands
became a hammer, with whose lusty blows, ere long, every anvil in the
neighboring province echoed, till with the last blow the hammer in his
hands became a ploughshare; and thus, through each province, beginning
at the foot and leaving at the head, until there was not an acre in
that vast domain which he did not know better than those who tilled
it; no forge or furnace at which his arm had not proved the strongest;
no art or craft that did not own him master. Then the sword returned
to its sheath, and he said, 'I have served my apprenticeship; now let
me take my degrees.'
“Then he boldly presented himself at each castle, and demanded the
ancient right of trial.
“At the gate of the first hung a mighty axe, which the giant arm of
the ancient lord had placed there, as a defiance to after times, with
the inscription, 'To him who can wield it.'
“He took it down as if it were a toy, and sunk it to the helve in the
gate post, carving on the handle the words, 'To him who can draw it.'
Then he entered the castle, and investing himself with the rights and
titles that belonged to him as victor, and leaving the province in the
keeping of a suitable deputy, he went on to the next, at whose castle
gate hung the ponderous hammer of the royal smith, its former owner,
with the inscription, 'To him who can swing it.' This he not only
swung around, as if it were a walking stick, but left buried to the
head in the gate of massive oak, and with unmoved breath bade the
chamberlain, who, with all the retinue of servants, had flown to open
it at his thundering summons, to carve upon the handle the words, 'To
him who can take it.'
“Then entering, and assuming his rightful authority, and leaving the
administration of the province in proper keeping, he went on to the
next castle, where at the gate stood a huge plough, with the
inscription, 'To him who can hold it.'
“Breaking to the yoke the wild bulls of the old stock,--for there were
none of the present race who could move it,--he ploughed a furrow half
round the castle, and left it buried to the beam, cutting upon it the
words, 'To him who can finish it.'
“He turned loose his team into the forest, and entering the castle,
left it, as he had the rest, in the charge of his own deputy; and thus
proceeding from castle to castle, and leaving each province as its
lord, because its master, he completed the round, and thus became
possessed of all that kingdom, save one castle; but that was the
king's. 'I have the parts--now for the whole,' he said, laying his
hand on the hilt of his sword.
“But before he went forth on his last trial, he gave a year to the
ordering and uniting of his separate provinces. 'The body is ready for
its head,' he then said, and went forth to the king's castle.
“As he drew near, he observed the suitors still tugging at the armor,
the maids of honor still watching them from the windows, though with
less mirth, and each with more interest, he thought, in some one whom
her eyes followed.
“But above all, in the great oriel, his own fair princess, fairer than
ever, held out both arms to him in welcome.
“One glance at the armor, and the inscription on the shield, 'To him
who can wear it,'--which he could hardly see, so covered was it with
the figures of the suitors,--and a smile to think how the armor was
wearing them, and he boldly entered the castle, sending his challenge
to the king to meet him in equal arms, according to his
promise. 'Where is the armor in which you were to meet me?' said the
monarch, on entering, with submissive dignity.
“'To him who carries the kingdom on his shoulders, the castle is a
helmet, and the arms a crest,' said he, and demanded the hand of the
princess. As he spoke, the sword in his hand became a sceptre, and the
king, bowing low, with a reverence in which knelt the proud humility
of the dethroned sovereign, said, 'Brave prince, we can only have what
we earn. I have no power to say that what you have earned you shall
not have. You have won it; Heaven grant you a long life to keep it.
Long last the throne whose wood the king's own hand hath hewn!'
“Then he placed the princess's hand in his, and gave him, what he
already had, yet what without her were not worth having, the kingdom,
for her dowry.
“At the marriage which took place, the maids of honor were affianced
each to her favored suitor, who loved her no less than if she had been
the princess for whom he had mistaken her; and each was better pleased
to be the princess of a province than to play at being princess of a
kingdom. For to each was given, with the consent of the bridegroom, a
province in the dowry of the princess, with a recommendation by him to
each restored ruler, who was to hold it in trust to observe the words
inscribed upon his castle gate, and to stay at home hereafter and
attend to his own department.
“But before the marriage was completed, the father of the bride drew
the prince aside, and reminded him that he had sworn his daughter
should have no name until one should come who should give her his own.
“'Names are for commoners,' he said; 'kings have none. Know then that
the kingdom which I have again made good from the foot, has come down
to me from the head, and that the princess's ancestry and mine go back
until they meet in the same name. But let her whose name is profaned
by all, be ever nameless for me; and lest her maidens again compromise
her by assuming it, let them keep it for a surname, and I will couple
it with a distinction.'
“Then he named each of them from the name of her province, and their
mistress is never spoken of by them but under the title of their
queen.”
“Now, Ella,” said Fanny.
“The beginning of Anna's story will do for mine with the change of a
word. There was once a brother, the most critical who had ever been
seen--”
“It must have been mine,” interrupted Kate.
“Did you ever venture to tell him a story? If you have, you may know
how much spirit I must feel at the idea of repeating mine. But as my
brother has so large a part in it, I may as well tell you something
about him.”
“O,” said Fanny, “if we get on the subject of brothers, we shall never
come to your story.”
“But as without mine we never should have come to it at all, as you
will see, he is a part which cannot be left out,” said Ella.
“My brother had the gravest way of telling the strangest adventures,
as if they had really happened, so that although I might have been
taken in by him a thousand times, I invariably yielded the most
implicit trust to every new story; while I had such a way of telling
real occurrences that no one would believe they were not inventions.
If he could tell my stories, I believe they would be better than his;
for, telling them in his plausible way, he would need to leave nothing
out, as I do, for fear of being laughed at; and they would have the
advantage over his, of not only appearing true, but really being so,
which is all the praise I can claim for them now. Yet he would insist
that he never told any thing but what he had actually seen.
“'Facts for men, fancies for girls,' he would say; for he had a way of
setting up one thing against another, as if nothing could stand
alone. Thus he would say the oddest things with the gravest face, and
would set me crying with a look like a harlequin.
“But although he laughed at my 'fancies,' I could not but notice he
was always getting me to tell them, yet as if for some end of his own
which I never could discover; for often when he had set me going in
this way, I could feel myself pushed forth from him, as if I were the
antenna of some insect with which he was exploring unknown regions,
and making in his own wise head conclusions with which I had nothing
to do.
“Then he was always fond of having me with him, and had always a new
name for me, which I liked because he gave it to me, although I could
never see its significance. Now I was his witch-hazel, though I never
knew what springs I found for him. Now I was his ger-falcon, but could
never see what game he loosed me at, although, certainly, no falcon
was ever kept more closely hooded.
“Very different was the confidence I had in him; for whatever was in
my mind, I was sure to go to him, and he was always ready to satisfy
me. There was nothing so strange that I wished to see, but he could at
once tell me, with the most explicit directions, where I could find
it; but when I returned, as I almost invariably did, without success,
the only explanation he would give was, that I had not found the
place. Many a fool's errand of this kind he sent me upon, from which I
came back as wise as I went. But one thing he told me which turned
out exactly as he said, and it may prove so with others which are a
puzzle to me to this day.
“One day, when I had been reading about the fairies until I had the
greatest desire in the world to see them, I went to my oracle, whom I
found sitting beside the stream above the mill, for our father was a
miller, and this had been our favorite spot from my earliest
recollection. He was looking at the water, apparently thinking of
something else; but when he saw me coming, he appeared absorbed in a
book, which I observed was upside down.
“'Tell me really and truly,' said I, 'do you think such creatures as
fairies actually exist?'
“'Certainly,' he answered, 'for I have seen them myself.' I looked at
him in amazement, but his serious face assured me he was not joking;
and I begged him to tell me where he had seen them, and why, if they
really existed, every thing was not known about them. 'There is also a
nation in the heart of Africa,' said he, 'supposed to be somewhere
about the source of the Nile; but no one has ever discovered them, or,
if he has, has not returned, and we have no information about them.'
“'If I lived on the Nile,' I replied, 'I should never rest until I had
discovered them.'
“'But,' said he, 'as we live on the mill stream, perhaps that will do
as well for us. And, now I think of it, it is the very thing, as I
learned from a conversation which I overheard when among the
fairies--'
“'But tell me first,' said I, 'how you came to be there.'
“'O,' said he, 'I came upon them once by accident, which is a rare
piece of good fortune. I had often before come upon them suddenly in
the same way, but they were off before I could fairly see them, or lay
like a brood of partridges, taking the color of every thing about
them, so that I might look for them an hour, I could never find
them. It is no use to wait, for they can wait longer than you can. The
only way is to go off and come back again when the affair is blown
over, and take them again unawares, when they will again, perhaps,
spring up under your very feet, and be off before you know they are
there. But by repeated attempts, at sufficient intervals, coming
nearer each time, and looking with a certain attentive indifference,
you may succeed in seeing them. But it is useless to chase them
whither they appear to have flown, unless you have a dog perfectly
trained; for Diana's hounds, I believe, are the only ones who have
ever been able to follow them up. But as they frequent the same spot,
if you leave it, they will be sure to come back, only you must mark
the trees as you go away, or you will not find the place again; for
otherwise you might be close by and never know it. I did not neglect
this precaution when I saw them; but though I marked the trees, I
forgot the mark, and have never been able to recall it. Perhaps you
may have better fortune, for there is another way which I learned, as
I said, from the conversation I overheard when there. But if I tell
you, it must be on one condition--that you will break the twigs, or
otherwise mark the way as you go along, so that I can follow.'
“On my giving the promise demanded, 'It seems,' said he, 'the fairies,
though living so far apart from men, are still dependent upon them for
their bread, and must come down now and then to the mill for their
grist, which John takes good care to leave out for them, or they would
turn off the water from above, he says. When they are on their way
back, they are always in good humor if they have found their grist,
and are willing to take up a passenger in their boat. But it must be a
girl, and therefore I have never been able to go up in that way
myself. They say that women can find the way to their camp, but can
never find the way back; but if men should once get in, they would
think of nothing but getting back to report it, and it would be
overrun with visitors, who would bring nothing with them, and carry
every thing away. For it is a custom of their hospitality to present
every guest with a gift; to the women an ornament of their beauty with
which they would never part, but to the men they could give nothing
which they would not carry home to convert into money. So that it is
doubtful which of us has the advantage; you who can get in, but can
make nothing of it, or I, who could turn it to account, but cannot get
in.'
“'O, I, to be sure!' said I; 'for the great thing after all is to get
in. But how am I to secure a passage in their boat?'
“He told me I must be asleep on the bank of the stream at the time the
fairies' boat would be going up, and they would take me in when they
saw me. He had tried to find out from John when they were in the habit
of coming for their grist; but John could not tell, or would not, as
he did not care to watch their comings or goings, he said. So long as
they allowed him sufficient head of water to keep the mill going, it
was none of his business, and they were not people that he cared to
meddle with. But he supposed they came, when they did come, at night,
or sometimes, perhaps, when he was taking his nooning.
“After that I went every day to the bank of the stream, and did my
best to compose myself to sleep; but in vain: the more I tried to
sleep, the more I would be awake, in spite of the counsel of my
brother, who gave me no peace on the subject of sleep, and was
continually telling me of Napoleon, who had the power of going to
sleep whenever he chose. At last, one day when I had fairly given up
in despair, and had forgotten all about the fairies, and every thing
else but the rippling of the stream,--for it happened to be the hour
of noon, and the mill wheel was still, which usually drowned the voice
of the brook,--I must have been falling into a sound sleep, when the
rippling changed into the silver laughter of infant voices, and then a
murmuring and consulting, breaking into faint acclamations, as of a
busy throng, babbling, in an under tone, of some mysterious plot
against some one they were fearful of waking. And then I felt myself
borne away on little undulating arms, too far gone in sleep to resist,
and then dancing and flickering on tiny waves, and lulled by their
liquid echoes, till I lost myself in a deep sleep, which seemed to be
pillowed on a sense of being carried on and on into a realm of
silence, and then being lifted and carried, as on a living bier, with
new senses waking clearer and clearer, as if naked in the delicate air
of a new life, and at last waking and finding myself alone in an open
space of forest, shadowed by trees of an unknown grace, and lighted by
magic vistas where the distance found its last repose on the summits
of sun-lit mountains.
“A perpetual afternoon shaded that sward of loveliest green, alive
with fairest flowers, with not a breath of air stirring the heavy
leaves; and if the slender stems of the undergrowth waved ever so
lightly, it was with an almost imperceptible motion of their own. Yet
was there not at that moment the same slight movement in every shrub
and leaf? and where were those who had brought me hither? Was it a
whispering I heard behind me? There was no one there, but, gradually,
as in the silence of the night the air is oppressed by the sense of
some one being in the room, I became aware of being surrounded by
invisible beings, who were holding their breaths with a general hush,
that I might not know they were there. In a moment every thing lighted
up with the thought that I was within the charmed circle of the
fairies, and a mysterious influence from something close at hand
brought back the most distant recollection of my childhood, as the
magic word that would compel the fairies to appear. A faint perfume
drew my eyes downward, and at my feet was the little violet, my first
and earliest love. I stooped to pick it, but an '_Ah_!' of horror
stayed my hand, which already held the stem. 'No,' I said, shutting
my eyes as if to enclose the dear recollection of my childhood safe
from harm, 'thy life is more to me than to know all.' When I opened my
eyes the violet was gone, and in my hand I held a wand, as if a line
from the purple edge of a rainbow.
“I waved it around my head, and every thing stood clear and perfect in
a light that seemed to crystallize with distinctness the texture of
every flower and leaf. I waved it again, and it was as if a page of
Hebrew had become the most domestic English.
“Was not this enough?
“But I waved it a third time, and Heavens! every tree, and shrub, and
flower had disappeared, and in the place of each was a human figure,
but one transfigured into a form of inconceivable majesty, grace, or
loveliness. But each stood fixed as by its root to its place, and I
thought, 'Could I only say the word that would set them free!' A voice
whispered in my ear, 'The free only can set free.' Then I felt for the
first time how heavy I was in the presence of those graceful
creatures, and my weight seemed to sink down into a root that fastened
my feet to the ground.
“Was there still another set of fairies, invisible to the eye? I felt
myself lifted by unseen arms, and could feel harmonious breaths around
me like an atmosphere which I was inhaling through every pore, and
which was swelling every fibre with a thrill of lightness, until I
only touched the ground like a bird ready to fly. I raised the wand,
and a strain from an unseen band lifted on its wings the whole
assembly surrounding the green, who nodded, and waved, and swayed with
the opening movement as if catching the time of a tune to which they
were to dance; the flute and the violin catching, like a flame, from
one to the other, the tortuous wreathing of the bass-viol, with
labored ease possessing their limbs, and the bugle and the trumpet,
with a gush of melody in which all the rest joined, leaving their
graceful heads floating in the loveliest confusion of harmony. Then a
pause fell like a shadow, pointing across the greensward; and when it
ended, faint as figures in a deep valley, burst forth a chorus of tiny
voices, and there were the fairies themselves, in groups on groups,
and wreath involved in wreath, dancing to their own song, countless as
the fireflies in a meadow on a summer evening.
“'If I were only small enough to dance with them!' said I, listening
so intently that I felt myself contracting into the compass of their
song, and the wand diminishing in my hand, till there we were, myself
and the loveliest little fairy queen dancing together through the
mazes of the tiny troop, bewildered by the grace of the faces that
passed us like dreams of beauty, and the soft crush of bewitching
dresses that wafted, as they swept by us, such dizzy perfumes as only
the bee or the butterfly could imagine. The songs to which we danced,
every group singing a different one, and yet all in harmony, were
without words; but our feet, pattering, innumerable as the drops of a
silver rain, or the softest piano and flute accompaniment, echoed with
their meaning, and every step was the understanding of emotions, for
which language had no name. For we were so slight and pure that there
was no interval between the music and the meaning, but our forms,
which were only the harmony and enjoyment of both, sparkling into life
each moment our footsteps touched the ground.
“'The dance for thought, the waltz for love,' said my fairy queen,
looking at me with velvet eyes, and wreathing her arms around my
waist. Then we floated off on the violin accompaniment, that seemed to
fly from under our feet at every step, gliding through the sinuous
mazes of a movement interweaving and unfolding into newer and newer
combinations, till we swam in a delirium of uncomprehended harmony,
buoyed up so lightly, as if on half-open wings, that our feet only
occasionally touched the ground to remind us of the earth.
“'O, let us fly!' I exclaimed.
“'The fairies belong to the earth, like yourselves,' she answered;
'but would you learn the dance?'
“'O, yes; and I will love you and live with you forever!'
“'Till when?'
“'Till I have learned it, and can take it home with me.'
“'Dear child,' said she, 'the fairies have no homes but yours, and we
can only come down to them on your feet. Without you we are only eyes
without a smile. But if we cannot come down to you of ourselves, how
happy are we when one comes to us who can carry us back with her! How
did you come hither?'
“'I sailed up on the stream.'
“'Then take me down with you,' she said, sinking upon my face with a
kiss, into which she dissolved like a mist, and I closed my eyes to
clasp her to my heart forever.
“When I opened them, the stream was rippling at my feet, and my
brother was raising his face from mine with a smile that left me in
doubt if I was not still in Fairyland. 'Now tell me, Violet Eyes,'
said he, 'all about the fairies.'
“'How do you know I have been there?' I asked.
“'Have you never heard that whoever looks first into the eyes of one
who has been there, catches a glimpse of Fairyland? But tell me
quick, before you forget. You know you promised to break the twigs as
you went, to mark the place for me.'
“'O, I forgot all about it!' said I.
“'Never mind,' said he; 'but tell me what you remember.'
“So I told him all I could, and much more than I have told you now,
for he had such a comical look on his face when I was describing the
best part of it all,--after betraying me, too, as he had, into telling
it, with the greatest appearance of interest,--that I resolved I never
would tell it again; so you must blame him, and not me, if I have left
the best part out.”
“O, we all know the best part of a story is always left out!” said
Kate, “particularly by those who have taken the most pains to put
every thing in. But there goes the school bell. I wonder if the
fairies ever come down so far into the world as to visit the school
room. Fancy Ella dancing with her fairy queen, with an 'Algebra' under
one arm, and an 'Elements of Criticism' under the other.”
“There is nothing so heavy that the fairies cannot make it dance,”
said Ella. “The trouble is to get their assistance. And what a
capital story it would make,--the fairies coming at night and setting
our books to waltzing on the school room floor! There is no end to
the funny contrasts it suggests.”
“The best stories always come when it is too late to tell them,” said
Anna.