FAILURE
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“We are much bound to them that do succeed;
But, in a more pathetic sense, are bound
To such as fail. They all our loss expound;
They comfort us for work that will not speed,
And life--itself a failure. Ay, his deed,
Sweetest in story, who the dusk profound
Of Hades flooded with entrancing sound,
Music’s own tears, was failure. Doth it read
Therefore the worse? Ah, no! So much to dare,
He fronts the regnant Darkness on its throne.--
So much to do; impetuous even there,
He pours out love’s disconsolate sweet moan--
He wins; but few for that his deed recall:
Its power is in the look which costs him all.”
At this moment Jack observed that a strange woman was standing among
them, and that the train-bearing fairies fell back, as if they were
afraid of her. As no one spoke, he did, and said, “Good morning!”
“Good afternoon!” she answered correcting him. “I am the black fairy.
Work is a fine thing. Most people in your country can work.”
“Yes,” said Jack.
“There are two spades,” continued the fairy woman, “one for you, and
one for your double.”
Jack took one of the spades--it was small, and was made of silver; but
the other Jack said with scorn:
“I shall be a king when I am old enough, and must I dig like a clown?”
“As you please,” said the black fairy, and walked away.
Then they all observed that a brown woman was standing there; and she
stepped up and whispered in the boy-king’s ear. As he listened his
sullen face became good tempered, and at last he said, in a gentle
tone, “Jack, I’m quite ready to begin if you are.”
“But where are we to dig?” asked Jack.
“There,” said a white fairy, stepping up and setting her foot on the
grass just under the little hole. “Dig down as deep as you can.”
So Mopsa and the crowd stood back, and the two boys began to dig; and
greatly they enjoyed it, for people can dig so fast in Fairyland.
Very soon the hole was so deep that they had to jump into it, because
they could not reach the bottom with their spades. “This is very jolly
indeed,” said Jack, when they had dug so much deeper that they could
only see out of the hole by standing on tiptoe.
“Go on,” said the white fairy; so they dug till they came to a flat
stone, and then she said, “Now you can stamp. Stamp on the stone, and
don’t be afraid.” So the two Jacks began to stamp, and in such a little
time that she had only half turned her head round, the flat stone gave
way, for there was a hollow underneath it, and down went the boys, and
utterly disappeared.
Then, while Mopsa and the crowd silently looked on, the white fairy
lightly pushed the clods of earth towards the hole with the side of
her foot, and in a very few minutes the hole was filled in, and that
so completely and so neatly, that when she had spread the turf on it,
and given it a pat with her foot, you could not have told where it
had been. Mopsa said not a word, for no fairy ever interferes with
a stronger fairy; but she looked on earnestly, and when the white
stranger smiled she was satisfied.
Then the white stranger walked away, and Mopsa and the fairies sat down
on a bank under some splendid cedar-trees. The beautiful castle looked
fairer than ever in the afternoon sunshine; a lovely waterfall tumbled
with a tinkling noise near at hand, and the bank was covered with
beautiful wild flowers.
They sat for a long while, and no one spoke: what they were thinking of
is not known, but sweet Mopsa often sighed.
At last a noise--a very, very slight noise, as of footsteps of people
running--was heard inside the rock, and then a little quivering was
seen in the wand. It quivered more and more as the sound increased. At
last that which had looked like a door began to shake as if some one
was pushing it from within. Then a noise was distinctly heard as of a
key turning in the hole, and out burst the two Jacks, shouting for joy,
and a whole troop of knights and squires and serving-men came rushing
wildly forth behind them.
Oh, the joy of that meeting! who shall describe it? Fairies by dozens
came up to kiss the boy-king’s hand, and Jack shook hands with every
one that could reach him. Then Mopsa proceeded to the castle between
the two Jacks, and the king’s aunt came out to meet them, and welcomed
her husband with tears of joy; for these fairies could laugh and cry
when they pleased, and they naturally considered this a great proof of
superiority.
After this a splendid feast was served under the great dome. The other
fairy feasts that Jack had seen were nothing to it. The prince and his
dame sat at one board, but Mopsa sat at the head of the great table,
with the two Jacks one on each side of her.
Mopsa was not happy, Jack was sure of that, for she often sighed; and
he thought this strange. But he did not ask her any questions, and
he, with the boy-king, related their adventures to her: how, when the
stone gave way, they tumbled in and rolled down a sloping bank till
they found themselves at the entrance of a beautiful cave, which was
all lighted up with torches, and glittering with stars and crystals of
all the colours in the world. There was a table spread with what looked
like a splendid luncheon in this great cave, and chairs were set round,
but Jack and the boy-king felt no inclination to eat anything, though
they were hungry, for a whole nation of ants were creeping up the
honey-pots. There were snails walking about over the table-cloth, and
toads peeping out of some of the dishes.
So they turned away, and, looking for some other door to lead them
farther in, they at last found a very small one--so small that only one
of them could pass through at a time.
They did not tell Mopsa all that had occurred on this occasion. It was
thus:
The boy-king said, “I shall go in first, of course, because of my rank.”
“Very well,” said Jack, “I don’t mind. I shall say to myself that
you’ve gone in first to find the way for me, because you’re my double.
Besides, now I think of it, our Queen always goes last in a procession;
so it’s grand to go last. Pass in, Jack.”
“No,” answered the other Jack; “now you have said that I will not. You
may go first.”
So they began to quarrel and argue about this, and it is impossible to
say how long they would have gone on if they had not begun to hear a
terrible and mournful sort of moaning and groaning, which frightened
them both and instantly made them friends. They took tight hold of one
another’s hand, and again there came by a loud sighing, and a noise
of all sorts of lamentation, and it seemed to reach them through the
little door.
Each of the boys would now have been very glad to go back, but neither
liked to speak. At last Jack thought anything would be less terrible
than listening to those dismal moans, so he suddenly dashed through the
door, and the other Jack followed.
There was nothing terrible to be seen. They found themselves in a
place like an immensely long stable; but it was nearly dark, and when
their eyes got used to the dimness, they saw that it was strewed with
quantities of fresh hay, from which curious things like sticks stuck up
in all directions. What were they?
“They are dry branches of trees,” said the boy-king.
“They were table-legs turned upside down,” said Jack; but then the
other Jack suddenly perceived the real nature of the thing, and he
shouted out, “No; they are antlers!”
The moment he said this the moaning ceased, hundreds of beautiful
antlered heads were lifted up, and the two boys stood before a splendid
herd of stags; but they had had hardly time to be sure of this when the
beautiful multitude rose and fled away into the darkness, leaving the
two boys to follow as well as they could.
They were sure they ought to run after the herd, and they ran and ran,
but they soon lost sight of it, though they heard far on in front
what seemed at first like a pattering of deer’s feet, but the sound
changed from time to time. It became heavier and louder, and then the
clattering ceased, and it was evidently the tramping of a great crowd
of men. At last they heard words, very glad and thankful words; people
were crying to one another to make haste, lest the spell should come
upon them again. Then the two Jacks, still running, came into a grand
hall, which was quite full of knights and all sorts of fairy men, and
there was the boy-king’s uncle, but he looked very pale. “Unlock the
door!” they cried. “We shall not be safe till we see our new Queen.
Unlock the door; we see light coming through the keyhole.”
The two Jacks came on to the front, and felt and shook the door. At
last the boy-king saw a little golden key glittering on the floor, just
where the one narrow sunbeam fell that came through the keyhole; so he
snatched it up. It fitted, and out they all came, as you have been told.
When they had done relating their adventures, the new Queen’s health
was drunk. And then they drank the health of the boy-king, who stood up
to return thanks, and, as is the fashion there, he sang a song. Jack
thought it the most ridiculous song he had ever heard; but as everybody
else looked extremely grave, he tried to be grave too. It was about
Cock-Robin and Jenny Wren, how they made a wedding feast, and how the
wren said she should wear her brown gown, and the old dog brought a
bone to the feast.
“‘He had brought them,’ he said, ‘some meat on a bone:
They were welcome to pick it or leave it alone.’”
The fairies were very attentive to this song; they seemed, if one may
judge by their looks, to think it was rather a serious one. Then they
drank Jack’s health, and afterwards looked at him as if they expected
him to sing too; but as he did not begin, he presently heard them
whispering, and one asking another, “Do you think he knows manners?”
So he thought he had better try what he could do, and he stood up and
sang a song that he had often heard his nurse sing in the nursery at
home.
“One morning, oh! so early, my beloved, my beloved.
All the birds were singing blithely, as if never they would cease;
’Twas a thrush sang in my garden, ‘Hear the story, hear the story!’
And the lark sang, ‘Give us glory!’
And the dove said, ‘Give us peace!’
“Then I listened, oh! so early, my beloved, my beloved,
To that murmur from the woodland of the dove, my dear, the dove;
When the nightingale came after, ‘Give us fame to sweeten duty!’
When the wren sang, ‘Give us beauty!’
She made answer, ‘Give us love!’
“Sweet is spring, and sweet the morning, my beloved, my beloved;
Now for us doth spring, doth morning, wait upon the year’s increase,
And my prayer goes up, ‘Oh, give us, crowned in youth with marriage
glory,
Give for all our life’s dear story,
Give us love, and give us peace!’”
“A very good song too,” said the dame, at the other end of the table;
“only you made a mistake in the first verse. What the dove really said
was, no doubt, ‘Give us peas.’ All kinds of doves and pigeons are very
fond of peas.”
“It isn’t peas, though,” said Jack. However, the court historian was
sent for to write down the song, and he came with a quill pen, and
wrote it down as the dame said it ought to be.
Now all this time Mopsa sat between the two Jacks, and she looked very
mournful--she hardly said a word.
When the feast was over, and everything had vanished, the musicians
came in, for there was to be dancing; but while they were striking up,
the white fairy stepped in, and, coming up, whispered something in
Jack’s ear; but he could not hear what she said, so she repeated it
more slowly, and still he could neither hear nor understand it.
Mopsa did not seem to like the white fairy: she leaned her face on
her hand and sighed; but when she found that Jack could not hear the
message, she said, “That is well. Cannot you let things alone for this
one day?” The fairy then spoke to Mopsa, but she would not listen; she
made a gesture of dislike and moved away. So then this strange fairy
turned and went out again, but on the doorstep she looked round, and
beckoned to Jack to come to her. So he did; and then, as they two stood
together outside, she made him understand what she had said. It was
this:
“Her name was Jenny, her name was Jenny.”
When Jack understood what she said he felt so sorrowful; he wondered
why she had told him, and he longed to stay in that great place with
Queen Mopsa--his own little Mopsa, whom he had carried in his pocket,
and taken care of, and loved.
He walked up and down, up and down, outside, and his heart swelled and
his eyes filled with tears. The bells had said he was to go home, and
the fairy had told him how to go. Mopsa did not need him, she had so
many people to take care of her now; and then there was that boy, so
exactly like himself that she would not miss him. Oh, how sorrowful it
all was! Had he really come up the fairy river, and seen those strange
countries, and run away with Mopsa over those dangerous mountains, only
to bring her to the very place she wished to fly from, and there to
leave her, knowing that she wanted him no more, and that she was quite
content?
No; Jack felt that he could not do that. “I will stay,” he said; “they
cannot make me leave her. That would be too unkind.”
As he spoke, he drew near to the great yawning door, and looked in. The
fairy folk were singing inside; he could hear their pretty chirping
voices, and see their beautiful faces, but he could not bear it, and he
turned away.
The sun began to get low, and all the west was dyed with crimson. Jack
dried his eyes, and, not liking to go in, took one turn more.
“I will go in,” he said; “there is nothing to prevent me.” He set his
foot on the step of the door, and while he hesitated Mopsa came out to
meet him.
“Jack,” she said, in a sweet mournful tone of voice. But he could not
make any answer; he only looked at her earnestly, because her lovely
eyes were not looking at him, but far away towards the west.
“He lives there,” she said, as if speaking to herself. “He will play
there again, in his father’s garden.”
Then she brought her eyes down slowly from the rose-flush in the cloud,
and looked at him and said, “Jack.”
“Yes,” said Jack; “I am here. What is it that you wish to say?”
She answered, “I am come to give you back your kiss.”
So she stooped forward as she stood on the step, and kissed him, and
her tears fell on his cheek.
“Farewell!” she said, and she turned and went up the steps and into
the great hall; and while Jack gazed at her as she entered, and would
fain have followed, but could not stir, the great doors closed together
again, and he was left outside.
[Illustration: SO SHE STOOPED FORWARD AS SHE STOOD ON THE STEP.]
Then he knew, without having been told, that he should never enter them
any more. He stood gazing at the castle; but it was still--no more
fairy music sounded.
How beautiful it looked in the evening sunshine, and how Jack cried!
Suddenly he perceived that reeds were growing up between him and the
great doors: the grass, which had all day grown about the steps, was
getting taller; it had long spear-like leaves, it pushed up long pipes
of green stem, and they whistled.
They were up to his ankles, they were presently up to his waist; soon
they were as high as his head. He drew back that he might see over
them; they sprang up faster as he retired, and again he went back. It
seemed to him that the castle also receded; there was a long reach of
these great reeds between it and him, and now they were growing behind
also, and on all sides of him. He kept moving back and back: it was of
no use, they sprang up and grew yet more tall, till very shortly the
last glimpse of the fairy castle was hidden from his sorrowful eyes.
The sun was just touching the tops of the purple mountains when Jack
lost sight of Mopsa’s home; but he remembered how he had penetrated the
bed of reeds in the morning, and he hoped to have the same good fortune
again. So on and on he walked, pressing his way among them as well as
he could, till the sun went down behind the mountains, and the rosy sky
turned gold colour, and the gold began to burn itself away, and then
all on a sudden he came to the edge of the reed-bed, and walked out
upon a rising ground.
Jack ran up it, looking for the castle. He could not see it, so
he climbed a far higher hill; still he could not see it. At last,
after a toilsome ascent to the very top of the green mountain, he
saw the castle lying so far, so very far off, that its peaks and its
battlements were on the edge of the horizon, and the evening mist rose
while he was gazing, so that all its outlines were lost, and very soon
they seemed to mingle with the shapes of the hill and the forest, till
they had utterly vanished away.
Then he threw himself down on the short grass. The words of the white
fairy sounded in his ears, “Her name was Jenny;” and he burst into
tears again, and decided to go home.
He looked up into the rosy sky, and held out his arms, and called,
“Jenny! O Jenny! come.”
In a minute or two he saw a little black mark overhead, a small speck,
and it grew larger, and larger, and larger still, as it fell headlong
down like a stone. In another instant he saw a red light and a green
light, then he heard the winnowing noise of the bird’s great wings, and
she alighted at his feet, and said, “Here I am.”
“I wish to go home,” said Jack, hanging down his head and speaking in a
low voice, for his heart was heavy because of his failure.
“That is well,” answered the bird. She took Jack on her back, and in
three minutes they were floating among the clouds.
As Jack’s feet were lifted up from Fairyland he felt a little consoled.
He began to have a curious feeling, as if this had all happened a good
while ago, and then half the sorrow he had felt faded into wonder, and
the feeling still grew upon him that these things had passed some great
while since, so that he repeated to himself, “It was a long time ago.”
Then he fell asleep, and did not dream at all, nor know anything more
till the bird woke him.
“Wake up now, Jack,” she said; “we are at home.”
“So soon!” said Jack, rubbing his eyes. “But it is evening; I thought
it would be morning.”
“Fairy time is always six hours in advance of your time,” said the
bird. “I see glow-worms down in the hedge, and the moon is just rising.”
They were falling so fast that Jack dared not look; but he saw the
church, and the wood, and his father’s house, which seemed to be
starting up to meet him. In two seconds more the bird alighted, and he
stepped down from her back into the deep grass of his father’s meadow.
“Good-bye!” she said; “make haste and run in, for the dews are
falling;” and before he could ask her one question, or even thank her,
she made a wide sweep over the grass, beat her magnificent wings, and
soared away.
It was all very extraordinary, and Jack felt shy and ashamed; but he
knew he must go home, so he opened the little gate that led into the
garden, and stole through the shrubbery, hoping that his footsteps
would not be heard.
Then he came out on the lawn, where the flower-beds were, and he
observed that the drawing-room window was open, so he came softly
towards it and peeped in.
His father and mother were sitting there. Jack was delighted to see
them, but he did not say a word, and he wondered whether they would be
surprised at his having stayed away so long. The bird had said that
they would not.
He drew a little nearer. His mother sat with her back to the open
window, but a candle was burning, and she was reading aloud. Jack
listened as she read, and knew that this was not in the least like
anything that he had seen in Fairyland, nor the reading like anything
that he had heard, and he began to forget the boy-king, and the
apple-woman, and even his little Mopsa, more and more.
At last his father noticed him. He did not look at all surprised, but
just beckoned to him with his finger to come in. So Jack did, and got
upon his father’s knee, where he curled himself up comfortably, laid
his head on his father’s waistcoat, and wondered what he would think
if he should be told about the fairies in somebody else’s waistcoat
pocket. He thought, besides, what a great thing a man was; he had
never seen anything so large in Fairyland, nor so important; so, on
the whole, he was glad he had come back, and felt very comfortable.
Then his mother, turning over the leaf, lifted up her eyes and looked
at Jack, but not as if she was in the least surprised, or more glad to
see him than usual; but she smoothed the leaf with her hand, and began
again to read, and this time it was about the Shepherd Lady:--
I
_Who pipes upon the long green hill,
Where meadow grass is deep?
The white lamb bleats but followeth on--
Follow the clean white sheep.
The dear white lady in yon high tower,
She hearkeneth in her sleep._
_All in long grass the piper stands,
Goodly and grave is he;
Outside the tower, at dawn of day,
The notes of his pipe ring free.
A thought from his heart doth reach to hers:
“Come down, O lady! to me.”_
_She lifts her head, she dons her gown:
Ah! the lady is fair;
She ties the girdle on her waist,
And binds her flaxen hair,
And down she stealeth, down and down,
Down the turret stair._
_Behold him! With the flock he wons
Along yon grassy lea.
“My shepherd lord, my shepherd love,
What wilt thou, then, with me?
My heart is gone out of my breast,
And followeth on to thee.”_
II
_“The white lambs feed in tender grass:
With them and thee to bide,
How good it were,” she saith at noon;
“Albeit the meads are wide.
Oh! well is me,” she saith when day
Draws on to eventide._
_Hark! hark! the shepherd’s voice. Oh, sweet!
Her tears drop down like rain.
“Take now this crook, my chosen, my fere,
And tend the flock full fain:
Feed them, O lady, and lose not one,
Till I shall come again.”_
_Right soft her speech: “My will is thine,
And my reward thy grace!”
Gone are his footsteps over the hill,
Withdrawn his goodly face;
The mournful dusk begins to gather,
The daylight wanes apace._
III
_On sunny slopes, ah! long the lady
Feedeth her flock at noon;
She leads them down to drink at eve
Where the small rivulets croon.
All night her locks are wet with dew,
Her eyes outwatch the moon._
_Over the hills her voice is heard,
She sings when light doth wane:
“My longing heart is full of love.
When shall my loss be gain?
My shepherd lord, I see him not,
But he will come again.”_
When she had finished, Jack lifted his face and said, “Mamma!” Then she
came to him and kissed him, and his father said, “I think it must be
time this man of ours was in bed.”
So he looked earnestly at them both, and as they still asked him no
questions, he kissed and wished them good-night; and his mother said
there were some strawberries on the sideboard in the dining-room, and
he might have them for his supper.
So he ran out into the hall, and was delighted to find all the house
just as usual, and after he had looked about him he went into his own
room, and said his prayers. Then he got into his little white bed, and
comfortably fell asleep.
That’s all.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.