FIONA FINDS HER TREASURE
And Fiona?
Fiona sat on the hearthrug in the bookroom, and told her father the
whole story from beginning to end, as it has been told here. And
sometimes he asked a question, and sometimes he said, "Yes, that would
be so," and sometimes he stroked her hair and said nothing. And when
she had ended, he said, "So you never found your own treasure after
all, Fiona?"
She said, "I suppose I can have it now, if I go back."
"Do you think you will go back?" he asked.
She replied with another question.
"Have you found out what my treasure is, daddy?"
"I believe I could guess," he answered. "But you have found a good
many things already, apart from treasure, haven't you, little
daughter?"
She sat silent and looked into the fire.
"I suppose I have," she said.
"We won't enumerate them," said the Student. "It spoils things
entirely, sometimes, to put them into words. But I will tell you
something an old writer once said. He was talking of that particular
kind of treasure which men call Truth; and he said that if he were
offered Truth itself on the one hand, and the everlasting search for
it on the other hand, he would choose the search. I expect you can
understand that now; for you have seen what has happened to you over
your own search."
"I think I can understand," said Fiona. "I must be growing older,
daddy."
"You'll be too old soon to go back to Fairyland at all, little
daughter," said the Student. "If you are going, you will have to go at
once."
"What do you think, daddy?" she questioned.
"I can only tell you that, in my case, I went back," the Student
answered.
"Why, daddy, have you been in Fairyland too?" cried Fiona. "And you
never told me."
"Yes," said the Student. "Even a musty old scholar like myself was
young once, you know," and he looked into the fire with eyes which
seemed to see things very, very far away. "It was not quite the same
as the Fairyland you have been in, Fiona; but we called it Fairyland."
"Can't you come back with me if I go daddy?" asked the girl.
"I'm too old now, little daughter," he said. "For good or for bad, I
could never find the way again. I can only see it now through your
eyes. I'll come as far as the door with you, and that's all that an
old man can do. I suppose you know where the door is?"
"I never felt there was any doubt," said Fiona.
"Then we'll start first thing to-morrow, if it's calm enough," he
said.
But that evening was the last of the golden autumn; and when Fiona
woke in the morning, the Isle of Mist was justifying its name. The
southwest gale was raging round the house like a live animal, seizing
it and shaking it, and wailing in the chimneys pitifully, like an
unburied ghost; and before the gale the long lead-colored rollers were
racing in from the Atlantic, smashing themselves on the crags and
shooting up heavenward in columns of spray thrice the height of the
cliffs, while the noise of the surf in the Scargill cave came booming
across the water like the roar of a battleship's guns. The hills were
all shrouded in mist, and the mist was fine salt rain that rolled in
from the sea, driving in billows over the moor and across the fields;
the gulls were tossed about in it like little bits of waste paper, and
every green thing on the island opened its heart to the rain and drank
till it could drink no more. Toward evening Fiona and the Student, in
oilskins and sou'-westers, went down to the rocks and out seaward as
far as was possible, and there stood, unable to speak for the noise.
They balanced themselves against the gusts, and felt the tingling
drops of salt spray rattle like hail off their coats, while they
watched the cliff waterfalls, unable to fall for the wind, go straight
up heavenward in clouds of smoke, and the sea foam and tear at the
rocks below; and once for a moment the cloud-mist parted, and the
hills started out, their dark sides all gashed and seamed with white
streaks where every tiny runlet and burn was rushing in spate down
toward the sea. Fiona managed to shout, with her clear young voice,
"No one can really love this island who only knows it in summer;" and
then they went home, out of the dusk and the lashing of the wet wind,
to the quiet bookroom and tea things, and lamps, and books; for man
may love Nature, but he loves still better the contrast between Nature
and the things which he has fashioned for himself.
For three weeks the wind blew; and though there were days when the
sea-mist lifted, there was no day on which the sea was calm enough for
the launching of their small boat. Then one afternoon came change. The
warm air turned chill, and the warm rain became sleet; that night the
wind backed to the north, and next day was a blizzard of snow. And the
night after the wind fell away, and the snow ceased, and Orion and his
two dogs shone huge in a frosty sky; and Fiona woke to the glories of
a scarlet sunrise on a great field of white.
"We must hurry, daddy," she said. "It's perfectly calm."
"It's a pet day," said the Student, sniffing the air. "It won't last;
the wind backed too suddenly. But it's all right till sunset."
Directly breakfast was over they launched the little boat, and
started. The snow shone white in the sunshine, and the calm sea
against the snow was as blue as a blue lotus; but the shadows on the
snow were a wonder, and the woven complexity of their colorings would
have taxed every hue on an artist's palette. So they pulled down and
into the cave, at whose mouth the great bluff looked barer and blacker
than ever against the world's whiteness; and they grounded their boat
and climbed the rock barrier. There the Student sat down and filled
and lit his pipe.
"This is as far as I can go," he said. "If I mistake not, you will
find that they have opened the door for you."
So Fiona went on to the recess where the Urchin had found the
doubloon, and where the torch had been smashed in her father's hand;
and the solid wall of the cliff had opened, and there was an archway
leading into the black vaulting of the long cave behind. Fiona passed
through into the darkness . . . and the darkness parted to right and
left of her, and she stood again in the fairy ring where she had stood
on All Hallows E'en.
But how changed. Of all the bright throng of fairies that had
clustered round it, not one stood there to-day. The circle of scarlet
toadstools was broken down and shattered, as though by a great storm;
and the ring itself was no longer grass, but was covered deep in snow.
Of all the things she had seen there that evening, only one remained.
The beryl throne still stood lonely in the midst of the bare ring; and
on the throne sat the King of the Fairies. His face rested on his
hand, as though he were deep in thought; his eyes were looking at
something far away. On the steps of the throne sat the Chancellor, the
King's inseparable friend; and he, too, was deep in thought. It was a
view of the fairy world which Fiona had never expected.
The King must have heard her step, for he rose from his throne and
came down to meet her.
"Have you come for your treasure, Fiona?" he said.
And she said, "I have come because you asked me to come back."
The King held out his sceptre to her; and again the mist came up from
the ground and enwrapped the beryl throne, and the figures of the
King and the Chancellor wavered and became dim before her. _Were_ they
the King and the Chancellor? Was not what she saw, so dim through the
mist, the figures of the shepherd who had helped her on Glenollisdal
and his black collie? But the mist was wavering again about them, and
again all was a blur; and then the mist suddenly cleared, and there
was no one there at all but just the old hawker and the little terrier
which followed him.
"So you were the King of the Fairies all the time," said Fiona.
"All the time," said the old man gently. "We go about in the world as
you see us. And some still entertain angels unaware. Have you come for
your treasure, Fiona?"
And this time Fiona answered, "Yes."
"You have earned it," said the King. "And you have found much more
than any treasure. Your father has told you that?"
And again Fiona said, "Yes."
"I cannot really give you your treasure," said the King, "for you
have it already. I think you have had it all the time; but you did not
know. But now you have learnt."
"What is it?" asked Fiona. "But I think I can guess now."
"It is the spirit of the island which you love," said the King, "and
which henceforth loves you. You have spoken face to face with bird and
beast and with the beings who knew and loved the land before your race
was. To-day you have the freedom of the island, and of all living
things in it; they are your friends forever. And to the dead in its
graveyards you are kin. All that is there has passed into your blood,
the old lost loves, the old impossible loyalties, the old forgotten
heroisms and tendernesses; all these are yours; and yours are the
songs that were sung long ago, and the tales which were told by the
fireside; and the deeds of the men and women of old have become part
of you. You can walk now through the crowded city and never know it,
for the wind from the heather will be about you where you go; you can
stand in the tumult of men and never hear them, for round you will be
the silence of your own sea. That is the treasure of the Isle of Mist;
the island has given you of its soul. You have found greater things
already; you will find greater things yet again. But such as it is, it
is the best gift which we of the fairy world have to give."
"And now," continued the King, "you will not see us again. And I will
take back the bracelet. It would be no further use to you, for you are
no longer a child. You are too old for Fairyland."
"But my father could see you," said Fiona.
"He could only see me as I really am through your eyes," said the
King. "It may be that some day you too will see me again through the
eyes of a child. But for the present it is farewell."
So Fiona stooped down and stroked the little dog, who looked at her
with wistful eyes, and took her farewell of the King; and the King
raised his hand, and the mist rose again and enwrapped the fairy ring
and those in it . . . and Fiona walked out through the archway into
the cave, and there sat the Student on the rock barrier, just as she
had left him, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. And even as she came
to him there was a noise behind her, and when she looked round it was
to see the archway blocked by a great fall of rock.
"You will not use that way again, little daughter," said the Student.
"I shall not use any way again now, daddy," she said. "I am too old.
But oh, daddy, it has been worth it."
Then they launched their boat and paddled slowly out of the cave, out
of the dark into daylight; and before them lay the quiet sea bathed in
the winter sun, and the Isle of Mist dreaming under its mantle of
white.
THE END.
_A Selection from the
Catalogue of_
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
[Illustration]
Complete Catalogues sent
on application
THE MOON POOL
BY A. MERRITT
Romance, real romance, and wonderful adventure,--absolutely
impossible, yet utterly probable! A story one almost regrets having
read, since one can then no longer read it for the first time. Once in
the proverbial blue moon there comes to the fore an author who can
conceive and write such a tale. Here is one!
Few indeed will forget, who, with the Professor, watch the mystic
approach of the Shining One down the moon path,--who follow with him
and the others the path below the Moon Pool, beyond the Door of the
Seven Lights;--and would there were more characters in fiction like
Lakla the lovely and Larry O'Keefe the lovable.
Perhaps you readers will know who were those weird and awe-inspiring
Silent Ones.
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK LONDON
Visions and Beliefs in
the West of Ireland
By Lady Gregory
With Two Essays and Notes by W. B. Yeats
_Two Volumes. 12o_
To those who have felt the haunting charm that inheres in the Celtic
consciousness of an imminent supernaturalism, this collection of Irish
fancy, belief, and folk-lore, gathered from the lips of the people
with patient and reverent care, will have particular value. It has
interest as an exceptionally thorough and representative study of
psychic sensitiveness in Ireland, and the slightness of the barrier
between worlds seen and unseen.
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York London
The Substance
of a Dream
By F. W. Bain
"In this new and wholly charming Hindu story a very old world speaks
to us, but one that has not lost its childhood with age and
sophistication. It is a world of innocent voluptuousness where passion
is not contrary to faith but is itself faith.
"Mr. Bain's people have character, as there are colors in moonlight, a
character with a common beauty in all its diversities; and because of
its utter and inner harmony, this creation of his has a very rare
beauty."
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York London
Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors present in the
original edition have been corrected.
In Chapter II, a quotation mark was deleted after "the love of worms
was the root of all evil".
In Chapter III, a quotation mark was added after "if you could wait a
few minutes . . .".
In Chapter IV, _said Fiona," and you wriggle so."_ was changed to
_said Fiona, "and you wriggle so."_, and _"Urchin," she shouted;
"Urchin.'_ was changed to _"Urchin," she shouted; "Urchin."_
In Chapter V, quotation marks were added after "Go up a hill." and
"the true cave at all."
End of Project Gutenberg's The Treasure of the Isle of Mist, by W. W. Tarn