They were no longer alone; hosts of Little People passed them, going in
the same direction. Peter said most of them rode "straddle-legs" on
night birds or moths, while some flew along on a funny thing that was
horse before and weeds behind. I judge this must have been the
buchailin buidhe or benweed, which the faeries bewitch and ride the
same as a witch mounts her broomstick.
And everybody who passed always called out in the friendliest way,
"Hello, Peter!" or "Hello, Bridget!" or "The luck rise with ye!" which
is the most common of all greetings in Tir-na-n'Og.
"Gee!" was Peter's habitual comment after the telling, "maybe it wasn't
swell havin' 'em know us--names an' all. Betcher life we wasn't cases
to them--no, siree!"
It was Susan who remembered best how everything looked--Susan, who had
never been to the country in all her starved little life--that is, if
one excepts the times Margaret MacLean had taken her on the Ward C
"special." She told so well how all the trees and flowers were
fashioned that it was an easy matter putting names to them.
In the center of Tir-na-n'Og towered a great hill; but instead of its
being capped with peak or rocks it was gently hollowed at the top, as
though in the beginning, when it was thrown up molten from the depths
of somewhere, a giant thumb had pressed it down and smoothed it round
and even. All about the brim of it grew hawthorns and rowans and
hazel-trees. In the grass, everywhere, were thousands and millions of
primroses, heart's-ease, and morning-glories; all crowded together, so
Susan said, like the patterns on the Persian carpet in the board-room.
It was all so beautiful and faeryish and heart-desired that "yer'd have
said it wasn't real if yer hadn't ha' knowed it was."
The children stood on the brink of the giant hollow and clapped their
hands for the very joy of seeing it all; and there--a little man
stepped up to them and doffed his cap. The queen wanted them--she was
waiting for them by the throne that very minute; and the little man was
to bring them to her.
Now that throne--according to Susan--was nothing like the thrones one
finds in stories or Journeys through palaces to see. It was not cold,
hard, or forbidding; instead, it was as soft and green and pillowy as
an inflated golf-bunker might be, and just high and comfortable enough
for the baby faeries to discover it and go to sleep there whenever they
felt tired. The throne was full of them when the children looked, and
some one was tumbling them off like so many kittens.
"That is the queen," said the little man, pointing.
The children stood on tiptoes and craned their necks the better to see;
but it was not until they had come quite close that they saw that her
dress was gray, and her hair was gray, and she was small, and her face
was like--
"Bless me if it ain't!" shouted Susan in amazement. "It's Sandy's wee
creepity woman!"
The queen smiled when she saw them. She reached out her hands and
patted theirs in turn, asking, "Now what is your name, dearie?"
"Are ye sure ye're the queen?" gasped Bridget.
"Maybe I am--and maybe I'm not," was the answer.
"Then ye been't the wee gray woman--back yonder?" asked Sandy.
"Maybe I'm not--and maybe I am." And then she laughed. "Dear
children, it doesn't matter in the least who I am. I look a hundred
different ways to a hundred different people. Now let me see--I think
you wanted some--clothes."
A long, rapturous sigh was the only answer. It lasted while the queen
got down on her knees--just like an every-day, ordinary person--and
pulled from under the throne a great carved chest. She threw open the
lid wide; and there, heaped to the top and spilling over, were dresses
and mantles and coats and trousers and caps. They were all lengths,
sizes, and fashions--just what you most wanted after you had been in
bed for years and never worn anything but a hospital shirt; and
everything was made of cloth o' dreams and embroidered with pearls from
the River of Make-Believe.
"You can choose whatever you like, dearies," said the queen. And
that--according to Susan--was the best of all.
Next came the dancing; the Apostles remembered about that
co-operatively. They had donned pants of pink and yellow,
respectively, with shirts of royal purple and striked stockings, when
the pipers began to play. James said it sounded like soldiers
marching; John was certain that it was more like a circus; but I am
inclined to believe that they played "The Music of Glad Memories" and
"What-is-Sure-to-Come-True," for those are the two popular airs in
Tir-na-n'Og.
Away and away must have danced pairs of little feet that had never
danced before, and pairs of old feet that had long ago forgotten how;
and millions of faery feet, for no one can dance half as joyously as
when faeries dance with them. And I have heard it said that the pipers
there can play sadness into gladness, and tears into laughter, and old
age young again; and that those who have ever danced to the music of
faery pipes never really grow heavy-hearted again.
Needless to say, the Apostles danced together, and Peter danced with
Toby; and it must have been the maddest, merriest dance, for they never
told about it afterward without bursting into peal after peal of
laughter. Truth to tell, the Apostles' patch of fancy ended right
there--all raveling out into smiles and squirms of delight.
Another memory of Sandy's adjoins that of the Apostles'; and he told it
with great precision and regard for the truth.
Ever since crossing the River of Make-Believe Sandy had been able to
think of nothing but the story Bridget had told--the very last thing in
Ward C--and ever since he had left the leprechaun's bush behind he had
been wondering and scheming how he could get rid of his hump. He was
the only person in Tir-na-n'Og that night who did not dance.
Unnoticed, he climbed into a corner of the throne--among the sleeping
baby faeries--and there he thought hard. As he listened to the pipers'
music he shook his head mournfully.
"A canna make music mair bonny nor that--a canna," he said; and he set
about searching through the scraps of his memory for what music he did
know. There were the hymns they sang every Sunday at Saint Margaret's;
but he somewhat doubted their appropriateness here. Then there were
the songs his mother had sung to him home in Aberdeen. Long ago the
words had been forgotten; but often and often he had hummed the music
of them over to himself when he was going to sleep--it was good music
for that. One of the airs popped into his mind that very minute; it
was a Jacobite song about "Charlie," and he started to hum it softly.
Close on the humming came an idea--a braw one; it made him sit up in
the corner of the throne and clap his hands, while his toes wriggled
exultantly inside his faery shoes.
"A can do't--a can!" He shouted it so loud that the baby faeries woke
up and asked what he was going to do, and gathered about him to listen
the better.
The pipers played until there were no more memories left and everything
had come true; and the queen came back to her throne to find Sandy
waiting, eager-eyed, for her.
"A have a bonny song made for ye. Wull ye tak it frae me noo?"
"Take what?"
"The hump. Ye tuk it frae the ither loonie gien he made ye some guid
music; an' a ha' fetched ye mair--here." And he tapped his head to
signify that it was not written down.
"Is the song ready, now?"
Sandy nodded.
"Then turn about and sing it loud enough for all to hear; they must be
the judges if the song is worth the price of a hump." And the queen
smiled very tenderly.
Sandy did as he was bid; he clasped his hands tightly in front of him.
"'Tis no for the faeries," he explained. "Ye see--they be hardly
needin' ony music, wi' muckle o' their ain. 'Tis for the children--the
children i' horspitals--a bonny song for them to sleepit on." He
marked the rhythm a moment with his foot, and hummed it through once to
be sure he had it. Then he broke out clearly into the old Jacobite
air--with words of his own making:
"Ye weave a bonny primrose ring;
Ye hear the River callin';
Ye ken the Land whaur faeries sing--
Whaur starlicht beams are fallin'.
'Tis there the pipers play things true;
'Tis there ye'll gae--my dearie--
The bonny Land 'at waits for you,
Whaur ye'll be nae mair weary.
"A wee man by a blackthorn-tree
Maun stitchit shoes for dancin',
An' there's a pair for ye an' me--
To set our feet a-prancin'.
'Tis muckle gladness 'at ye'll find
In Tir-na-n'Og, my dearie;
The bonny Land 'at's aye sae kind,
Whaur ye'll be nae mair weary.
"Ye'll ken the birdeen's blithie song,
Ye'll hark till flo'ers lauchen;
An' see the faeries trippit long
By brook an' brae an' bracken.
Sae doon your heid--an' shut your een;
Gien ye'd be away, my dearie--
An' the bonny sauncy faery queen
Wull keep ye--nae mair weary."
You may think it uncommonly strange that Sandy could make a song like
this, by himself; but, you see, he was not entirely alone--there were
the baby faeries. They helped a lot; as fast as ever he thought out
the words they rhymed them for him--this being a part of the A B C of
faery education.
When the song was finished Sandy turned to the queen again.
"Aighe--wull it do?"
"If the faeries like it, and think it good enough to send down to the
children, they will have it all learned by heart and will sing it back
to you in a minute. Listen! Can you hear anything?"
For a moment only the rustle of the trees could be heard. Sandy
strained his ears until he caught a low, sobbing sound coming through
the hazel-leaves.
"'Tis but the wind--greetin'," he said, wistfully.
"Listen again!"
The sound grew, breaking into a cadence and a counter-cadence, and
thence into a harmony. "'Tis verra ilk the grand pipe-organ i' the
kirk, hame in Aberdeen."
"Listen again!"
Mellow and sweet came the notes of the Jacobite air--a bar of it; and
then the faeries began to sing, sending the song back to Sandy like a
belated echo:
"Ye weave a bonny primrose ring;
Ye hear the River callin';
Ye ken the Land whaur faeries sing--
Whaur starlicht beams are fallin'."
"For the love o' Mike!" laughed Sandy. "A'm unco glad--a am." He
dropped to his knees beside the queen and nestled his cheek in the hand
that was resting in her lap. "'Tis aricht noo." And he sighed
contentedly.
And it was. The queen leaned over and lifted off the hump as easily as
you might take the cover from a box. Sandy stretched himself and
yawned--after the fashion of any one who has been sleeping a long time
in a cramped position; and without being in the least conscious of it,
he sidled up to the arm of the throne and rubbed his back up and
down--to test the perfect straightness of it.
"'Tis gone--guid! Wull it nae mair coom back?" And he eyed the queen
gravely.
"Never to be burdensome, little lad. Others may think they see it
there, but for you the back will be straight and strong."
Rosita came back--empty-handed; she was so busy holding tight to
Bridget's hand and getting ready to be afraid that she forgot
everything else. As for Michael, he gave his patch into Bridget's
keeping; which brings us to what Bridget remembered.
From the moment that the penny had been given over to her she had been
weighed down with a mighty responsibility. The financier of any large
syndicate is bound to feel harassed at times over the outcome of his
investments; and Bridget felt personally accountable for the
forthcoming happiness due the eight other stockholders in her company.
She was also mindful of what had happened in the past to other persons
who had speculated heedlessly or unwisely with faery gifts. There was
the case of the fisherman and his wife, and the aged couple and their
sausage, and the old soldier; on the other hand, there was the man from
Letterkenny who had hoarded his gold and had it turn to dry leaves as a
punishment. She must neither keep nor spend foolishly.
"Sure I'll think all round a thing twict afore I have my mind made to
anythin'; then I'll keep it made for a good bit afore I give over the
penny."
She repeated this advice while she considered all possible investments,
but she found nothing to her liking. The children made frequent
suggestions, such as bagpipes and clothes-chests, and contrivances for
feast-spreading and transportation; and Susan was strongly in favor of
a baby faery to take back to Miss Peggie. But to all of these Bridget
shook an emphatic negative.
"Sure ye'd be tired o' the lot afore ye'd gone half-way back. Like as
not we'll never have another penny to spend as long as we live, an' I'm
goin' to see that ye'll all get somethin' that will last."
She was beginning to fear that theirs would be the fate of the man from
Letterkenny, when she chanced upon Peter and Toby performing for the
benefit of the pipers.
"Them trusters will never be lettin' Pether take that dog back to the
horspital," she thought, mindful of the sign in Saint Margaret's yard
that dogs were not allowed. "He'd have to be changin' him back into a
make-believe dog to get him in at all; an' Pether'd never be satisfied
wi' him that way, now--afther havin' him real."
Her trouble took her to the queen. "Is there any way of buyin' a dog
into a horspital?" she asked, solemnly.
"I think it would be easier to buy a home to put him in."
"Could ye--could ye get one for the price of a penny?" Bridget
considered her own question, and coupled it with something she
remembered Sandy had been wishing for back in Ward C. "Wait a minute;
I'll ask ye another. Could ye be buyin' a home for childher an' dogs
for the price of a penny?"
The queen nodded.
"Would it be big enough for nine childher--an' one dog; an' would it be
afther havin' all improvements like Miss Peggie an' the House Surgeon?"
Again the queen nodded.
Bridget lowered her voice. "An' could we put up a sign furninst, 'No
Trusters Allowed'?"
"I shouldn't wonder."
"Then," said Bridget, with decision, "I've thought all round it twict
an' my mind's been made to stay; we'll buy a home."
She made a hollow of her two hands and called, "Whist--whist there, all
o' yez! Pether an' Pancho--Michael--Susan--do ye hear!" And when she
had them rounded up, she counted them twice to make sure they were all
present. "Now ye listen." Bridget raised a commanding finger to the
circle about her while she exhibited the golden penny. "Is there any
one objectin' to payin' this down for a home?"
"What kind of a home?" asked Susan, shrewdly.
"Sure the kind ye live in--same as other folks have that don't live in
horspitals or asylums."
"Hurrah!" chorused everybody, and Bridget sighed with relief.
"Faith, spendin' money's terrible easy."
She put the penny in the queen's out-stretched hand. "Do I get a piece
o' paper sayin' I paid the money on it?" she demanded, remembering her
responsibility.
This time the queen shook her head. "No; I give you only my promise;
but a promise made across a primrose ring is never broken."
"And Toby?" Peter asked it anxiously.
"You must leave him behind. You see, if you took him back over the
River of Make-Believe he would have to turn back into a make-believe
dog again; but--I promise he shall be waiting in the home for you."
The queen led them down the hill to the shore again; and there they
found the ferry-man ready, waiting. It is customary, I believe, for
every one to be ferried home. The river, that way, is treble as wide,
and the sandman is always wandering up and down the brink, scattering
his sand so that one is apt to get too drowsy to swim the whole
distance. The children piled into the boat--all but Michael; he stood
clinging fast to the queen's gray dress.
"Don't you want to go back?" she asked, gently.
"Nyet; the heart by me no longer to bump--here," and Michael pointed to
the pit of his stomach.
"Aw, come on," called Peter.
But Michael only shook his head and clung closer to the gray dress.
"All right, ferryman; he may stay," said the queen.
"Good-by!" shouted the children. "Don't forget us, Michael."
"Nyet; goo'-by," Michael shouted back; and then he laughed. "You tell
Mi' Peggie--I say--Go' blees you!"
And this was Michael's patch.
The ferryman stood in the stem and swung his great oar. Slowly the
boat moved, scrunching over the white pebbles, and slipped into the
water. The children saw Michael and the queen waving their hands until
they had dwindled to shadow-specks in the distance; they watched the
wake of starshine lengthen out behind them; they listened to the
ripples lapping at the keel. To and fro, to and fro, swayed the
ferryman to the swing of his oar. "Sleep--sleep--sleep," sang the
river, running with them. Bridget stretched her arms about as many
children as she could compass and held them close while eight pairs of
eyes slowly--slowly--shut.