MELON SEEDS.
_Rosalind._--Well, this is the forest of Arden.
_Touchstone._--Ay, now am I in Arden: the more fool I;
when I was at home I was in a better place; but travellers
must be content.
_As you Like it._
"Where is it now?" said the stone-woman; and when Jack heard that he
ran down to the river, and looked right and looked left. At last he
saw his boat,--a mere speck in the distance, it had floated so far.
He called it, but it was far beyond the reach of his voice; and Mopsa,
who had followed him, said,--
"It does not signify, Jack, for I feel that no place is the right
place for me but that country beyond the purple mountains, and I
shall never be happy unless we go there."
So they walked back towards the stone-people hand in hand, and the
apple-woman presently joined them. She was crying gently, for she knew
that she must soon pass over the little stream, and part with these
whom she called her dear children. Jack had often spoken to her that
day about going home to her own country, but she said it was too late
to think of that now, and she must end her days in the land of Faery.
The kind stone-people asked them to come and sit by their little fire;
and in the dusk the woman whose baby had slept in a stone cradle took
it up and began to sing to it. She seemed astonished when she heard
that the apple-woman had power to go home if she could make up her
mind to do it; and as she sang she looked at her with wonder and
pity.
Little babe, while burns the west,
Warm thee, warm thee in my breast;
While the moon doth shine her best,
And the dews distil not.
All the land so sad, so fair--
Sweet its toils are, blest its care.
Child, we may not enter there!
Some there are that will not.
Fain would I thy margins know,
Land of work, and land of snow;
Land of life, whose rivers flow
On, and on, and stay not.
Fain would I thy small limbs fold,
While the weary hours are told,
Little babe in cradle cold.
Some there are that may not.
"You are not exactly fairies, I suppose?" said Jack. "If you were, you
could go to our country when you pleased."
"No," said the woman; "we are not exactly fairies; but we shall be
more like them when our punishment is over."
"I am sorry you are punished," answered Jack, "for you seem very nice,
kind people."
"We were not always kind," answered the woman; "and perhaps we are
only kind now because we have no time, and no chance of being
otherwise. I'm sure I don't know about that. We were powerful once,
and we did a cruel deed. I must not tell you what it was. We were told
that our hearts were all as cold as stones,--and I suppose they
were,--and we were doomed to be stones all our lives, excepting for
the two hours of twilight. There was no one to sow the crops, or water
the grass, so it all failed, and the trees died, and our houses fell,
and our possessions were stolen from us."
"It is a very sad thing," observed the apple-woman; and then she said
that she must go, for she had a long way to walk before she should
reach the little brook that led to the country of her own queen; so
she kissed the two children, Jack and Mopsa, and they begged her again
to think better of it, and return to her own land. But she said No;
she had no heart for work now, and could not bear either cold or
poverty.
Then the woman who was hugging her little baby, and keeping it cosy
and warm, began to tell Jack and Mopsa that it was time they should
begin to run away to the country over the purple mountains, or else
the Queen would overtake them and be very angry with them; so, with
many promises that they would mind her directions, they set off hand
in hand to run; but before they left her they could see plainly that
she was beginning to turn again into stone. However, she had given
them a slice of melon with the seeds in it. It had been growing on the
edge of the river, and was stone in the day-time, like everything
else. "When you are tired," she said, "eat the seeds, and they will
enable you to go running on. You can put the slice into this little
red pot, which has string handles to it, and you can hang it on your
arm. While you have it with you it will not turn to stone, but if you
lay it down it will, and then it will be useless."
So, as I said before, Jack and Mopsa set off hand in hand to run; and
as they ran all the things and people gradually and softly settled
themselves to turn into stone again. Their cloaks and gowns left off
fluttering, and hung stiffly; and then they left off their
occupations, and sat down, or laid down themselves; and the sheep and
cattle turned stiff and stone-like too, so that in a very little while
all that country was nothing but red stones and red sand, just as it
had been in the morning.
Presently the full moon, which had been hiding behind a cloud, came
out, and they saw their shadows, which fell straight before them; so
they ran on hand in hand very merrily till the half-moon came up, and
the shadows she made them cast fell sideways. This was rather awkward,
because as long as only the full moon gave them shadows, they had but
to follow them, in order to go straight towards the purple mountains.
Now they were not always sure which were her shadows: and presently a
crescent moon came, and still further confused them; also the sand
began to have tufts of grass in it; and then, when they had gone a
little farther, there were beautiful patches of anemones, and
hyacinths, and jonquils, and crown imperials, and they stopped to
gather them; and they got among some trees, and then, as they had
nothing to guide them but the shadows, and these went all sorts of
ways, they lost a great deal of time, and the trees became of taller
growth; but they still ran on and on till they got into a thick forest
where it was quite dark, and here Mopsa began to cry, for she was
tired.
"If I could only begin to be a queen," she said to Jack, "I could go
wherever I pleased. I am not a fairy, and yet I am not a proper queen.
Oh, what shall I do? I cannot go any farther."
So Jack gave her some of the seeds of the melon, though it was so dark
that he could scarcely find the way to her mouth, and then he took
some himself, and they both felt that they were rested, and Jack
comforted Mopsa.
"If you are not a queen yet," he said, "you will be by to-morrow
morning; for when our shadows danced on before us yours was so very
nearly the same height as mine, that I could hardly see any
difference."
When they reached the end of that great forest, and found themselves
out in all sorts of moonlight, the first thing they did was to
laugh,--the shadows looked so odd, sticking out in every direction;
and the next thing they did was to stand back to back, and put their
heels together, and touch their heads together, to see by the shadow
which was the taller; and Jack was still the least bit in the world
taller than Mopsa; so they knew she was not a queen yet, and they ate
some more melon-seeds, and began to climb up the mountain.
They climbed till the trees of the forest looked no bigger than
gooseberry bushes, and then they climbed till the whole forest looked
only like a patch of moss; and then, when they got a little higher,
they saw the wonderful river, a long way off, and the snow glittering
on the peaks overhead; and while they were looking and wondering how
they should find a pass, the moons all went down, one after the
other, and, if Mopsa had not found some glowworms, they would have
been quite in the dark again. However, she took a dozen of them, and
put them round Jack's ankles, so that when he walked he could see
where he was going; and he found a little sheep-path, and she followed
him.
Now they had noticed during the night how many shooting-stars kept
darting about from time to time, and at last one shot close by them,
and fell in the soft moss on before. There it lay shining; and Jack,
though he began to feel very tired again, made haste to it, for he
wanted to see what it was like.
It was not what you would have supposed. It was soft and round, and
about the color of a ripe apricot; it was covered with fur, and in
fact it was evidently alive, and had curled itself up into a round
ball.
"The dear little thing!" said Jack, as he held it in his hand, and
showed it to Mopsa; "how its heart beats. Is it frightened?"
"Who are you?" said Mopsa to the thing. "What is your name?"
The little creature made a sound that seemed like "Wisp."
"Uncurl yourself, Wisp," said Mopsa. "Jack and I want to look at
you."
So Wisp unfolded himself, and showed two little black eyes, and spread
out two long filmy wings. He was like a most beautiful bat, and the
light he shed out illuminated their faces.
"It is only one of the air fairies," said Mopsa. "Pretty creature! It
never did any harm, and would like to do us good if it knew how, for
it knows that I shall be a queen very soon. Wisp, if you like, you may
go and tell your friends and relations that we want to cross over the
mountains, and if they can they may help us."
Upon this Wisp spread out his wings, and shot off again; and Jack's
feet were so tired that he sat down, and pulled off one of his shoes,
for he thought there was a stone in it. So he set the little red jar
beside him, and quite forgot what the stone-woman had said, but went
on shaking his shoe, and buckling it, and admiring the glowworms round
his ankle, till Mopsa said, "Darling Jack, I am so dreadfully tired!
Give me some more melon-seeds." Then he lifted up the jar, and thought
it felt very heavy; and when he put in his hand, jar, and melon, and
seeds were all turned to stone together.
They were both very sorry, and they sat still for a minute or two, for
they were much too tired to stir; and then shooting-stars began to
appear in all directions. The fairy bat had told his friends and
relations, and they were coming. One fell at Mopsa's feet, another in
her lap; more, more, all about, behind, before, and over them. And
they spread out long filmy wings, some of them a yard long, till Jack
and Mopsa seemed to be enclosed in a perfect network of the rays of
shooting-stars, and they were both a good deal frightened. Fifty or
sixty shooting-stars, with black eyes that could stare, were enough,
they thought, to frighten anybody.
"If we had anything to sit upon," said Mopsa, "they could carry us
over the pass." She had no sooner spoken than the largest of the bats
bit off one of his own long wings, and laid it at Mopsa's feet. It did
not seem to matter much to him that he had parted with it, for he shot
out another wing directly, just as a comet shoots out a ray of light
sometimes, when it approaches the sun.
Mopsa thanked the shooting fairy, and, taking the wing, began to
stretch it, till it was large enough for her and Jack to sit upon.
Then all the shooting fairies came round it, took its edges in their
mouths, and began to fly away with it over the mountains. They went
slowly, for Jack and Mopsa were heavy, and they flew very low, resting
now and then; but in the course of time they carried the wing over the
pass, and halfway down the other side. Then the sun came up; and the
moment he appeared all their lovely apricot-colored light was gone,
and they only looked like common bats, such as you can see every
evening.
They set down Jack and Mopsa, folded up their long wings, and hung
down their heads.
Mopsa thanked them, and said they had been useful; but still they
looked ashamed, and crept into little corners and crevices of the
rock, to hide.