minute than you in a month, and better to boot. Now dance again."
"Do you know this?" said Amelia, and she danced a few paces of a polka
mazurka.
"Admirable!" cried the little man. "Stay"--and he drew an old violin
from behind the rock; "now dance again, and mark the time well, so that
I may catch the measure, and then I will accompany you."
Which accordingly he did, improvising a very spirited tune, which had,
however, the peculiar subdued and weird effect of all the other sounds
in this strange region.
"The fiddle came from up yonder," said the little man. "It was smashed
to atoms in the world and thrown away. But, ho, ho, ho! there is
nothing that I cannot mend, and a mended fiddle is an amended fiddle.
It improves the tone. Now teach me that dance, and I will patch up all
the rest of the gimcracks. Is it a bargain?"
"By all means," said Amelia; and she began to explain the dance to the
best of her ability.
"Charming, charming!" cried the dwarf. "We have no such dance
ourselves. We only dance hand in hand, and round and round, when we
dance together. Now I will learn the step, and then I will put my arm
round your waist and dance with you."
Amelia looked at the dwarf. He was very smutty, and old, and wizened.
Truly, a queer partner! But "handsome is that handsome does;" and he
had done her a good turn. So when he had learnt the step, he put his
arm round Amelia's waist, and they danced together. His shoe-points
were very much in the way, but otherwise he danced very well.
Then he set to work on the broken ornaments, and they were all very
soon "as good as new." But they were not kicked up into the world, for,
as the dwarfs said, they would be sure to break on the road. So they
kept them and used them; and I fear that no benefit came from the
little tinker's skill to Amelia's mamma's acquaintance in this matter.
"Have I any other tasks?" Amelia inquired.
"One more," said the dwarfs; and she was led farther on to a smooth
mossy green, thickly covered with what looked like bits of broken
thread. One would think it had been a milliner's work-room from the
first invention of needles and thread.
"What are these?" Amelia asked.
"They are the broken threads of all the conversations you have
interrupted," was the reply; "and pretty dangerous work it is to dance
here now, with threads getting round one's shoe-points. Dance a
hornpipe in a herring-net, and you'll know what it is!"
Amelia began to pick up the threads, but it was tedious work. She had
cleared a yard or two, and her back was aching terribly, when she heard
the fiddle and the mazurka behind her; and looking round she saw the
old dwarf, who was playing away, and making the most hideous grimaces
as his chin pressed the violin.
"Dance, my lady, dance!" he shouted.
"I do not think I can," said Amelia; "I am so weary with stooping over
my work."
"Then rest a few minutes," he answered, "and I will play you a jig. A
jig is a beautiful dance, such life, such spirit! So!"
And he played faster and faster, his arm, his face, his fiddle-bow all
seemed working together; and as he played, the threads danced
themselves into three heaps.
"That is not bad, is it?" said the dwarf; "and now for our own dance,"
and he played the mazurka. "Get the measure well into your head. Lá, la
fá lâ! lâ, la fá lâ! So!"
And throwing away his fiddle, he caught Amelia round the waist, and
they danced as before. After which, she had no difficulty in putting
the three heaps of thread into a basket.
"Where are these to be kicked to?" asked the young goblins.
"To the four winds of heaven," said the old dwarf. "There are very few
drawing-room conversations worth putting together a second time. They
are not like old china bowls."
BY MOONLIGHT.
Thus Amelia's tasks were ended; but not a word was said of her return
home. The dwarfs were now very kind, and made so much of her that it
was evident that they meant her to remain with them. Amelia often
cooked for them, and she danced and played with them, and never showed
a sign of discontent; but her heart ached for home, and when she was
alone she would bury her face in the flowers and cry for her mother.
One day she overheard the dwarfs in consultation.
"The moon is full to-morrow," said one--("Then I have been a month down
here," thought Amelia; "it was full moon that night")--"shall we dance
in the Mary Meads?"
"By all means," said the old tinker dwarf; "and we will take Amelia,
and dance my dance."
"Is it safe?" said another.
"Look how content she is," said the old dwarf; "and, oh! how she
dances; my feet tickle at the bare thought."
"The ordinary run of mortals do not see us," continued the objector;
"but she is visible to any one. And there are men and women who wander
in the moonlight, and the Mary Meads are near her old home."
"I will make her a hat of touchwood," said the old dwarf, "so that even
if she is seen it will look like a will-o'-the-wisp bobbing up and
down. If she does not come, I will not. I must dance my dance. You do
not know what it is! We two alone move together with a grace which even
here is remarkable. But when I think that up yonder we shall have
attendant shadows echoing our movements, I long for the moment to
arrive."
"So be it," said the others; and Amelia wore the touchwood hat, and
went up with them to the Mary Meads.
Amelia and the dwarf danced the mazurka, and their shadows, now as
short as themselves, then long and gigantic, danced beside them. As the
moon went down, and the shadows lengthened, the dwarf was in raptures.
"When one sees how colossal one's very shadow is," he remarked, "one
knows one's true worth. You also have a good shadow. We are partners in
the dance, and I think we will be partners for life. But I have not
fully considered the matter, so this is not to be regarded as a formal
proposal." And he continued to dance, singing, "Lâ, la, fá, lâ,
lâ, la, fá, lâ." It was highly admired.
The Mary Meads lay a little below the house where Amelia's parents
lived, and once during the night her father, who was watching by the
sick bed of the stock, looked out of the window.
"How lovely the moonlight is!" he murmured; "but, dear me! there is a
will-o'-the-wisp yonder. I had no idea the Mary Meads were so damp."
Then he pulled the blind down and went back into the room.
As for poor Amelia, she found no four-leaved clover, and at cockcrow
they all went underground.
"We will dance on Hunch Hill to-morrow," said the dwarfs.
All went as before; not a clover plant of any kind did Amelia see, and
at cockcrow the revel broke up.
On the following night they danced in the hayfield. The old stubble was
now almost hidden by green clover. There was a grand fairy dance--a
round dance, which does not mean, as with us, a dance for two partners,
but a dance where all join hands and dance round and round in a circle
with appropriate antics. Round they went, faster and faster, the
pointed shoes now meeting in the centre like the spokes of a wheel, now
kicked out behind like spikes, and then scamper, caper, hurry! They
seemed to fly, when suddenly the ring broke at one corner, and nothing
being stronger than its weakest point, the whole circle were sent
flying over the field.
"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed the dwarfs, for they are good-humoured little
folk, and do not mind a tumble.
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Amelia, for she had fallen with her fingers on a
four-leaved clover.
She put it behind her back, for the old tinker dwarf was coming up to
her, wiping the mud from his face with his leathern apron.
"Now for our dance!" he shrieked. "And I have made up my mind--partners
now and partners always. You are incomparable. For three hundred years
I have not met with your equal."
But Amelia held the four-leaved clover above her head, and cried from
her very heart--"I want to go home!"
The dwarf gave a hideous yell of disappointment, and at this instant
the stock came tumbling head over heels into the midst, crying--"Oh!
the pills, the powders, and the draughts! oh, the lotions and
embrocations! oh, the blisters, the poultices, and the plasters! men
may well be so short-lived!"
And Amelia found herself in bed in her own home.
AT HOME AGAIN.
By the side of Amelia's bed stood a little table, on which were so many
big bottles of medicine, that Amelia smiled to think of all the stock
must have had to swallow during the month past. There was an open Bible
on it too, in which Amelia's mother was reading, whilst tears trickled
slowly down her pale cheeks. The poor lady looked so thin and ill, so
worn with sorrow and watching, that Amelia's heart smote her, as if
some one had given her a sharp blow.
"Mamma, Mamma! Mother, my dear, dear Mother!"
The tender, humble, loving tone of voice was so unlike Amelia's old
imperious snarl, that her mother hardly recognized it; and when she saw
Amelia's eyes full of intelligence instead of the delirium of fever,
and that (though older and thinner and rather pale) she looked
wonderfully well, the poor worn-out lady could hardly restrain herself
from falling into hysterics for very joy.
"Dear Mamma, I want to tell you all about it," said Amelia, kissing the
kind hand that stroked her brow.
But it appeared that the doctor had forbidden conversation; and though
Amelia knew it would do her no harm, she yielded to her mother's wish
and lay still and silent.
"Now, my love, it is time to take your medicine."
But Amelia pleaded--"Oh, Mamma, indeed I don't want any medicine. I am
quite well, and would like to get up."
"Ah, my dear child!" cried her mother, "what I have suffered in
inducing you to take your medicine, and yet see what good it has done
you."
"I hope you will never suffer any more from my wilfulness," said
Amelia; and she swallowed two tablespoonfuls of a mixture labelled "To
be well shaken before taken," without even a wry face.
Presently the doctor came.
"You're not so very angry at the sight of me to-day, my little lady,
eh?" he said.
"I have not seen you for a long time," said Amelia; "but I know you
have been here, attending a stock who looked like me. If your eyes had
been touched with fairy ointment, however, you would have been aware
that it was a fairy imp, and a very ugly one, covered with hair. I have
been living in terror lest it should go back underground in the shape
of a black cat. However, thanks to the four-leaved clover, and the old
woman of the heath, I am at home again."
On hearing this rhodomontade, Amelia's mother burst into tears, for she
thought the poor child was still raving with fever. But the doctor
smiled pleasantly, and said--"Ay, ay, to be sure," with a little nod,
as one should say, "We know all about it;" and laid two fingers in a
casual manner on Amelia's wrist.
"But she is wonderfully better, madam," he said afterwards to her
mamma; "the brain has been severely tried, but she is marvellously
improved: in fact, it is an effort of nature, a most favourable effort,
and we can but assist the rally; we will change the medicine." Which he
did, and very wisely assisted nature with a bottle of pure water
flavoured with tincture of roses.
"And it was so very kind of him to give me his directions in poetry,"
said Amelia's mamma; "for I told him my memory, which is never good,
seemed going completely, from anxiety, and if I had done anything wrong
just now, I should never have forgiven myself. And I always found
poetry easier to remember than prose,"--which puzzled everybody, the
doctor included, till it appeared that she had ingeniously discovered a
rhyme in his orders--
'To be kept cool and quiet,
With light nourishing diet.'
Under which treatment Amelia was soon pronounced to be well.
She made another attempt to relate her adventures, but she found that
not even Nurse would believe in them.
"Why you told me yourself I might meet with the fairies," said Amelia,
reproachfully.
"So I did, my dear," Nurse replied, "and they say that it's that put it
into your head. And I'm sure what you say about the dwarfs and all is
as good as a printed book, though you can't think that ever I would
have let any dirty clothes store up like that, let alone your frocks,
my dear. But for pity's sake, Miss Amelia, don't go on about it to your
mother, for she thinks you'll never get your senses right again, and
she has fretted enough about you, poor lady; and nursed you night and
day till she is nigh worn out. And anybody can see you've been ill,
Miss, you've grown so, and look paler and older like. Well, to be sure,
as you say, if you'd been washing and working for a month in a place
without a bit of sun, or a bed to lie on, and scraps to eat, it would
be enough to do it; and many's the poor child that has to, and gets
worn and old before her time. But, my dear, whatever you think, give in
to your mother; you'll never repent giving in to your mother, my dear,
the longest day you live."
So Amelia kept her own counsel. But she had one confidant.
When her parents brought the stock home on the night of Amelia's visit
to the haycocks, the bulldog's conduct had been most strange. His usual
good-humour appeared to have been exchanged for incomprehensible fury,
and he was with difficulty prevented from flying at the stock, who on
her part showed an anger and dislike fully equal to his.
Finally the bulldog had been confined to the stable, where he remained
the whole month, uttering from time to time such howls, with his snub
nose in the air, that poor Nurse quite gave up hope of Amelia's
recovery.
"For indeed, my dear, they do say that a howling dog is a sign of
death, and it was more than I could abear."
But the day after Amelia's return, as Nurse was leaving the room with a
tray which had carried some of the light nourishing diet ordered by the
doctor, she was knocked down, tray and all, by the bulldog, who came
tearing into the room, dragging a chain and dirty rope after him, and
nearly choked by the desperate efforts which had finally effected his
escape from the stable. And he jumped straight on to the end of
Amelia's bed, where he lay, _thudding_ with his tail, and giving
short whines of ecstasy. And as Amelia begged that he might be left,
and as it was evident that he would bite any one who tried to take him
away, he became established as chief nurse. When Amelia's meals were
brought to the bedside on a tray, he kept a fixed eye on the plates, as
if to see if her appetite were improving. And he would even take a
snack himself, with an air of great affability.
And when Amelia told him her story, she could see by his eyes, and his
nose, and his ears, and his tail, and the way he growled whenever the
stock was mentioned, that he knew all about it. As, on the other hand,
he had no difficulty in conveying to her by sympathetic whines the
sentiment, "Of course I would have helped you if I could; but they tied
me up, and this disgusting old rope has taken me a month to worry
through."
So, in spite of the past, Amelia grew up good and gentle, unselfish and
considerate for others. She was unusually clever, as those who have
been with the "Little People" are said always to be.
And she became so popular with her mother's acquaintances that they
said--"We will no longer call her Amelia, for it is a name we learnt to
dislike, but we will call her Amy, that is to say, 'Beloved.'"
* * * * *
"And did my godmother's grandmother believe that Amelia had really been
with the fairies, or did she think it was all fever ravings?"
"That, indeed, she never said, but she always observed that it was a
pleasant tale with a good moral, which was surely enough for anybody."
THE END.
_Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bungay._
[Transcriber's Note: The following statement was in the edition from which
this copy was acquired.]
_The present Series of Mrs. Ewing's Works is the only authorized,
complete, and uniform Edition published.
It will consist of 18 volumes, Small Crown 8vo, at 2s. 6d. per vol.,
issued, as far as possible, in chronological order, and these will
appear at the rate of two volumes every two months, so that the Series
will be completed within 18 months. The device of the cover was
specially designed by a Friend of Mrs. Ewing._
_The following is a list of the books included in
the Series_--
1. MELCHIOR'S DREAM, AND OTHER TALES.
2. MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES.
3. OLD-FASHIONED FAIRY-TALES.
4. A FLAT IRON FOR A FARTHING.
5. THE BROWNIES, AND OTHER TALES.
6. SIX TO SIXTEEN.
7. LOB-LIE-BY-THE-FIRE, AND OTHER TALES.
8. JAN OF THE WINDMILL.
9. VERSES FOR CHILDREN, AND SONGS.
10. THE PEACE EGG--A CHRISTMAS MUMMING PLAY--HINTS FOR PRIVATE
THEATRICALS, &c.
11. A GREAT EMERGENCY, AND OTHER TALES.
12. BROTHERS OF PITY, AND OTHER TALES OF BEASTS AND MEN.
13. WE AND THE WORLD, Part I.
14. WE AND THE WORLD, Part II.
15. JACKANAPES--DADDY DARWIN'S DOVECOTE--THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE.
16. MARY'S MEADOW, AND OTHER TALES OF FIELDS AND FLOWERS.
17. MISCELLANEA, including The Mystery of the Bloody Hand--Wonder
Stories--Tales of the Khoja, and other translations.
18. JULIANA HORATIA EWING AND HER BOOKS, with a selection from Mrs.
Ewing's Letters.
* * * * *
S.P.C.K., NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, LONDON, W.C.