The house in which old Mr. Bolsover lived was of a faded primrose
colour, and, apart from a high gable in which showed the windows of the
guest-room and an attic, it was long and low. Its other back windows
looked out across meadows which now lay spreading out before them into
the distance, bright green beneath a merry morning sun. A narrow terrace
skirted the house. At either end of this was a worn, grey stone pedestal
on which stood two dancing fauns, for ever piping one to another above
the wallflowers and the pinks. And it was the pinks that were now in
full bloom, filling the air with their fragrance.
Along the terrace leaning down from the house wall was a canopy made of
copper, and painted green; and this was supported by slim pillars,
around which clematis and jessamine clambered. It was just after
breakfast-time, and old Mr. Bolsover at this very moment was coming out
at the French windows of the breakfast-room with his small niece,
Letitia. She had a nimble way of walking and a quick way of turning her
head that was like a bird, and she was chattering away to her old uncle
as she stepped along beside him. They came to a standstill together,
looking out across the meadows.
“Oh, Uncle Tim, what a _perfectly_ lovely morning!” said she.
“A lovely morning,” repeated Uncle Tim. “One of the most beautiful I can
remember, simply because a small person of the name of Letitia is here
to share it with me.”
“Oh, Uncle Tim,” said Letitia; “that's flattery.”
“No, my dear, not exactly flattery,” replied Uncle Tim, squinnying at
her from under the glasses of his spectacles; “but just the plain,
beautiful, solemn truth.”
“Ah, I know all about that!” said she.... “And to think, Uncle Tim, it's
exactly a year since I was here before. Why, you wouldn't believe a
single flower was different. And there,” she went on hastily, twisting
her head on her slender neck—“why there's that curious old Guy Fawkes
thing still, over there by the willows.”
“Why, yes, so it is,” said Uncle Tim.
Letitia continued to gaze at it. “You know, he _is_ a little alarming,
Uncle Tim, if you look at him long enough. And you don't seem to
remember,” she went on solemnly, “that the very last morning I was here
you promised faithfully to tell me what it's there _for_. And then you
didn't, because Mother came in just when I was asking you, and you
forgot all about it.”
“Well, so I did,” said Uncle Tim. “That's just what comes of the
piecrust which promises are made of. It melts in your mouth.... That's
Old Joe right enough. _Old_ Joe indeed, poor soul, for he must be at
least as old as I am. Ninety-nine, Letitia, if he's a day!”
“You're please not to say that, Uncle Tim. You are the youngest, kindest
Uncle Tim there ever was. So there! But what _is_ Old Joe? Where did he
come from? What is he for? Isn't there a tune about an Old Joe, Uncle
Tim? Is that him? Tell me _now_,” cried Letitia. “Let's sit down here
comfily on the stones—they're as warm as toast in the sun. And now go
straight on. _Please._”
Down sat old Mr. Bolsover; down sat Letitia—side by side like an ancient
Pharaoh and his bride. And this is his story of Old Joe:
“I must tell you first, Letitia,” he began, “that when I was about your
age I used frequently to stay with an old friend of my mother's—your
grandmother's, that is—whose name was Mrs. Lumb. She was a stout woman,
and used, I remember, to wear an amethyst-coloured velvet cap flat over
her ears, and a lace thingummy over her shoulders. I can see her now:
her wide face all creased up in smiles, and her fat fingers with the
emeralds and the sapphires; and even the cameo brooch at her neck. She
wasn't even so much as my godmother, but she was immensely kind to me.
She had a cook, too, that could make every sort of prime rich cake there
is. Jams, jellies, raspberry-fool, apple charlotte, tipsy-cake—they were
the best I've ever tasted. So were her stuffed eggs.”
“Oh, Uncle Tim,” said Letitia, “you greedy thing!”
[Illustration: Black and white illustration of an elegantly dressed
woman carrying a small tray of food toward a young boy standing on
grass.]
“You shall see for yourself at lunch,” said her uncle; “for if I'm not
an unprophetic Dutchman, I can smell apple charlotte. But never mind
about that. You'll agree, at any rate, that my friend Mrs. Lumb was the
right kind of person to stay _with_. It was always during the holidays,
and in those days, while there was plenty of honest hard tack at
school—impots, ferrules, bread-and-scrape and what-not—there was no such
thing as a holiday task. You hadn't, I mean, to sit and hate reading a
book you'd have loved to read for its own sake if you had never been
told to. But never mind about that either. At Mrs. Lumb's I did just
what I liked. Hers was an old, roaming house; a good deal older than
this, and twice the size; and there was beautiful country all around it.
Wide sweeping hills with ploughed fields stretching down their sunny
slopes; little woods and copses, too, on the crests and in the folds and
valleys; and a stream meandering its way along and actually brawling
over stones at the foot of our long, sloping garden. If ever I go to
heaven, my dear, I hope to see that house and garden again.”
[Illustration: Black and white illustration of a boy holding out a
string or worm toward a bird in a hanging cage.]
“But isn't it here _still_?” said Letitia. “I mean wherever in the world
it used to be?”
“Alas, my dear, no,” said old Mr. Bolsover. “The house was destroyed by
fire—burned clean to the ground—forty years ago. But not, I am thankful
to say, before Mrs. Lumb had left it and had gone out to live with her
younger brother in Ceylon—where the strong tea comes from.
“In those days I was uncommonly fond of birds; too fond of them to carry
a catapult, but not too fond of them to set traps and try to catch and
keep them, poor creatures, for pets. How would you like to be a linnet
or a starling or a blackbird barred up inside a cage by an oaf of a boy
like me when I was nine or thereabouts?”
“Not at all,” said Letitia; “though I would sooner be kept by you than
by any other boy.”
“Thank you, my dear,” said Mr. Bolsover; “that's a bargain. Still,
caging wild birds is usually very poor fun for the wild birds. But I was
a boy and I did as boys do, bless their hearts. My traps were scattered
everywhere, sometimes in places where they had no business to be. What I
was after was _rare_ birds, and deep down my one desire was for a bird
unspeakably marvellous in colour and appearance and song, and one that
nobody had ever seen. Which means I was a little cracked on the subject.
There was a particular place that I had in mind for a trap for a long
time before I ventured to make the attempt. It was at the edge of a
field where I used to notice a great many birds were accustomed to
visit, and that in spite of Old Joe there.”
“_That_ Old Joe _there_?” enquired Letitia, pointing with her finger at
the queer, stooping figure with its head and old hat on one side which
stood blankly gazing at them from under the willow where she had noticed
him before.
“Yes, that same Old Joe _there_,” said Uncle Tim. “Between you and me,
my dear—though please not to look his way for a minute, as I shouldn't
like to hurt his feelings—Old Joe is a Scarecrow, an antiquated
hodmadod. And he has never been anything else; though, after all these
years he and I have been together, of course he's now a kind of twin
brother. He's Joseph, you see (in the coat), and I'm Benjamin; and as
you see, my dear, we are much alike.”
“How _can_ you say such things, Uncle Tim,” cried Letitia, pushing her
hand in under his arm. “You know quite well that's a kind of flattery,
too—of yourself, you bad thing!”
[Illustration: Black and white illustration of a man tipping his top hat
to a scarecrow in a grassy field.]
“No,” said Uncle Tim, “but of Old Joe. But never mind about that. The
first time I saw him, he gave me a real fright. I had come creeping
along on the other side of the hedge, keeping a wary eye open for
anybody that might be in the field; even though there was very little
likelihood of this, for, unless the field was being ploughed or harrowed
or sown or hoed, there never _was_ anybody. The field belonged to a
farmer called Jones. It was a good-sized, sloping, forty-acre field,
with a plantation of spruce down along all one side of it.
“That particular morning was in March; and the field was just
waiting—and on a morning rather like this, but much colder—for its crops
to come up. I was skirting along the hedge, as I say, carrying the snare
I had with me under my jacket, and hardly able to breathe for
excitement. For, thought I to myself as I peered through the hedge in
which the thornbuds were just breaking, that's the place for me. I could
just see across to the lower edge of it, where lay a ditch and another
hedge that had been allowed to sprout. It was truly a little paradise of
birds, my dear. There seemed to be hundreds busying and disporting and
delighting themselves there in the early sunshine.
“As bold as paint I turned the corner by the old gate, and at that
precise moment caught sight of what I supposed was either Farmer Jones
himself or one of his men staring at me across the field not thirty
yards away. I fairly jumped in my clodhoppers at sight of him, turned
hot, then cold, and waited, staring back. It seemed almost as if I could
see his very eyeballs moving. But not he! No common human he! It was Old
Joe. My Old Joe—_that_ Old Joe _there_!
“I have seen a good many scarecrows in my time, but never one at which
you must look longer before you can be perfectly sure he is not
real—alive. After all, what _is_ life, Letitia?”
“That's perfectly true, Uncle Tim,” whispered Letitia, edging a little
closer. “He _might_ be alive at this very moment.”
“You must remember, too,” went on Mr. Bolsover, “all this was in Old
Joe's better days. He was young then. He has been peacocked up in many a
new suit of old clothes since then, and more hats than I could count on
my fingers. But then he was in his heyday—in the very bloom of his
youth, the glass of fashion and the Knave of Trumps! But still, even as
he stands now under his old willow there, I wouldn't part with him not
for a bulging fat bag of guineas. Not for twenty bags. Chiefly for his
own sake; but in part, my dear Letitia—in part because one doesn't too
often actually see fairies in this world.”
[Illustration: Black and white illustration of a young person creeping
cautiously past a bush or hedge in a wooded area, looking towards a
scarecrow standing in a distant field among bare trees.]
Letitia burst out laughing. “Fairies, Uncle Tim!” she cried, dragging in
her amusement her skirts tight over her knees. “Why, you don't mean to
say, you poor thing, that Old Joe's a fairy?”
“No, I don't mean to say quite that,” said Mr. Bolsover. “Then, as now,
Old Joe was the scaringest of scaring scarecrows I have ever set eyes
on. But like the primrose in the poem he was nothing more. No, indeed,
it wasn't Old Joe was the fairy. But he was all but next best, for he
_was_ one of her rendez-vouses, as the old word goes. That morning he
was wearing immense loose great trousers and a greenish-black coat very
wide on the shoulders. Apart from the stick for his arms, another had
been pushed up one of his coat-sleeves for a cudgel. Another with a lump
at the top made his head, and on that was a high, hard, battered, square
hat like the hats old-fashioned farmers and churchwardens used to wear.
He was stooping forward, cudgel in hand. And the eyes from under the
penthouse brim of the shadowy battered hat seemed to be fixedly staring
straight towards the corner by the gate and at me.
“I hugged the wire snare closer and stared back. And whether it was due
to the hot air coming up from the flinty soil, or some cheating effect
of the light on the white field, I can't say, Letitia. But even while I
watched him, his head seemed to be ever so gently turning on his
shoulders, as if for all the world he were furtively endeavouring to get
a better view of me without my noticing it.
[Illustration: Black and white illustration of a boy running ahead while
an older man with a walking stick follows behind across a field.]
“I was still pretty well startled, I can tell you, my dear. For in those
days young trespassers on seedling fields might find themselves in for a
smart walloping, if not for something worse. The amusing thing is that
this Old Joe was alarming me a great deal more than he was alarming the
birds. They seemed to be perfectly used to him. A couple of tits were
positively playing hide-and-seek, with him for goal. And there were
rooks in their black coats pacing up and down and preening themselves in
the sunshine not more than a few paces away from where he stood.
“Well, at last, after confronting him like this for a minute or two
together—at last I became sure he was not an angry farmer, but merely
Old Joe. Yet, something in the look of him was different from any other
scarecrow I had seen up to that moment. Even from where I stood I could
spy a few wild flowers already blooming at his feet, and I felt, too,
that even if there were no real eyes in his head, somebody or something
_was_ actually looking at me from under that hat or from out of his
sleeve—from somewhere.
[Illustration: Black and white illustration of a boy sitting on a grassy
mound, looking across a landscape toward a distant scarecrow.]
“Already the birds were becoming accustomed to me being there, simply
because I stood so still. I squatted on my haunches and began to set the
trap, but the whole time I was thinking of that queer old creature
half-way up the field, and knew I was being watched. And whenever I
stooped, I took a little secret look at him either over my shoulder or
between my legs. And then I sat down on the grass of the bank under the
hedge and steadily fixed my eyes on him for I should think a full
half-hour.
“Nothing happened, however. The sun climbed a little higher into the
sky; the shadows cast by the trees shifted a little on the
wide-stretching field, and at last I turned back home again. At the
corner under an old thorn-tree I stooped down for yet another moment and
had yet another look. And at that very instant I was perfectly sure I
had caught a glimpse of something moving there. It was as if a face had
peered out and had as swiftly been withdrawn again into hiding.
[Illustration: Black and white illustration of a rabbit leaping across a
grassy field against the backdrop of a large round moon.]
“All the rest of that day I could think of nothing else but Old Joe,
assuring myself that my eyes had deceived me, or that perhaps a bird had
fluttered down, or that a little breeze had moved his sleeve—something
of that kind. And yet I knew inside me that this wasn't true.”
“It might,” said Letitia—“it might, you know, of course, have been not a
bird but a little animal you saw, mightn't it, Uncle Tim? I once saw a
hare skipping about in the middle of a field. Or mightn't a bird have
been building its nest in him? Robins, you know, will build their nests
even in an old boot. And look! There's a bird actually sitting on Old
Joe's shoulder now.”
“Well, you shall hear,” said Uncle Tim. “I am sure, my dear, if you had
seen Old Joe that morning you would have agreed that there was something
different about him from what he looks like now. I can't quite explain,
except that it was the difference between an empty house and one with
people living in it. The difference between a pond with fish in it and
one with none. The difference between you yourself when you are really
asleep and when you are only foxing and pretending to be. And sure
enough, I was right.
“I had my bedtime at Mrs. Lumb's, and always an apple and a glass of
milk. But she was not one of those Uncle Tims who want everything done
exactly at the right moment. She didn't wait till the clock struck eight
and them come peeping in to see if one was safe in bed.”
“Why, you know very well,” said Letitia, “you don't do that yourself.”
“Ha, ha! Never mind,” said Mr. Bolsover. “That evening, about seven
o'clock, I made my way down to the field again, just creeping from bush
to bush, tree to tree as cautiously as I could—so cautiously that I
actually nearly trod on a bunny's tail that happened to be enjoying a
dandelion on the other side of a bramble. And when I reached my
hawthorn, I sat down by its root very low to the ground, having made up
my mind I would watch until it really began to grow dark. It was towards
the end of April, you will remember, so the evenings were a good deal
shorter and duskier than they are now. And as it began to be twilight,
it seemed almost that Old Joe was steadily moving nearer. And then at
the very instant when I noticed the first star in the sky, I saw—well,
what do you think I saw?”
“Why, the fairy, of course,” said Letitia, and sighed.
[Illustration: Black and white illustration of a boy tumbling or falling
headfirst down a grassy hill as a rabbit runs nearby.]
“Full marks, my dear,” cried Mr. Bolsover. “The fairy. The odd thing is
that I can't really describe her. Maybe the light was not very good;
maybe my young eyes were strained with watching. But it was not only
that. For I seemed to be looking at her partly as if I was imagining
her, though I knew she was really there. She was leaning a little
forward, and reached, I should say, about up to what you might call Old
Joe's waist. Her face was rather long and narrow, and there was fair
hair hanging down from side to side, something between gold and grey,
rather like the colour you see on a phosphorescent fish in the dark,
only more golden. She stood unearthly still, looking out towards my
thorn. And the very sight of her filled me with a sensation I simply
cannot describe.
“It was as if I was in the middle of a dream in another world, and cold
prickles went down my back just as if unawares I had heard the sound of
enchanted music. There was not a breath stirring, everything about me
seemed suddenly to grow sharp and clear, even though the light was dim.
The flowers were different; the trees; the birds. Like that old story of
the Cap of Invisibility, it was as if I knew deep down what the flowers
were feeling, what it was like to be a tendril of ivy creeping up a
tree-stem, or to have feathers all over me, and to be looking with a
bright small eye at my own bird-world. I can't explain it, my dear, but
I am sure you will understand.”
Letitia gave two solemn nods. “_I think_ so, Uncle Tim—a little.”
“Now I believe,” Uncle Tim went on, “that the fairy knew I was there,
but that she could not delay what she wanted to do any longer. For
presently—after a minute or two—she drew back and began to hasten away
over the field towards the utmost corner furthest away from me, keeping
all the time so that Old Joe stood in between us and prevented me from
seeing her clearly, however much I dodged my head from side to side. Now
that, you will agree, was a difficult thing to do, and I don't know how
she did it. Only a fairy could—without once looking back.”
“And what was she like from behind?” said Letitia.
“She was like wood-smoke going up from a bonfire; she was like a puff of
wind over snow; or a silver cloud in the sky. She moved, I mean, my
dear, as if she were hovering on her way, and yet she never left the
ground. Far, far lighter than a gazelle, and so lovely to watch it
fairly took my breath away. And me only a clodhopping boy of ten.”
Mr. Bolsover took a large coloured silk handkerchief out of his pocket
and blew his nose. “I ought to say, at once,” he continued, pushing the
handkerchief back into his pocket, “that this is not really a story at
all.”
“Well, _I_ think, Uncle Tim, it's a lovely story,” said Letitia. “Please
go on.”
“Well, you see, Letitia, a story ought to be like a piece of embroidery:
it ought to have a beginning and a middle and an end. It ought to be
like a whiting with its tail in its mouth. But this one just goes off
into nothing.”
“I think I understand,” said Letitia once more. “But please go on with
the fairy, Uncle Tim.”
“Well,” continued Uncle Tim, “as soon as the fairy was out of sight my
one desire was to steal into the field and take a look at Old Joe at
close quarters. And yet I hadn't the courage. He was _her_ dwelling; her
hiding-place; her habitation—that was certain. Now that she was absent,
had hied away, the very look of him had changed. He was empty, vacant, a
husk.
“I fear, Letitia, you must be thinking I was a remarkably stupid boy.
Indeed I was. And, anyhow, I must confess that I simply could not make
up my mind to go any nearer. Old Joe was quite empty now, but after what
I had seen I felt a dreadful strangeness all about me. I felt I had been
a spy, and that every living thing around me knew it, and hated my
company. I didn't even go to my trap—and when I went again it had
disappeared.
“I talked about fairies next morning to my old friend Mrs. Lumb at
breakfast, just to see if she knew anything about them. She believed in
them right enough, but she had never seen one. I asked her what she
thought a fairy would be like if she ever did see one, and I can see her
now as she sat there in her chair, looking out of the window munching
her toast. 'Well, between you and me, my dear Tim,' she said—_crunch,
crunch_—'I never have cared much about those little flibbety-gibbety
creatures that are supposed to find a water-lily as big as we human
beings find a four-post bed. And I don't believe myself that they'd pay
much attention to _me_. I expect'—_crunch, crunch_—'there are not very
many of them left now—not in these parts. Mr. Lumb, as you know was an
entomologist. He'd have been able to tell you more about it. And he—had
once seen a ghost.'”
“A ghost, Uncle Tim?”
“That's what Mrs. Lumb said, my dear. And I asked her what _that_ was
like. 'Well, it was like,' she said (and I can remember her very words),
'it was like'—_crunch, crunch_—'seeing something with your eyes shut. It
made him feel very cold; the room grew darker, but he was not
frightened.'”
Letitia sidled yet a little closer to her uncle. “Between you and me,
Uncle Tim,” she said, “I think that ghost would have given _me_ the
shudders. But please let's go back to the fairy. Did you tell Mrs. Lumb
about that?”
“I never breathed so much as a syllable; though, if you were to ask me
why, I couldn't say. It's just like small boys, I suppose, and small
girls too, eh?”
“I think I'd have told _you_, Uncle Tim,” said Letitia. “And what
happened then?”
“Two whole days went by before I went near the field again, though I
doubt if an hour went by without my thinking about it. I forgot about my
bird-traps and everything else, and just loafed about wondering if
perhaps all that I had seen had not been a dream or a trick of fancy.
And then on the third afternoon, I was so ashamed of myself that I
determined to go down to the field and keep watch again.
[Illustration: Black and white illustration of winged fairies resting or
standing inside open water lilies floating on a dark pond among lily
pads.]
“This time I made my way to its upper corner by the plantation where I
had seen the fairy disappear. I crept down under some bushes, and had
taken with me a little pocket telescope that my father had given me.
Through this I could see everything that happened near Old Joe as
clearly as if I was at the bottom of the field. It was later in the
evening than before, and already the sun had set. But my legs and arms
were cramped and my left eye tired out with being kept shut long before
anything unusual occurred.
“And then suddenly I knew not only that the fairy was preparing to take
her walks abroad, but that she knew also I was there. She had stolen out
of her hiding-place, though I had seen no actual movement, and was
openly and steadily gazing across the faint green of the sprouting wheat
of the field in my direction. After a while she advanced a few paces
towards the corner of the field in which I was lying hid.
“Then in a breath she hesitated; turned and sped away, just as she had
done on that first evening, towards the very thorn-tree from which I had
first spied out on her. And somehow the conviction that she was doing
this in order to avoid coming near me awakened my curiosity more than
ever, and gave me courage. She was setting her wits against mine, and I
determined to try and meet her face to face. Even then, I confess, the
thought of what I should do if we did so meet was not very pleasant. I
lay there till it was almost dark, in the hope of seeing her come back,
and then made my way to the house and crept in at a side door a good two
hours after my bedtime.
“It was a warm still evening for the time of year, and while I was
undressing a full-moon began to rise. I could see it shining through my
bedroom blind, for I had not lit my candle. I drew up the blind and
looked out of the window, and the whole world looked as if it was
enchanted. There was not a sound in the air, and though here I was in
Mrs. Lumb's house, it seemed as if no human being had ever been there
before. And, what is more, Letitia, the same queer feeling came over me
as when I first caught sight of Old Joe, and I knew in my very bones, as
they say, that the fairy was concealing herself somewhere not very far
from the house, and was watching my window.”
“Oh, Uncle Tim,” said Letitia, “and did you go out?”
“No, my dear, I didn't dare. But not from fear. No; I stood steadily
watching until presently a bird began to sing, a bird which I can't
think was a nightingale. It was not too early in the year for
nightingales, mind you; and there was a hurst or thicket near the house
to which they always resorted. The song was as sweet and sorrowful, too,
as theirs; but it was more shrill, more human, than a nightingale's, and
there seemed to be more tune in it—more melody, you know. And a curious
sadness came over me at the sound of it, and even when I got to bed it
was hours before the echo of it had died away in my mind and I was able
to fall asleep.
“It was just my stupidity, perhaps, to persist in persecuting the fairy.
But then I had become used to persecuting birds, and perhaps I didn't
quite realize that my company in her field was as disquieting as hers
would be to us if she came to afternoon tea.”
“Oh, Uncle Tim, if only she would!”
“Well, Letitia,” said her uncle, “it's no good denying it: they don't.
We ourselves may pine for them; but not they, alas, for us. She didn't
want me there. Old Joe was company enough. And her own world's solitude.
But I met her face to face, none the less. It was the day before I had
to go home again, and two or three visits to the field had been quite in
vain. I could tell by now almost at first glance at Old Joe whether she
was there or not. Just as you could tell at one glance at me if _I_ was
here or not. Not just my body and bones, I mean, eyes and nose and mouth
and so on, but the spirit of me which is really and truly, I hope, your
Uncle Tim.”
“Yes,” said Letitia.
“This particular evening I was in just as morose and sulky a temper as a
small boy can be. My legs were aching because, I suppose, the ground was
damp on which I had been lying, and night after night had been so
crowded with dreams that I had had little real sleep. It seemed that the
fairy had deserted the field. It seemed that all my hope and longing and
watching had been in vain. I scowled at Old Joe as if _he_ were to
blame. Just vanity and fretfulness. Besides, Mrs. Lumb had found out
that I was creeping into the house while she was at dinner. And though
she never scolded me, she had a tart tongue, and could smile at you with
her handsome face and be uncommonly sarcastic at the same time.”
“There's a mistress at school, Miss Jennings, just like that,” cried
Letitia. “And then ... you saw her?”
“Yes, I saw her, face to face. I was on my way back through the copse at
the upper corner where two hedges met at the end of a little lane. And
as I came stumping along, I suddenly went cold all over, and I really
believe my cap got pushed up a little on top of my head, for certainly
my hair seemed to stand up beneath it. And yet I was not really
frightened. Startled, but not frightened. It was the loveliness of that
face. I can't even tell you, Letitia, what clothes she was wearing, but,
as I recall her, it was as if she were surrounded with a haze like that
of wood-smoke. She was the colour of a drift of bluebells in the
distance. That may or may not be, but I did see her face, for I was
staring steadily into her eyes. They were blue, like the blue of flames
in a wood-fire, and they were gazing at me out of a face all pale and
wan, the hair on either side hanging in one long strand down to the
narrow sloping shoulder.
“All else then in the world was completely forgotten. Just me, a small,
uncouth human animal, looking as if into another world into those set
unearthly eyes. There was no movement between us; not the least stir of
recognition or reproach or apprehension on her face. But as I looked—how
can I describe it, my dear?—there came a faint far-away change in her
eyes. It was as if, while you were looking out to sea some summer's
evening, a flight of distant sea-birds appeared in the blue and
vanished. We poor mortals can smile with our eyes alone, but not like
that. That was _her_ way of smiling at me. It told me in my heart of
hearts that she was not unfriendly to me, and yet that she was
entreating me to trespass no more near her lair. There was what she must
do in the world to consider, she was assuring me, though I hadn't then,
nor have now, the least notion of what it was. And those eyes were
telling me also as best she could—for she had no language she could
share with my dull wits—that though she wished me no harm, all she asked
me was not to keep a watch upon her, not to spy, not to intrude. And
then she was gone.
“It was easy to take hiding in the evening dusk of the woods, and the
copse and the hedges grew dense just there. She was gone, my dear, and I
have never seen her since—nor her like.... But you can't call _that_ a
story,” added Uncle Tim, vigorously polishing his spectacles with his
silk handkerchief and blinking at his small niece rather like an owl in
the morning sun.
Letitia remained silent. “I _do_ call it a story, Uncle Tim,” she said
at last. “And oh, how I wish.... But then what about Old Joe?”
“Ah, Old Joe, the rascal! Look at him there. You see, my dear, I never
forgot that evening. Years and years afterwards—I suppose I must have
been then in my early twenties—I stayed a night or two with my old
friend Mrs. Lumb again. She was very much older then, alas—and the first
walk I took was to my field.
“Would you believe it? There was Old Joe in his customary place, though
the barley-crop he was guarding that particular summer was now well
above his knees. And whether I myself was changed or had gone a little
blind in some respects; or whether, as I think, the fairy had long since
given up her hiding-place; or whether perhaps this had always been
merely her way of getting into and out of our world, I don't know. Old
Joe in any case looked, well, just as he looks now, absolutely
empty—forsaken, abandoned. He had brand-new old clothes on, of course,
and a rare old wide-brimmed hat, green as a robin's back. And what do
you think I did?”
“You didn't steal him, Uncle Tim?” whispered Letitia.
“No, Letitia; I purchased him; I bought him,” said Uncle Tim. “But 'ssh!
I went to the old farmer—old Farmer Jones—and asked him how many guineas
he'd take for his hodmadod as a curiosity. Just told him I knew Old Joe
when I was a boy, and had a sentimental affection for him.
[Illustration: Black and white illustration of a man pointing toward a
distant scarecrow while standing and talking with an older gentleman
holding a walking stick.]
“Farmer Jones was as fat as a porpoise, with a large mulberry red face
and eyes like bits of agate. He laughed at me. And what do you think he
charged?”
Letitia pondered rapidly, blinking her eyes. “I _suppose_ £5 would be a
good deal, wouldn't it, Uncle Tim? Even for Old Joe. Though, of course,”
she added in a slightly louder voice, in case the old creature should
hear, “it would be 'strordinarily cheap, too.”
“Guess again, my dear! Nothing like £5—nothing like even tuppence. 'Give
me a pipe of that plug tobacco of yours,' said the farmer, 'and he's
yours for ever.'
“So mine he was; and I am glad it wasn't money.”
[Illustration: “_I set her on my pacing steed...._”]
“And so am I,” said Letitia. “A pipe of tobacco was much better than
money. It doesn't hurt your feelings, Uncle Tim. And you never saw the
fairy again?”
“In a manner of speaking,” said Uncle Tim in a rather solemn voice, “I
don't think, Letitia, I have ever really seen anything else.
Nothing—even in the dreams that flock into my old head nowadays—nothing
ever resembles in loveliness that face, those deep-dark, unsmiling eyes.
_I set her on my pacing steed, and nothing else saw all day long...._
You know how it goes, my child; but I dare say in _your_ dreams....”
Letitia shook her head violently. “Oh no! Oh, how I wish,” she cried;
then fell silent. “You know, I _believe_, Uncle Tim,” she went on in a
low ruminative voice—“_I_ believe it was almost as if you must have
fallen in love with that fairy. Was it that, Uncle Tim?”
“Ah, my dear!” replied old Mr. Bolsover. “But if you don't think the
long grass under the willows over there is still too wet with the
night's dew, we might venture across and ask Old Joe.”