FIONA IN THE FAIRY-WORLD
It was very, very dark. Fiona could not see her hand if she held it
close before her eyes. It was just blackness. Only one thing broke it;
far away--many miles it might be--was a tiny speck of white, like the
point of a pin. All round her in the dark were little soft sounds;
they brushed against her feet, and passed before her face; little soft
sounds, apparently without bodies. She held the tiny point-feather
firmly in the fingers of her left hand, and touched it from time to
time with her right, as she felt her way, one foot before the
other--she could not walk--towards the point of light. And with her
and about her went the small soft sounds; one would have said that
they whispered and chuckled in the darkness.
How far and how long she went she could never guess; there was nothing
by which to measure time or distance, and evidently she was not going
to feel hunger or fatigue.
At last she became conscious of a change. The white speck of light was
growing brighter and larger; and the small soft sounds were becoming
tangible. One brushed past her face, and she felt it; she put out a
hand, and there was a scuffing and chuckling, as if they were playing
blind man's buff with her. Then the light began to take shape; it was
a circular pool lying on the floor and wall of the avenue of blackness
down which she was passing; and it came from something on the other
side. And the little soft sounds crowded round her; they laughed, they
whispered, they clutched at her dress; they were trying to guide her
in a certain direction. She tried to shake them off, and found that,
though they could touch her, she could not touch them. And then she
came into the pool of light.
The light came down a sort of short passage between rocks, with a
well-trodden floor; and at the end of it, not twenty yards from where
she stood, she could see the fairy grotto. One grand white carbuncle,
as big as an arc lamp, hung from the roof, filling the grotto with
dazzling white light; and the radiance of the carbuncle was flung back
in a million points of new splendor from the walls of the grotto,
shifting and shimmering like the rainbow across a waterfall, ruby and
orange, yellow and emerald, sapphire and violet, changing as each new
facet came into play; for the walls of the grotto were set thick with
cut jewels of every hue and color. A glorious sight it looked; and
Fiona suddenly became aware that the soft things that clutched at her
dress and the soft things that whispered in her ear, were all trying
to draw her toward the beautiful grotto. But she felt her feather, and
it pointed straight on into the dark. So she moved forward; and with
the first step she saw the trap. The floor of the beautiful grotto
yawned wide, showing the horrible abyss beneath it; and the darkness
was full of soft flutterings, and the chuckling of mocking laughter.
But they touched her no more at the time; and suddenly the darkness
fell away on each side like a wall, and she stepped out into daylight.
She was in the desert. The yellow burning sand stretched all round
her, a mass of glittering particles that made the eyes sore; wave
after wave, it went billowing away to the red burning hills that faced
and flung back the burning sun. Mile after mile she stumbled along in
that aching heat; and then, as she topped a great hillock of sand, she
suddenly saw the fairy city. Very beautiful it looked, rose-pink on a
wooded island in a fair lake of water, whose blue mirror gave back
every trembling cupola and minaret; and toward it, down a broad track
marked by tamarisk bushes, went a goodly company of merchants, with
tinkling bells on their camels' necks and golden ornaments on their
camels' heads, the company of a chief who rode ahead on a white Arab
steed with his long jezail laid across his saddle-bow. Here could no
doubt be; and Fiona all but stepped on to the broad path in the track
of the caravan. But even as she turned she caught sight of the feather
and checked herself just in time; and the beautiful city of mirage
melted away, and there was no caravan there, but only sand marked by
the bones of men, and in place of the tamarisk bushes were gray
vultures feasting in a row. She followed the feather straight on
across the burning desert; and on a sudden she walked out of the sand
into shade.
She was out in the forest. Huge trees rose like the pillars of a
cathedral nave, branching far above her head and shutting out the
daylight; and up their trunks ran starred creepers of every hue,
fighting their way up to the sun. Down from the branches hung orchids
of all fantastic shapes, in long still streamers, and great moon moths
fluttered round them, taking their joy in the dim light. And the
farther she went the thicker grew the forest, and the more oppressive
the airless heat. Trailing plants ran across her feet and tried to
trip her up; the great trunks closed together till there was barely
room to force a way between; the thorns of the creepers tore at her
flesh, and instead of the beautiful orchids there came on the trees
huge funguses red as blood. And the small soft voices began again;
they had caught her up; the forest was full of the same little sounds
which she had heard before, whispering and chuckling and fingering her
dress. And then, just as it seemed impossible to fight a way farther
through the dense jungle, she came to the open glade. Full of grass
and flowers and sunshine it was, and across it ran a gurgling brook,
crossed by a little plank bridge; a sweet breeze moved the grass, and
beyond the brook two little spotted deer were feeding; far in the
distance were tiny peaks of snow. The soft fingers were all tugging at
Fiona's dress, impelling her down the glade; but she had had ample
warning of those soft fingers, and she saw that the feather pointed
straight on through the tangled forest. And even as she moved she saw
that the little bridge was the back of a great water-python; and the
fingers loosed their hold of her dress, and the air was full of soft
whisperings and laughter. And she walked straight on into the tangled
thicket before her; and the forest parted to right and left, and she
walked out.
She was in a fair country of green grass and temperate airs, where the
path lay true and straight before her through vineyards and groves of
oranges. Here and there a cherry tree swung its crown of white blossom
above her head, or a cypress stood up tall and straight as a sentinel
on duty. Purple flags bloomed under the rocks, and on a clump of brown
orchises sat two little jewelled butterflies, burnished green as old
copper; up the path of the sunlight came a swallowtail with its
stately glancing flight. Everything spoke to her here of fair peace
and security; and when she heard the air still rustling with little
soft sounds and chuckles, and knew that they had followed her, she
began to wonder how it was that, now that she knew their ways, they
should think it worth while. And they were becoming most active. The
soft sounds brushed all round her; the soft fingers grasped her arms;
tiny weightless bodies behind her seemed to be impelling her forward.
And then before her she saw the inevitable two paths: the broad flat
path that passed through a fair orchard of lemon trees, where the
sunlight threw chequers on to the grass beneath, starred with scarlet
and purple anemones; and the narrow stony track, terribly steep, which
toiled away up the bare hillside in heat radiated from the rocks.
Never had the soft sounds been so insistent; a myriad gentle hands
were trying to steer her, even to push her by force, toward the lemon
trees. She saw the folly of them so very clearly; and her foot was
actually raised to take the first step up the hill path, when she felt
the feather turn of itself in her hand, and she became ice from head
to foot as she realized that she had all but destroyed herself by
despising her opponents. They had striven this time to force her into
the _true_ path, believing that she would certainly take the opposite
one.
She saw now the end of the fatal hill path, the sudden crumbling
precipice which flung men on to pointed rocks far below; and the air
behind her became full of woe, voiceless wailings and silent howls of
rage, and she saw what she had fought against; a troop of small
formless black things, like immature bats, with pale fingers, that
fled moaning down the path of the sunlight. She knew now that they
would not vex her again.
She passed on through the lemon orchard, and out on to a bare
hillside, rough with stones and dotted here and there with great oak
trees; plants of asphodel were thrusting their blossoms up among the
coarse tufts of grass, and far below, in all its laughing splendor,
lay the sea. And as she turned the shoulder of the hill she saw the
temple, a fair Doric temple of gray marble, standing in lonely beauty
among the scattered oak trees. Its metopes were carved with the
figures of gods and heroes of an older day, and round it ran a frieze
of warriors who fought with Amazon women. The singing was just over,
it seemed; and the double choir of white-robed girls, who had been
giving strophe and antistrophe of some festival ode, had broken into
groups, these playing at ball, those reclining in the shade or
strolling about with their arms round each other's waists. In her
chair in the cool portico sat the fair-faced matronly priestess, still
crowned with red roses, and before her two little boys poured wine
into a crystal goblet. And as she saw Fiona she rose from her chair
and greeted her by name, calling her happy that she had now come
safely through the path of danger and that her troubles were ended.
"Come here to us," she said, "and rest, for it is but a little way now
that you must go, and there is ample time; slake your thirst at this
crystal goblet, and lie awhile in the shade, while these maidens crown
you with flowers."
But Fiona had learnt her lesson, and she looked at her feather; and
the feather pointed straight along the hillside. So she passed on
without a look or a word; and as she passed came a noise as of the
earth opening; and the pillars of the temple bowed themselves, and the
middle of the building collapsed stone by stone, till only the outer
columns remained among a mass of fallen blocks, and triglyph and
metope and sculptured frieze lay in fragments about them. And among
the ruins a red fox with two cubs sat and snarled, as she watched a
company of toads crawling in the dust; and of that fair scene all that
had not changed was the pallid asphodel, the asphodel whose home is in
those other meadows where walk the pallid dead.
And as Fiona passed on, the hillside itself dissolved in mist, and
there before her lay the fairy grove. And the guardian of the grove,
with white beard sweeping the ground, and old trembling hands, came
out to meet her. And she showed him her feather, and from his belt he
drew out and held up its fellow; and she knew that the path of danger
was over.
"No one has come through by the way you have come for more years than
my old memory can follow," he said. "They always fail at the lemon
orchard. How did you escape?"
And Fiona told him how the feather had turned in her hand of itself.
The old man bowed almost to the ground.
"That was the direct grace of the King," he said. "You must be a
person of the greatest consequence."
And when Fiona said, "I am just an ordinary girl," he again bowed low
and said: "Young lady, I take leave to doubt it."
Then he gave Fiona her directions for finding the King, and warned her
that she must not loiter in the fairy grove, for the fairies were
already gathering for All Hallows E'en.
So Fiona walked swiftly through the grove, not seeing one half of its
beauties, though she would have loved to have lingered among the
trees. For in the grove grew every tree and plant famous in legend or
in history, of which not the tenth part can be told here. There was
the Norse ash, whose roots bind together the framework of the earth;
there the Irish hazel, of whose nuts could a man but taste he would
know all knowledge and all wisdom; there the African pomegranate, but
for whose sweetness the Corn-spirit would have disdained to stay
beneath the earth, and the race of men would have perished. There
stood Deborah's terebinth and Diotima's plane, and the Bo-tree beneath
whose branches Gautama Buddha sought and found the path of
Enlightenment. There grew the paper-reeds of Egypt, the repository
through many centuries of a whole world's learning, the paper-reeds
that grow no longer in their old home, even as the prophet Isaiah
foretold; and there the clove, for whose perfumed pistils great
nations had warred together and brave men died under torture. There
stood the English trees, the oak and the white acacia, which had built
the three-deckers for the greatest sea captain the world has seen.
There was that great traveller, the mulberry, which had left its home
on the Yangtse to follow the old Silk Route across Asia; which had
crossed the stony Gobi, where wild camels run and the Djinn light
their lamps at night to decoy travellers; which had seen the Khotan
girls wading knee-deep in the Khotan River, searching for the previous
white jade which should make gods for China, as erstwhile for Nineveh
and Troy; which had skirted the wandering lake of Lop-nor, and had
tarried awhile in old dead cities, now buried under the sands of the
dreaded Taklamakan; which had seen the turquoise mines of Khorassan,
and voyaged on the broad Oxus stream, till from Iran its way lay clear
to the west. There grew the cedars of the Atlas, which had aided their
great mountain to support the sky, and had sailed south with Hanno to
the Guinea Gulf, to bring home those gorilla hides which lay on the
altar of Melcarth at Carthage; and there the most famous of all the
trees of the forest, the proud cedars of Lebanon, which had once
exulted with their voices over the fall of the king of Assyria, which
had built for Solomon his temple and his house for the daughter of
Pharaoh, and which had given to the princes of Tyre the ships in
which, greatly daring, they had ranged the three seas, bringing home
the gold of India and the silver of Spain and the tin of Cornwall, the
wealth of the east and the west, myrrh and frankincense and purple
dye, ivory and apes and peacocks. And last of all was the twisted gray
olive, beloved of gray-eyed Pallas Athene, the symbol of all that
raises man above the savage, the tree in whose train, as it moved out
from its home in Asia, had grown up all the civilizations that ringed
the Mediterranean.
So Fiona passed through the grove and came out on a broad place of
grass, and right before her stood the fairy ring. But not such a one
as the ring on Glenollisdal which she knew. This ring was of vast
size, and round it grew in a circle huge red toadstools splotched with
white, the red toadstools from which the witches of Lapland had used
to brew philtres of love and death. But vast as it was, it could not
hold all the creatures that swarmed round it. It was a gathering such
as Fiona had never dreamt of. On the outskirts stood an innumerable
host of little strange beings, of every sort and shape, elves and
brownies, gnomes and pixies, trolls and kobolds, goblins and
leprechauns; and the babel of them as they whispered together was like
the noise of a flock of fieldfares. And within them and around the
ring itself stood the fairies.
All the lost peoples and nations and languages, it seemed, were there
in miniature; everyone that Fiona had ever heard her father speak of,
and many another of which even he knew nothing. There were fairies of
the Old Stone peoples, brave-eyed, clad in pelts of the saber-tooth,
bearing the blade-bones of bisons on which were carved pictures of the
mammoth and the reindeer. Fairies from Egypt, clad in fine white linen
with girdles of topaz and aquamarine, with fillets round their brows
from which the golden uraeus lifted its snake's head, bearing blossoms
of the blue lotus. Fairies from Babylon, glowing in coats of scarlet
or of many colors, their eyes deep with immemorial learning, bearing
clay tablets on which were signs like the footprints of birds. Fairies
from Crete, light of foot in the dance, in flounced skirts adorned
with golden butterflies, crowned with yellow crocuses and bearing
vases on which were painted the creatures of the sea, nautilus and
flying fish and polyp. Fairies of the Iberians, black-haired and
black-eyed, clad in black cloaks, small and shy and dusty, bearing
ingots of tin. Fairies from Cappadocia, in peaked shoes, and pelisses
of lion's skin trimmed with the fur of hares, moving to the clash of
cymbals, bearing grapes and ears of corn. Fairies from Mexico, with
heavy cheek bones, resplendent in mantles woven of the plumage of the
quetzal bird, carrying bricks of gold. Fairies from Ethiopia, black as
the black diamond, clad in leopard skins and plumed with the feathers
of ostriches, carrying tusks of ivory. Fairies from the land of Sheba,
well skilled in riddles, in cloaks of camel's hair buckled with clasps
of onyx, bearing caskets of agate filled with spices. Buddhist fairies
of the Naga race, with the sevenfold cobra's hood springing from their
shoulders and shadowing them, languorous and heavy-eyed, carrying
crimson water lilies. Fairies from Cambodia, in stiff dresses of cloth
of gold, with gilded faces and scarlet eyebrows, bearing pagoda bells
which tinkled. Fairies of the Golden Horde, bandy-legged, with pug
noses and slits of eyes, clad in dyed sheepskins and carrying the
tails of horses. Fairies of the Picts, tattooed to the eyelids, their
plaids dyed with crotal and the root of the yellow iris, wearing
badges of mountain fern or bog-myrtle and bearing jars of heather ale.
Fairies of Britain, in deerskin cloaks fastened with brooches of
enamel, with golden torques circling their throats, bearing sprays of
mistletoe. Fairies of the Tuatha-de, with all the youth of the world
in their eyes, clad in robes of saffron, crowned with rowans and
bearing harps. Fairies from Greece, erect and lissom, beautiful as a
sculptor's dream, crowned with wild olive and bearing each the roll of
a book. Fairies of old England, in Lincoln green, with feathers of the
gray goose in their caps, bearing bows of yew and branches of the may.
Fairies from Baghdad, radiant as visions of the night-time, their
turbans and their crooked scimitars jewelled with rubies of Badakshan,
bearing magic lamps. Fairies from Quinsay, dainty as porcelain, their
silken robes embroidered with blossoms of the almond and the peach
tree, bearing jars of coral lac wrought in the likeness of dragons,
and on their heads the poppy flowers that bring sleep.
And in the middle of the ring stood a throne carved out of a single
beryl, green as the sea; and on the throne sat the King of the
Fairies, with eyes bright as the dawn and deep as the sea caves, in a
cloak of Tyrian purple with clasps of amethyst. His crown and sceptre
were of white gold, white gold which has long since perished out of
the upper world, and in the end of his sceptre was set a double
pentacle of clear crystal brought from the Island of Desire. And in
the beryl throne, if he looked at it through the crystal, were shown
to him the reflections of all things that he might wish to see. If he
looked directly, he saw all that had happened in the world in the
past; and if he reversed the crystal, he saw all that should happen in
the future; but if he held the pentacle edgewise, then he saw the
present, which no man ever sees, and was the greatest magic of all.
Round the throne stood his guards, black as Moors, in jackets and
trousers of emerald green clasped with orange zircons; half of them
bore trumpets of silver, and half of them carried spears with heads of
green obsidian as sharp as steel. And on either side of the throne, on
a stool, sat a strange creature, a little wizened elf with a large
book on his knee. One wore a white cap, and he bore an inkhorn and a
bundle of long quills; the other wore a black cap, and he bore a
penknife.
Fiona edged herself as far forward as she could into the ring of
strange beings, and found herself next an old Leprechaun with a face
like a wrinkled apple, who seemed quite inclined to be friendly.
"A human!" he said. "We do not see as many as we used to. But they say
there are two to be tried to-night. As you see, we have attempted
something out of the ordinary in the way of a welcome." And he waved
his arm proudly round the enormous assembly. "Had far to come?" he
asked.
Fiona told him how long it had taken her.
"That's nothing," he said. "There are people here to-night who, as
soon as the dance is over, will start travelling as fast as they can,
and will only just arrive in time for next year's meeting. Good for
the shoemaking trade!"
"Where do they try the prisoners?" she asked him.
"Here, in the ring," said the Leprechaun. "The King tries them.
There's the Public Prosecutor," and he pointed to a fairy of pompous
aspect, with a hooked nose and a Roman toga, and a roll under his arm.
"He's a terrible fellow. And there's the King's Remembrancer, those
two with the books."
"Why are there two?" asked Fiona.
"One to remember and one to forget, of course, stupid," said the
Leprechaun. "Whereever were you educated? Do you think kings want to
remember _everything_?"
"It must be very easy forgetting," said Fiona.
"Hardest job in Fairyland," said the Leprechaun. "I suppose you know
lots of people with perfect memories; but you never knew one with a
perfect forgetfulness, eh? Whitecap there only has to write his book
up; but poor Blackcap--he's the one that forgets--his book is written
up to start with, and he has to get the pages clean again with his
penknife. He never gets them _quite_ clean. They say he has nightmare
every night over the things he can't forget altogether."
The King had been talking to one of the officers of his guard. He now
rose and held out his sceptre, and there was a great silence round the
Fairy ring.
"Before we dance to-night," he said, "we have, as you know, to try two
prisoners." He turned to the officer of the guard, and said, "Let them
be produced."
The officer at once produced the Urchin from nowhere in particular, as
a conjurer produces half-crowns. The boy looked rather large among the
Little People, but otherwise he was much as Fiona had last seen him;
his shirt and knickerbockers were covered with earthstains and he
still had the same length of useless rope coiled round his waist.
But Jeconiah? Was this the prosperous financier, this wretched apology
for a living being which the officer held out on the palm of his hand?
Not two inches high, its white waistcoat hanging in loose flaps,
speechless, and wide-eyed with terror and abject entreaty, it was like
the ghost of a parody; the officer had to set it on one of the great
toadstools, and mark the place with a stick, lest it should be lost.
The King regarded it with interest.
"I understood that the elder prisoner was a very stout man," he said.
"That was so, your Majesty," said the officer. "He was so stout that
we thought it useless to attempt to take him through the doorway as he
was, so we left his body behind and only brought away the essential
part of him. This is all that there really is of him, sire; the rest
was wind. When we began to sift him we were afraid that he had no
real existence at all, and that there would be nothing to bring
before you."
"Well, well," said the King, "there's enough of him to be tried,
anyhow. Are the prisoners provided with counsel?"
The Public Prosecutor was understood to say that they were not yet
represented.
"Counsel had better be assigned them in the usual way," said the King.
"Catch, somebody."
He took a guinea from his pocket and flung it, apparently without
looking, into the crowd. But thick as the crowd was, the guinea passed
straight through the forest of hands held out for it, and fell into a
tiny brown hand behind them. Fiona knew where she had seen that hand
before.
The owner of the hand at once stepped forward into the ring. He seemed
to be the most singular being in Fairyland. Fiona's first impression
was that he was just a large bald head, the color of parchment and
wrinkled all over; and this impression remained, even when she
realized that he did possess a small body, with the usual allowance of
arms and legs. Out of his great head looked a pair of quite
incongruous eyes, bright as beads, and full of happy drollery. Behind
him came a couple of stout goblins, each laden with dusty law books.
They piled the books up in a stack on the ground, and the singular
creature with the head proceeded to climb to the top of the stack,
where he sat down, cracking his fingers and laughing hugely at some
jest of his own, evidently on the best of terms both with himself and
his audience. Then he caught Fiona's eye, and deliberately winked at
her; but somehow it carried no offence, for the creature seemed
absolutely free from malice.
"Privilege honorable profession defend oppressed," he remarked; "duty
clients submit large number points," and he patted the books he sat
on. He had a habit of clipping his words as he spoke which was totally
destructive of the smaller parts of speech, and made his remarks
sound like a series of unedited cablegrams.
"We will take the younger prisoner first," announced the King;
whereupon the Public Prosecutor proceeded to read, all in one breath,
the indictment against the Urchin, to the effect that he did on or
about the 20th day of September then last past in despite of the peace
of the realm and the safety of the lieges with a stone or some other
missile or thing throw at and break the wing of or otherwise hit, cut,
hurt, maim, destroy and do wrong to one of the said lieges, to wit, a
shore lark, and so forth. When he had finished, instead of evidence
being taken, the King merely glanced into the beryl throne.
"True in fact," he said. "Any defence?"
The creature on the bookstack began at once.
"Please Majesty duty client submit series points. First point no
intention."
But Fiona did not wait to hear what it had to say. Forcing her way
into the ring, she said:
"Please, your Majesty, it was my fault. I told him he couldn't."
The King turned to look at her.
"So this is the young lady," he said. "Very good of you to come, you
know. We rarely receive visitors now. We shall try to make you welcome
when the trial is over." He turned again to the bookstack, and said:
"I will hear the defence."
"It was my fault, your Majesty," said Fiona again.
With grave patience the King started to explain to her.
"Your part of it was your fault, of course. But we are not trying you,
for you have come here of your own free will, so we can neither try
nor punish. But his part of it was equally his own fault, and unless
there is a good defence he will have to be punished."
The creature on the bookstack was nodding and signing to Fiona, but
she was too engrossed with a single thought to notice him.
"Then I claim my wish, your Majesty," she said.
"Quite in order," said the King. "The trial will be suspended while
the young lady wishes. Officer!"
And immediately the fairy ring was strewn with a strange collection of
objects, looking rather like the contents of an old curiosity shop
that had gone bankrupt. The officer held them up one by one for Fiona
to see.
"When we heard you were coming," said the King, "we collected a few
little things for your inspection. It is so long since we had any use
for any of them that many of them seem to have developed serious
defects, which we regret; but they are the best we could find at short
notice. This," he pointed to an old ring, "is a common wishing ring.
It used to do all the usual things. The genie attached to it has
unfortunately become very deaf with age; but if you can make him hear,
we believe he is still in fair working order. This," as a frayed
girdle was held up, "is the famous cestus of Aphrodite, which she
lent to Helen of Troy. Its wearer used to become the most beautiful
and unpopular creature in the world. It will still confer beauty,
though hardly suited to the modern style; the unpopularity we
guarantee. This," pointing to a huge book, "contains the truth of that
which in your world passes as knowledge. It would delight your father.
He might publish selected chapters, and watch the critics cut them to
pieces. This," as a battered trumpet was exhibited, "is Fame. Your
praises would be sung all over the world; and the world would say,
'Never mind what she has _achieved_; tell us about her faults.' This,"
and he contemplated an old iron sceptre, "is Power. You would become a
great ruler, and would probably die in exile. And under this," and he
pointed to a sheet of black velvet, thrown loosely over some object,
"under this is the treasure of the Isle of Mist, which I am told that
you have heard of. Do any of these please you? If not, we have
others."
Fiona never thought about it for a moment, of course. She had not done
all that she had done to hesitate now. She did not look at the King's
face, and she took not the least notice of the creature with the head,
who was dancing about in a perfect agony, trying to attract her
attention.
"Please your Majesty," she said in breathless haste, "I came here to
find the Urchin and take him home with me. That is my wish."
She had hardly spoken the words when her instinct told her something
was wrong. A sort of chill seemed to run through the air, and the
color seemed to go out of the fairy world. The creature with the head
stopped dancing about and began to wring its little hands. She looked
up at the King's face, and read there, was it disappointment? was it
regret? She hardly knew.
"A very natural and proper wish," said the King gravely. "We shall of
course accept it as such, and grant it with great pleasure. The
younger prisoner is discharged. Take the next case."
And then Fiona saw. She saw the thing which had once been Jeconiah,
with that look of abject terror and entreaty in its eyes; and she
realized that it would have meant nothing to her to have included
Jeconiah in her wish, and that for Jeconiah it would have meant
everything. And she realized also that, worthless and evil as he had
been in life, selfish, mean, a thief and a liar, he was still a human
being, and had a soul and possibilities of which the fairy world could
know nothing. She felt a wave of humiliation pass over her; and she
resolved that, whatever he was, and whatever happened, she would not
go home without Jeconiah.
The charges against Jeconiah were then read: stealing a treasure, and
being a worthless character.
"Any defence?" said the King.
The creature with the head got to work.
"Please Majesty," he said, "admit second count. Character worthless.
Object pity however not vindictive punishment. Behalf client offer
submit State cure. First count plead not guilty; intention steal
treasure admitted but did not succeed."
Fiona, in her new-found humility, had been listening to what the
creature with the head was saying. And suddenly it dawned on her that,
all through, both he and the King had been trying to help her, so far
as was consistent with their own rules; and that perhaps the creature
with the head, for all his oddity, knew what he was doing. She asked
the Leprechaun who he was.
"You might have asked that with advantage before you interrupted him,"
said the Leprechaun severely. "He is our Chancellor here. He is the
King's most intimate friend, and far the ablest lawyer in Fairyland."
"Defence to first count not admitted," the King was saying. "Your
client cannot plead his own bungling of the theft in mitigation of his
wrongdoing. Only the intention counts here."
The Chancellor looked immensely relieved at the King's words, though
it passed Fiona's wit to see why.
"Apply formal ruling," he said. "Take down," this to Whitecap.
"I hold that nothing counts here but the intention," said the King.
"Majesty pleases," said the Chancellor. "Settles point. Retire defence
this prisoner. Submit excellent point younger client."
"We will pass sentence here first," said the King. "Jeconiah P.
Johnson, your counsel has very properly thrown up his brief. You are
convicted of stealing a treasure, and it is admitted that you are a
worthless character. On the first count, I sentence you to be handed
over to the executioner to be extended until you become a proper size.
If you survive, you will then undergo, as offered by your counsel, the
State cure at the hands of the State hypnotizer." He turned to the
Chancellor. "Any further submission?"
Fiona had gone over to the stack of books, and bent down over the
little creature with the head.
"I have made a most terrible mistake," she said, in a low voice. "I
have spoilt everything. I see that you are kind; can you help us?"
"Should have come me first," said the creature, quite gently. "Tried
attract attention. Never neglect anyone merely because odd and ugly.
May have good heart. Sad mess now; but think see daylight. Any
influence that boy?"
"Oh, yes," said Fiona eagerly.
"Right," said the creature. "Make boy wish. Now follow my argument."
And he turned to the King.
"Please Majesty submit good point. Majesty just ruled nothing counts
here but intention. Younger prisoner no intention hurt shore lark;
therefore on Majesty's ruling same as if did not hurt it. Therefore
never was guilty. Human prisoner adjudged not guilty is just same as
if came here own free will; so held Majesty's father"; and by some
extraordinary trick he got the top book open and flopped down among
the leaves, from which position he read out bits of an ancient
judgment. "Consequently younger prisoner both entitled and bound
wish."
The King consulted Whitecap.
"It seems a sound chain of reasoning," he said. Then he turned to the
Public Prosecutor. "Have you anything to urge against it?"
"Only that, if he wishes wrong, we can't detain him, because of the
young lady's wish," said that official.
"Daniel come judgment," cried the Chancellor triumphantly. "Heads win,
tails can't lose. Younger prisoner wish."
He turned to Fiona and whispered to her, "Mind he wishes right."
Fiona started to go over to the Urchin; instantly the guard crossed
their spears before her.
"No interference allowed with anyone who is going to wish," said the
officer.
Then she tried to call to him, and found that she could not speak. It
was like a nightmare. She looked helplessly at the Chancellor; he
nodded, and spelt on his fingers the word "think."
Then Fiona understood what he had meant by asking her if she had any
influence over the Urchin. She knew that she had a good deal; and bits
of conversations with her father came back into her mind. She had made
one bad blunder, and she had to correct it as best she could; and
without more ado she concentrated her whole mind on taking possession
of the mind of the Urchin. Could it be done at all? And if so could it
be done in time?
The King stretched out his sceptre, and there was silence.
"The younger prisoner is going to wish," said the King. "Officer!"
And immediately there appeared in the middle of the ring six great
boxes, old sea chests made of Spanish chestnut, battered and stained
and clamped with bands of iron; and on each was the picture, half
obliterated by time and salt water, of the Madonna of the Holy Cross.
The officer flung back the lids, and showed each chest full to the
brim of glittering golden doubloons.
"That is the treasure from the Venetian galleon which you were
seeking," said the King. "We removed it long ago into our safe
custody, lest it should tempt men; but it would seem that it tempts
them none the less. Now wish."
The Urchin, his eyes bulging out of his head, stared at the shining
gold. He murmured "gun," but fortunately so low that the King did not
hear him.
Fiona kept her eyes fixed hard on the boy, and bent every effort of
mind and will to the one thought, that he must wish as she wished. If
only he would turn round. She had already lost sight of the fairies;
she now lost sight of the King; she was conscious only of the abject
wretched creature that was Jeconiah, and of the back of the Urchin's
head. He was still staring at the gold, but he had not yet spoken;
that was to the good, and--no, it was not fancy--his ears were turning
pink, as they always did when he was in a difficulty. Then he began to
shuffle his feet uneasily. Fiona felt that every atom of life and
force in her was being concentrated on that one act of will; she did
not think she could go through with it many seconds longer, or she
would collapse. And then the Urchin turned his head toward her; his
face was scarlet, and his eyes were wavering before the fixed gaze of
her own; he _must_ do as she wished. She flung everything into one
supreme effort--the last reserves which no one thinks they possess
till utter necessity teaches them the contrary; and then the Urchin
spoke, in a strange voice and all in one breath:
"I want my uncle to go free."
Fiona's will let go with a snap; she felt so dizzy that she had to
lean against one of the great toadstools or she would have fallen.
Round the assemblage ran a sound like the wind through the tree tops,
the noise of thousands drawing in breath at once; and the Chancellor
started a war dance on his stack of books, and nearly fell off on his
head. The King rose from his throne, but he took no notice of the
Urchin; he turned straight to Fiona and bowed to her.
"My compliments, young lady," he said; "the prettiest piece of
thought-transference it has ever been our privilege to see. Where did
you learn to do it?"
"I never learnt," stammered Fiona. "I made a great mistake, as your
Majesty saw, and something had to be done, and your friend suggested
this way."
"You needn't mind having made a mistake," said the King. "If you don't
make mistakes sometimes you'll never make anything else. And you have
made something else this time with a vengeance. As for you, sirrah
. . ." and he shook his fist at the Chancellor.
The creature snapped all its fingers in reply.
"Majesty pleases," it began triumphantly. "Duty younger client submit
new point arising young lady's action. Client entitled wish. Did not
wish himself; young lady wished. Therefore client still entitled wish.
Propose develop point considerable length with authorities."
The King raised his hand.
"I think I shall have to intervene," he said. "I believe you would
submit points till cockcrow."
"Submit points till next year, if Majesty pleases," said the creature,
gleefully.
"If these proceedings don't end soon," said the King, "there will be
no time to dance; and if we didn't dance no one knows what would
happen to the world above. Even I don't know that. So as we do not
generally have three human beings here at once, and as substantial
justice has been done, I propose now to exercise the royal prerogative
of generosity. Jeconiah P. Johnson, you will, as requested, go free,
so far as we can set you free. We cannot set you free from your own
worthless character. In order, however, to do the best for you that
can be done, before you leave us the State hypnotizer will take you in
hand and instil into you a few decent feelings. He won't hurt you, and
you won't remember. The effect, I fear, will not be permanent, but it
will ease our conscience. And as a sign to the world above that we
have treated you liberally, you will find that you will be unable to
attend to business until you have told your nephew a fairy tale.
Urchin! A doubt exists as to whether you have had your wish or not.
You shall have the benefit of the doubt, so far as is good for you.
You will find that you will get your gun."
And then the King turned to Fiona.
"Young lady," he said, "you have given us a display of courage which
we are not likely to forget. You have rescued your friend; you have,
which is much more to the point, rescued your enemy. You have got
_two_ wishes out of us, which no one ever did before; and you have
asked nothing for yourself. And now what are we to do for you?"
"I think I have everything I want, now, thank your Majesty," said
Fiona.
"Did we not hear talk of a treasure?" said the King.
"Yes," said Fiona; "but--I was not thinking about a treasure, your
Majesty."
"I know," said the King. "But I was; all the time."
"I must leave it all in your Majesty's hands," said Fiona.
"It is not here," said the King. "What you saw was only a pretence.
And we cannot send for it to-night. But if you will honor us sometime
by returning to our kingdom, we will see what can be done in memory of
your visit. Any time you like. And by the front door, please. You will
run no risks that way."
"And now," said the King, stretching out his sceptre over the great
throng, "we will dance." He turned to Fiona and the Urchin. "It will
be a little while before Mr. Johnson is ready to accompany you home,"
he said. "Perhaps you will honor us meanwhile by attending the dance
also."
So the fairies danced before the King; and the fairy ring whirled and
blazed with the color of them, till it was gayer than a gorse-bank in
blossom, and brighter than a swarm of dragon-flies on a June
grass-field, and more vivid than a fall of shooting stars; and the
music that they made was wilder than the wind in the strings of a
harp, and sweeter than the blackbird's song, and dearer than all the
burns on the moor murmuring in unison. And the two children sat at the
King's feet on the steps of the beryl throne and watched the dancers;
and the Chancellor sat between them, and held Fiona's hand, and told
them such stories as they had never heard before, till between
laughter and tears they nearly fell off the steps of the throne, and
the Chancellor laughed and cried with them for sheer joy in his own
story-telling; and if there were three happier people in the world
that night I do not know where they were. And the night itself passed
away as a dream that men dream, and its hours seemed to them but as a
few minutes--and then across the music and the dance cut the shrill
harsh scream of a peacock as he greeted the day. The children saw the
King rise from his throne and stretch his sceptre out over the ring;
and the ring and the dancers were shrouded in a white mist which rose
from the ground and wreathed its arms about them; and the beryl throne
dissolved in mist, and the figure of the King above them, pointing,
grew dim and huge, and spread and grew, a purple shadow that hung over
them, . . . and they were standing alone in the fairy ring on
Glenollisdal, under the purple sky, with the white mist wreathing
itself about their feet, and the pale November dawn coming slowly up
out of the sea.
Did the Urchin fling himself on the grass at Fiona's feet and thank
her in broken accents for all she had done for him? I regret to state
that the first thing which the Urchin did was to feel in his pocket
and draw out the doubloon which he had found in the cave.
"I've got this one, anyhow, Fiona," he said. "But I wonder how I'm
going to get that gun."
Then something seemed to prick him; he began to look uncomfortable and
shuffle his feet, while his ears turned pink; and at last he managed
to blurt out:
"I say, Fiona, it was jolly decent of you, you know."
Fiona only smiled, the wise smile of perfect understanding.
* * * * *
That morning the doctor was hastily summoned with the news that
Jeconiah was awake. The nurse met him in the passage, wide-eyed and
rather frightened.
"He's so strange," she said.
"Tut, tut," said the doctor; "told you he might wake like that. Kind
of change in personality? Just so. Often happens. Seldom permanent
though. What's he done?"
"Well, doctor, of course we all know Mr. Johnson's reputation," said
the nurse. "He's thanked me three times, and hoped I didn't tire
myself; and he had all the servants up and said he'd see their wages
were raised, and the cook gave notice on the spot because she said she
didn't like practical jokes; and he says he wants to go out and gather
buttercups and daisies, and play with the little frogs; and he's sent
for some old gun that he says he's got to buy for his nephew; and he
hasn't opened any of the telegrams that have been waiting for him; he
says he mayn't attend to business till he has learnt a fairy tale, and
he's had the library ransacked, and he's tearing his hair because
there's no such thing in it."
"Oh, well," said the doctor, "we must just have patience, nurse. I
expected something of the sort. Just humor him; if you can't find a
fairy tale, try him with a history book; he'll never know the
difference; and I'll send him up a nice soothing mixture. Very
interesting case; ve-ry interesting."
And the doctor, calling up his best professional smile, bustled into
Jeconiah's room.
* * * * *
It was the same afternoon, a still afternoon of Indian summer, that
the old hawker, accompanied again by the black terrier, was going down
the shore road. He must have had business at the cottage on the beach.
But his business was probably not urgent; for he stopped to watch with
interest a group on the shore. It consisted of Jeconiah and the
Urchin, and they sat on the little patch of sand at the mouth of the
burn. The Urchin had across his knees the rusty old gun bought for him
by Jeconiah, who had nevertheless exacted the doubloon from him in
exchange. He fingered the gun lovingly, while he gazed with
undisguised impatience at the proceedings of his uncle. Jeconiah's
coat lay on the grounds beside a sheaf of unopened telegrams, and he
was putting the finishing touches to a noble castle of sand; its
drawbridge was supported by his double watch chain, and its turrets
bore a suspicious resemblance in contour to the inside of his hat. He
patted his work and gazed at it with pride.
"Fine, isn't it?" he said.
"You'd better hurry up with that fairy tale," said the boy. "If you've
got to, you've got to, you know; and you won't keep me much once I get
some cartridges."
Jeconiah began to look alarmed.
"But I haven't found one yet," he said, and glanced anxiously at the
pile of telegrams.
"Make one up, then," said the boy. "Anybody can do it."
Thus adjured, Jeconiah started.
"Once upon a time there was a very grizzly old bear, and he lived in a
beautiful place called Capel Court, and he used to hunt the wild bulls
and the stags and the poor little guinea pigs that abounded in that
salubrious locality. And there were two young ladies there, called
Cora and Dora. . . ."
"Are those the princesses?" asked the boy.
"No, I think not," said Jeconiah. "They were of quite ordinary stock.
Well, the old bear thought they were too high and mighty, and that he
would like to take them down a point or two. . . ."
"Oh, this won't do," said the Urchin rudely. "This isn't a _real_
fairy tale at all. You must do something better than that."
The wretched Jeconiah groaned, and looked again at his telegrams. Then
he started afresh.
"Once upon a time there was a great dragon with seven heads, and he
ate seven princesses every day for dinner. . . ."
"That's better," said the boy, encouragingly, as he settled himself to
listen.
The old hawker resumed his walk.
"They haven't made a very good job of him, after all," he remarked
aloud, apparently to the terrier. "But I expect that sort is
incurable."
Was it a flicker of sunlight? Or did the black terrier really wink?