but what the forest has an antidote. Although I could not disclose it
until now, and even pretended to Belinda that her mother had died
during my absence, it was not so. By my magic art I contrived that you
should bury a waxen figure instead of your queen, whom I safely
conveyed to the forest. Had I not seen that you really repented of your
sins against her, and was I not captivated by Belinda's goodness, I
really think I should never have let you have her again. But, since she
wishes to return to you and to her children, I have agreed that it
shall be so. Take care you treat her well and tenderly for the future.
"The royal family were now full of joy, and even Amabilia and
Concaterina came in for their share of good luck, for the King of the
Mannikins chucked each of them pleasantly under the chin, told them
that he knew they were good girls at heart, and promised that both
should have royal husbands before they were twenty. Then he turned to
the fairy Nuisancenika with a dark frown upon his countenance.
"Miserable reprobate!" he exclaimed, apparently taking particular
delight in finding new epithets applicable to the old woman. "It only
remains now to deal with you. During an existence now prolonged to an
extent greater than that which any person kindly disposed towards
mankind could have wished, you have done an infinite quantity of
mischief. You have had considerable power, which you have consistently
employed as badly as possible. You are a pitiless, revengeful,
remorseless, black-hearted old hag. And now at last you are completely
in my power. Nothing can save you."
"Oh, mercy, mercy, dear, good King Canetto!" piteously whined the
fairy, as she crouched down in her car.
"Such mercy as you showed Rosetta and Belinda, and such as you wished
to show Zac. Such, I say, and no more, shall be your own portion. And
now for the first scene of the last act. Kill the polecats!"
He turned to his mannikins as he said this, and in another moment every
polecat was knocked on the head.
"Now for the adders," said Canetto; and the little men cut them to
pieces with their whips in less time than you would have thought
possible.
Then the king turned to Nuisancenika and spoke again.
"I might have you dealt with in the same way," he said; "and if I did
so, there is no one present who would not warmly approve and say,
'served her right.' But a true mannikin is never bloodthirsty, and I
will not adjudge to you that fate which you so richly deserve. Still,
since your power has been always exercised for ill, it must remain to
you no longer. I sentence you to be immediately and henceforth confined
in a cave at the extreme eastern corner of the world, never to emerge
thence until the hour comes when women leave off caring for dress, men
labour no more for power, and donkeys abandon braying."
Scarcely had Canetto finished speaking, when the unfortunate being,
upon whom he had pronounced this appalling sentence, uttered one
frantic yell, and then disappeared in a whirlwind, which carried her
right away over the forest. Nobody ever saw or heard of her again to my
knowledge, but there is very little doubt that the sentence of the King
of the Mannikins was duly carried out. The wise men, who have studied
these things carefully, say that there is very clear and certain proof
of this. In the spring-time of the year, especially about March, a
cold, bitter, spiteful wind blows from the east, seizes delicate
throats and tender noses, keeps people indoors when they much desire
air and exercise; and if they attempt to get either, afflicts them with
heavy colds, and what modern doctors call "bronchial affections,"
meaning much the same thing as that which our poor benighted fathers
and mothers used to call "sore throats." Well, do you think this east
wind is a common, ordinary, respectable wind? Not at all. It is nothing
more nor less (say these wise ones) than the wicked old Fairy
Nuisancenika, who, heartily tired of her imprisonment in the cavern,
fumes and rages madly about, and sometimes gets near enough to the
mouth of the cave to spit and blow out some of her venom into the
world. Then comes disease to man and beast, and whenever I think of it
I regret that Canetto did not serve the wretched old hag as he did her
polecats and adders, and direct his mannikins to cut her in pieces with
their hunting-whips. Just fancy if he had! Perhaps we should have had
no more of those cruel east winds. But it was fated otherwise, and this
is the result.
At all events, the bad fairy was comfortably got rid of so far as the
royal family of King Fridolin were concerned, and there is very little
more to be said about the rest that followed. Of course everything now
went rightly. Messages were sent to Zac's real father--the story of
Canetto having been entirely confirmed by Farmer Dickson--and the
result was in every respect satisfactory. The king of the country of
the Red Camellias was delighted to recover his long lost son, and
showed his sense of what was right and proper under the circumstances
by dying shortly after the wedding of Zac and Belinda had been duly
celebrated. The young prince consequently conveyed his lovely and
loving bride to his own country, where they reigned for many years in
great happiness and prosperity.
Amabilia and Concaterina, having a mother's influence to guide them,
improved daily in every respect, and had no difficulty whatever in
securing royal husbands within the time prophesied by Canetto, whose
courts they adorned by their beauty and whose homes they made happy by
their domestic virtues.
As for King Fridolin, he passed the evening of his days more happily
than any other part of his life. Conscious of his former folly, he
learned to appreciate his restored queen as she deserved, and their
renewed affection for each other was romantic in its strength and
fervour. Canetto paid them occasional visits, and was always received
by them with that respect and regard which his conduct had so well
earned. Everything flourished thenceforward in Fridolin's kingdom. Even
Lord Pompous hailed the change with delight, since his sovereign,
occupied constantly in the enjoyment of his newly recovered happiness,
omitted the practical jokes upon his lord chamberlain with which he had
frequently been wont to solace his idle hours. And during the long
years that followed before Fridolin's reign and life ended, the king
constantly called to mind the thrilling scenes of interest which I have
recounted, and invariably spoke with the greatest thankfulness of the
happy thought which came into his head upon that memorable day when he
first projected the pig-race.
EVELYN WITH THE FAIRIES.
There was once a little girl who was exceedingly fond of fairy tales.
She had read almost all the books that had ever been written about
fairies and elves, and never lost an opportunity of hearing a story
upon the same subject. The result of so much attention to this
particular branch of study was that which might have been expected. She
became the most devout believer in the existence of the dear little
creatures about whom she read, and had no greater desire than that she
might some day or other become personally acquainted with one or more
of them.
Her chief regret was caused by the fact (which was, unhappily, too
true) that no fairy godmother had presided over her birth, and that
none of those pleasant adventures had befallen her which usually follow
such an event. Not only was this the case, but, so far as she could
ascertain, neither her father, mother, or any of her relations had ever
come in contact with a fairy, and she had been, little by little,
driven to the conclusion that she belonged to a commonplace, unromantic
family, with whom the dwellers in fairyland had no concern and no
connection whatever.
This was a sad thought to the child, who was possessed of an extremely
lively imagination, and would have liked nothing better than to have
lived in those good old days when either a fairy or a witch, an ogre or
a dwarf, were to be found at every corner. She looked back to those
days with fond delight, and often wished that they might come again.
She loved to muse over the tales she had read and heard, and to imagine
curious scenes and strange creatures on every side of her, as she
rambled through the shrubberies around her father's house, or strolled
away into the great woods on one side of the park.
One day she had taken a longer stroll than usual, and suddenly came
upon a part of the wood which she never remembered to have seen before.
Somehow or other, she had strayed out of the path, and all around her
were tangled masses of fern, old pollard-trees bowed down to the ground
by age and the weight of their branches, and thickets of thorns and
brambles, and here and there patches of smooth grass and moss, without
either trees, fern or brambles upon them.
The birds were singing sweetly in the wood, the sun was shining
brightly in the heavens above (although his rays could not penetrate
the dense foliage of the trees), the dewdrops were glistening on the
leaves, and everything seemed as beautiful as human eye could behold or
human heart desire. The child looked around her for a moment, entranced
with the loveliness of the scene; then she heaved a deep sigh (too
deep, you would have thought, for so young a creature, who could hardly
as yet have sorrows heavy enough to cause such a sigh), and said to
herself with a sorrowful air:
"What a place this would be for my fairy godmother to meet me, if only
I _had_ a fairy godmother! Heigho! Why are there not any fairies here?"
Scarcely had she spoken when she started back astonished, for the
speech was hardly out of her mouth than the concluding word, "fairies
here," seemed repeated by a myriad of tiny voices all round her, in
tones so soft, so plaintive, and dying away with such a melancholy
cadence that it needed no great amount of cleverness to assure the
child that they came from no ordinary or mortal throats.
For an instant she trembled, but it was more with expectation than
fear, and she looked around her with eager eyes, to the right and left,
longing to see the beings who had uttered those soft and touching
sounds. She saw nothing, however, and began to fear that, after all,
she would hear and see no more, and that nobody at home would believe
her when she told of the mysterious voices. But, being a child of
courage, and remembering, moreover, that in most of the fairy tales of
which she knew, the mortal to whom the kind fairies condescended to
speak or appear, was never frightened, but always did exactly the right
thing, unless he or she happened to be wicked, when they invariably did
the _wrong_ thing and suffered accordingly. So she looked round once
again, and then said, in her most polite tones:
"Are there _really_ any fairies here?"
Scarcely were the words out of her mouth, when the same sounds arose
once more, even more distinctly than before, on every side of her. This
time, however, there was something more than sound. The fern and the
trees, the brambles and the leaves, all seemed to be suddenly agitated
as if by the wind swaying gently through them, though there was not a
breath of wind in the air.
There was one universal rustling all round, and the next moment Evelyn
(for that was the little girl's name) saw that she was standing in the
middle of a crowd of living, moving, active beings, who looked out upon
her from every corner of the place. Every leaf seemed tenanted by one
of them; each stem of fern appeared to afford cover, every thicket to
give protection to a small creature: they were perched on the trees
above her head, and peeped out from the tufts of moss almost beneath
her feet. Bright restless eyes seemed to peer eagerly out upon her on
all sides, and in an instant she knew that her long-cherished hopes and
dreams were at last realized, and that she was in the presence of
undeniable fairies.
Although Evelyn had read so many fairy tales, and had so often fancied
herself in the position she now was, and settled what she ought to do
and say in such case, it must be confessed that when the reality came
thus suddenly upon her, she was as much at a loss as if she had never
read or thought anything at all about the subject.
She stood still and stared with eyes wide open with astonishment, just
as any child would naturally do under similar circumstances. The little
beings about her had nothing in their appearance or demeanour at all
likely to frighten her. They were neither ugly in feature, deformed in
figure, or evil in the expression of their faces. On the contrary they
were graceful, beautiful, and looked remarkably good-natured. Very
little they certainly were, for none of them could have been above a
foot high, and very numerous also, for, turn her head which way she
would, the whole place seemed alive with them.
Evelyn stood, as I have said, perfectly silent, and looked about her as
if struck dumb with surprise at the unlooked-for appearance of the
little creatures. She had not long to wait before one of them hopped
lightly from the stem of a venerable hornbeam hard by, and stood
immediately in front of her.
It was a charming little figure that did this: barely a foot high, but
of a form perfectly symmetrical, a face bright with exceeding beauty,
and with an air of nobility conspicuous in its features, and, indeed,
in its whole bearing. It was dressed in some light drapery, which
floated around it in such a manner as to add to instead of concealing,
the beauty of its faultless form, and, as it stood erect before Evelyn,
she thought she had never seen anything so exquisitely beautiful in the
whole course of her existence.
[Illustration: EVELYN AND THE FAIRIES.--P. 122]
The little being regarded her for one moment in silence, and then it
spoke. Spoke! it was hardly like speaking: the voice that came from its
throat was a mixture of all the most delightful sounds that ever
rejoiced the human ear. Think of the soothing, contented hum of the
bees in the early summer, when they are sipping the sweetest honey from
their favourite flowers; think of the softest murmuring of the
sea-waves when they gently break upon the shore, and lovingly kiss the
rocks against which, in their hours of anger, they dash so madly; think
again, of the blessed sound of distant church bells heard across the
water as you stand listening upon a silent summer's eve; think of the
warbling of the tender nightingale in the old shrubbery, full of home
memories; and think, more than all, of the loving words whispered for
the first time in the happy ears of the gentle maiden; think, I say, of
all these sounds, and of the music they possess, and you will be able
to form some idea of the melody which sounded in the fairy's voice.
She spoke in poetry, of course, by which Evelyn was more than ever
convinced that she was a regular, proper fairy, because poetry is the
natural language of such people, and no fairy, who is at all equal to
the position she aspires to hold, ever begins a conversation with a
mortal in prose. Of course they get to it, after a bit, because too
much rhyme bores people, and fairies never do _that_, because there
are so many people in the world who can and do perform that feat to
perfection, and fairies only care to do that which human beings cannot
accomplish so easily of themselves. And thus ran the speech of the
fairy, since such she was beyond all reasonable doubt.
"Welcome, gentle maiden child,
To the forest grand and wild:
Welcome to the lofty trees
Gently waving in the breeze:
Welcome to the leafy shade,
By their spreading branches made:
Welcome to the mossy bed,
'Neath their shadows overhead:
Welcome to each grassy mound
In the open spaces found,
And to every flower that springs
Near the mighty forest kings.
Thou hast wandered here full oft,
Never at the fairies scoft,
But hast aye essayed to learn
From the lovely maiden-fern,
From the honeysuckle sweet,
From the dew-drops 'neath thy feet,
Lessons of the fairy race
Not for mortal ken to trace.
But to maid of gentle mind
Fairy elves are ever kind;
If she love them, they can prove
(Giving fondly love for love)
How their might can work to aid
Manly youth or gentle maid.
Say, then, maiden, would'st thou seek
Knowledge which an elf may speak?
Would'st thou (such I scarce suppose)
Fairy succour 'gainst thy foes?
Would'st thou have another's heart
Made thine own by magic art?
Would'st thou wealth--or, better still,
Freedom from some mortal ill?
Speak thy wish, then, maiden dear:
Speak it low and speak it clear."
Evelyn listened with amazement not unmixed with pleasure. Pleasure it
certainly was to find herself at last in the presence of a real live
fairy, and amazement she undoubtedly felt both at the sight before her,
and at the speech to which she had just listened. She was perfectly
aware that her reply ought to be given in verse, and the difficulty was
that she was particularly stupid at making rhymes. She was one of those
children who always tried to beg off if any of those amusing games was
proposed in the evenings at home, in which either everybody has to make
four rhymes or more on a certain given subject, generally answering a
question and introducing some noun which has nothing to do with it, or
else four rhymes are given out, and everybody has to write the previous
part of the four lines in any metre they please.
Evelyn, I say, always either begged to be excused playing, or else
nestled up close to her father (who was rather handy at that kind of
thing), and asked him to write her lines quietly for her, which he
unfortunately was in the habit of doing--unfortunately, because the
consequence was that at the present momentous crisis, the poor child
could not by any means think what to say. One reason, perhaps, was that
she had nothing particular for which she wished to ask the fairies,
but, whatever the reason, no rhyme _would_ come to her mind.
All she could think of was an occasional line of some of Dr. Watts's
hymns, which did not seem to have anything at all to do with fairies,
and one or two old pieces of poetry which she had heard long ago in the
school-room and which kept coming into her head now, and probably
keeping out something which might have answered her purpose much
better.
The fairy waited for a few seconds without impatience, but as no answer
appeared to be forthcoming, she stamped her foot upon the ground, and
appeared visibly annoyed. Conscious that she was hardly acting either a
wise or dignified part in remaining silent, Evelyn now made a great
effort to remember or to invent something that might be suitable to the
occasion, and as the fairy stamped her foot a second time, somewhat
impatiently, she hastily blurted out:--
"Let dogs delight to bark and bite--
I don't know how to answer right;"
and then stood blushing and trembling just as if she had certainly
answered _wrong_. Upon this the fairy gave vent to a low, musical
laugh, like the last notes of a _very_ good musical box, and then once
more accosted the child as follows:
"When fairies speak in kindly mood,
To answer nothing back were rude;
Yet need you never rack your brain
To answer me in rhyme again.
Though verse be sweet to us, forsooth,
Prose, if it comes of simple truth,
From child-like lips and guileless tongue,
May pass with elves as well as song.
But say, fair child, for what intent,
With spirit young and innocent,
Untainted with the world's cold touch;
(Ah! would that we might keep thee such!)
Unfettered yet by Fashion's chain,
Untouched by pride or high disdain,
As yet unvisited by cares
Which fate for mortal life prepares,
Why hast thou left the haunts of men
To seek the lonely fairy glen?"
Whilst the fairy was speaking, Evelyn gathered together her ideas, and
resolved to show that she not only had something to say, but knew how
to say it. So as soon as the speaker had concluded, she replied,
keeping still to rhyme, as if determined not to appear more stupid than
she really was,
"How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour--
For years and years I've longed to see
A fairy's woodland bower.
How skilfully she builds her cell,
How neat she spreads the wax--
Since, now, dear elves, I've seen you well,
My spirit nothing lacks."
As soon as Evelyn had got through these verses, which she did with some
little pride, she was rather surprised and even annoyed to find that
their only effect was to cause all the little beings around her to
indulge in a hearty fit of laughter. Their musical sounds rang through
the forest, and the echo faintly returned them, whilst the child stood
listening and wondering at the result of her attempt. Then the fairy
queen, for such Evelyn thought she must be, spoke once again:--
"If nothing lack'st thou, mortal child,
Why wander through the forest wild
And seek, with meditative air,
The beings who inhabit there?
Since hither thou hast found thy way,
Be satisfied awhile to stay:
For those who have not been afraid
To trespass on the fairy glade,
And long, with curious mortal eye,
Our elfin mysteries to spy,
When once they know where fairies hide,
Most there be ready to abide."
As Evelyn heard these words, a cold chill ran through her veins, for
they betokened to her that something was going to happen upon which she
had never calculated. In an instant her thoughts flew back to the many
instances of which she had read in fairy tales, of children being
changed into dogs, cats, birds, toads, or something which no sensible
child has the least wish to become; and the terrible fear arose that
she was about to become the victim of some such unpleasant
transformation. On second thoughts, however, she remembered that in
most of these cases the child concerned had either been naughty and
disagreeable at home, or disbelieving in or impertinent to the fairies,
and had therefore deserved punishment. In her own case, she had done
nothing recently at home more naughty than accidentally dropping some
marmalade on her clean frock at breakfast, and had entertained such
full and constant belief and respect in and for the fairies, that she
was quite sure she deserved no punishment at their hands. Besides, the
voice of the queen (if such she was), and the looks and gestures of her
companions, had displayed neither anger nor offence at her intrusion
into their glen, and she could not believe that any harm was intended
to her. All these thoughts passed through the child's mind much faster
than I can write them, and although she stood there in uncertainty and
doubt, her momentary fear was gone directly. She was not prepared,
however, for what followed.
The fairy queen waved a sprig of fern three times over her head,
advancing nearer and nearer to Evelyn as she did so. At each wave of
the hand, the child felt herself growing downwards and becoming smaller
and smaller. Yes! there really was no doubt about it; down and down she
grew, until the horrible thought crossed her mind that she might grow
right down into the earth, and disappear altogether.
At the same time a strange drowsiness stole over her, everything
appeared to grow less and less distinct, and gradually to fade quite
away from sight; sounds grew fainter and fainter, and she seemed to be
about to sink into a deep, fast, heavy sleep. Then, all of a sudden,
she was as wide awake as ever again, and looked up, bright and lively,
trying to remember where she was, and what had happened to her. There
was very little doubt about _that_. She was a regular fairy like the
rest of them. She was of the same height; she had the same kind of
light dress (though what it was made of, she could never describe,
although she was very often questioned on the subject,) and she felt
such an extraordinary sensation of lightness and elasticity as quite
surprised her. She knew in a moment that she could move about in a
manner which had been quite impossible to her as a mortal child: that
she could stand upon branches and plants and tufts of fern without
causing them to bend or break, that she could tread upon the leaves and
soft moss without leaving the impression of her tiny feet, and that she
possessed new powers, new knowledge, and a new being altogether.