MELON SEEDS
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“_Rosalind._ Well, this is the forest of Arden.
“_Touchstone._ Ay, now am I in Arden: the more fool I;
when I was at home I was in a better place; but
travellers must be content?”--_As You Like It._
“Where is it now?” said the stone-woman; and when Jack heard that he
ran down to the river, and looked right and looked left. At last he saw
his boat--a mere speck in the distance, it had floated so far.
He called it, but it was far beyond the reach of his voice; and Mopsa,
who had followed him, said:
“It does not signify, Jack, for I feel that no place is the right place
for me but that country beyond the purple mountains, and I shall never
be happy unless we go there.”
So they walked back towards the stone-people hand in hand, and the
apple-woman presently joined them. She was crying gently, for she knew
that she must soon pass over the little stream and part with these
whom she called her dear children. Jack had often spoken to her that
day about going home to her own country, but she said it was too late
to think of that now, and she must end her days in the land of Faery.
The kind stone-people asked them to come and sit by their little fire;
and in the dusk the woman whose baby had slept in a stone cradle took
it up and began to sing to it. She seemed astonished when she heard
that the apple-woman had power to go home if she could make up her mind
to do it; and as she sang she looked at her with wonder and pity.
“Little babe, while burns the west,
Warm thee, warm thee in my breast;
While the moon doth shine her best,
And the dews distil not.
“All the land so sad, so fair--
Sweet its toils are, blest its care.
Child, we may not enter there!
Some there are that will not.
“Fain would I thy margins know,
Land of work, and land of snow;
Land of life, whose rivers flow
On, and on, and stay not.
“Fain would I thy small limbs fold,
While the weary hours are told,
Little babe in cradle cold.
Some there are that may not.”
“You are not exactly fairies, I suppose?” said Jack. “If you were, you
could go to our country when you pleased.”
“No,” said the woman; “we are not exactly fairies; but we shall be more
like them when our punishment is over.”
“I am sorry you are punished,” answered Jack, “for you seem very nice,
kind people.”
“We were not always kind,” answered the woman; “and perhaps we are only
kind now because we have no time and no chance of being otherwise. I’m
sure I don’t know about that. We were powerful once, and we did a cruel
deed. I must not tell you what it was. We were told that our hearts
were all as cold as stones--and I suppose they were--and we were doomed
to be stones all our lives, excepting for the two hours of twilight.
There was no one to sow the crops, or water the grass, so it all
failed, and the trees died, and our houses fell, and our possessions
were stolen from us.”
“It is a very sad thing,” observed the apple-woman; and then she said
that she must go, for she had a long way to walk before she should
reach the little brook that led to the country of her own queen; so she
kissed the two children, Jack and Mopsa, and they begged her again to
think better of it, and return to her own land. But she said No; she
had no heart for work now, and could not bear either cold or poverty.
Then the woman who was hugging her little baby, and keeping it cosy and
warm, began to tell Jack and Mopsa that it was time they should begin
to run away to the country over the purple mountains, or else the Queen
would overtake them and be very angry with them; so, with many promises
that they would mind her directions, they set off hand in hand to run;
but before they left her they could see plainly that she was beginning
to turn again into stone. However, she had given them a slice of melon
with the seeds in it. It had been growing on the edge of the river, and
was stone in the daytime, like everything else. “When you are tired,”
she said, “eat the seeds, and they will enable you to go running on.
You can put the slice into this little red pot, which has string
handles to it, and you can hang it on your arm. While you have it with
you it will not turn to stone, but if you lay it down it will, and then
it will be useless.”
So, as I said before, Jack and Mopsa set off hand in hand to run; and
as they ran all the things and people gradually and softly settled
themselves to turn into stone again. Their cloaks and gowns left off
fluttering, and hung stiffly; and then they left off their occupations,
and sat down, or lay down themselves; and the sheep and cattle turned
stiff and stonelike too, so that in a very little while all that
country was nothing but red stones and red sand, just as it had been in
the morning.
Presently the full moon, which had been hiding behind a cloud, came
out, and they saw their shadows, which fell straight before them; so
they ran on hand in hand very merrily till the half-moon came up,
and the shadows she made them cast fell sideways. This was rather
awkward, because as long as only the full moon gave them shadows they
had but to follow them in order to go straight towards the purple
mountains. Now they were not always sure which were her shadows; and
presently a crescent moon came, and still further confused them; also
the sand began to have tufts of grass in it; and then, when they had
gone a little farther, there were beautiful patches of anemones, and
hyacinths, and jonquils, and crown imperials, and they stopped to
gather them; and they got among some trees, and then, as they had
nothing to guide them but the shadows, and these went all sorts of
ways, they lost a great deal of time, and the trees became of taller
growth; but they still ran on and on till they got into a thick forest
where it was quite dark, and here Mopsa began to cry, for she was tired.
“If I could only begin to be a queen,” she said to Jack, “I could go
wherever I pleased. I am not a fairy, and yet I am not a proper queen.
Oh, what shall I do? I cannot go any farther.”
So Jack gave her some of the seeds of the melon, though it was so
dark that he could scarcely find the way to her mouth, and then he
took some himself, and they both felt that they were rested, and Jack
comforted Mopsa.
“If you are not a queen yet,” he said, “you will be by to-morrow
morning; for when our shadows danced on before us yours was so very
nearly the same height as mine that I could hardly see any difference.”
When they reached the end of that great forest, and found themselves
out in all sorts of moonlight, the first thing they did was to
laugh--the shadows looked so odd, sticking out in every direction; and
the next thing they did was to stand back to back, and put their heels
together, and touch their heads together, to see by the shadow which
was the taller; and Jack was still the least bit in the world taller
than Mopsa; so they knew she was not a queen yet, and they ate some
more melon seeds, and began to climb up the mountain.
They climbed till the trees of the forest looked no bigger than
gooseberry bushes, and then they climbed till the whole forest looked
only like a patch of moss; and then, when they got a little higher,
they saw the wonderful river, a long way off, and the snow glittering
on the peaks overhead; and while they were looking and wondering how
they should find a pass, the moons all went down, one after the other,
and, if Mopsa had not found some glow-worms, they would have been quite
in the dark again. However, she took a dozen of them, and put them
round Jack’s ankles, so that when he walked he could see where he was
going; and he found a little sheep-path, and she followed him.
Now they had noticed during the night how many shooting-stars kept
darting about from time to time, and at last one shot close by them,
and fell in the soft moss on before. There it lay shining; and Jack,
though he began to feel very tired again, made haste to it, for he
wanted to see what it was like.
It was not what you would have supposed. It was soft and round, and
about the colour of a ripe apricot; it was covered with fur, and in
fact it was evidently alive, and had curled itself up into a round ball.
“The dear little thing!” said Jack, as he held it in his hand, and
showed it to Mopsa; “how its heart beats! Is it frightened?”
“Who are you?” said Mopsa to the thing. “What is your name?”
The little creature made a sound that seemed like “Wisp.”
“Uncurl yourself, Wisp,” said Mopsa. “Jack and I want to look at you.”
So Wisp unfolded himself, and showed two little black eyes, and spread
out two long filmy wings. He was like a most beautiful bat, and the
light he shed out illuminated their faces.
“It is only one of the air fairies,” said Mopsa. “Pretty creature! It
never did any harm, and would like to do us good if it knew how, for
it knows that I shall be a queen very soon. Wisp, if you like, you may
go and tell your friends and relations that we want to cross over the
mountains; and if they can they may help us.”
Upon this Wisp spread out his wings, and shot off again; and Jack’s
feet were so tired that he sat down, and pulled off one of his shoes,
for he thought there was a stone in it. So he set the little red jar
beside him, and quite forgot what the stone woman had said, but went on
shaking his shoe, and buckling it, and admiring the glow-worms round
his ankle, till Mopsa said, “Darling Jack, I am so dreadfully tired!
Give me some more melon seeds.” Then he lifted up the jar, and thought
it felt very heavy; and when he put in his hand, jar, and melon, and
seeds were all turned to stone together.
[Illustration: THEY SPREAD OUT LONG FILMY WINGS.]
They were both very sorry, and they sat still for a minute or two,
for they were much too tired to stir; and then shooting-stars began
to appear in all directions. The fairy bat had told his friends and
relations, and they were coming. One fell at Mopsa’s feet, another
in her lap; more, more, all about, behind, before, and over them. And
they spread out long filmy wings, some of them a yard long, till Jack
and Mopsa seemed to be enclosed in a perfect network of the rays of
shooting-stars, and they were both a good deal frightened. Fifty or
sixty shooting-stars, with black eyes that could stare, were enough,
they thought, to frighten anybody.
“If we had anything to sit upon,” said Mopsa, “they could carry us
over the pass.” She had no sooner spoken than the largest of the bats
bit off one of his own long wings, and laid it at Mopsa’s feet. It did
not seem to matter much to him that he had parted with it, for he shot
out another wing directly, just as a comet shoots out a ray of light
sometimes, when it approaches the sun.
Mopsa thanked the shooting fairy, and, taking the wing, began to
stretch it, till it was large enough for her and Jack to sit upon. Then
all the shooting fairies came round it, took its edges in their mouths,
and began to fly away with it over the mountains. They went slowly,
for Jack and Mopsa were heavy, and they flew very low, resting now and
then; but in the course of time they carried the wing over the pass,
and half-way down the other side. Then the sun came up; and the moment
he appeared all their lovely apricot-coloured light was gone, and they
only looked like common bats, such as you can see every evening.
They set down Jack and Mopsa, folded up their long wings, and hung down
their heads.
Mopsa thanked them, and said they had been useful; but still they
looked ashamed, and crept into little corners and crevices of the rock,
to hide.
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