CHAPTER I. IN WHICH THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO QUEEN NYMPHALIN.
IN one of those green woods which belong so peculiarly to our island(for the Continent has its forests, but England its woods) there lived,a short time ago, a charming little fairy called Nymphalin. I believeshe is descended from a younger branch of the house of Mab; but perhapsthat may only be a genealogical fable, for your fairies are verysusceptible to the pride of ancestry, and it is impossible to deny thatthey fall somewhat reluctantly into the liberal opinions so much invogue at the present day.
However that may be, it is quite certain that all the courtiers inNymphalin's domain (for she was a queen fairy) made a point of assertingher right to this illustrious descent; and accordingly she quartered theMab arms with her own,--three acorns vert, with a grasshopper rampant.It was as merry a little court as could possibly be conceived, and ona fine midsummer night it would have been worth while attending thequeen's balls; that is to say, if you could have got a ticket, a favournot obtained without great interest.
But, unhappily, until both men and fairies adopt Mr. Owen's proposition,and live in parallelograms, they will always be the victims of _ennui_.And Nymphalin, who had been disappointed in love, and was stillunmarried, had for the last five or six months been exceedingly tiredeven of giving balls. She yawned very frequently, and consequentlyyawning became a fashion.
"But why don't we have some new dances, my Pipalee?" said Nymphalin toher favourite maid of honour; "these waltzes are very old-fashioned."
"Very old-fashioned," said Pipalee.
The queen gaped, and Pipalee did the same.
It was a gala night; the court was held in a lone and beautiful hollow,with the wild brake closing round it on every side, so that no humanstep could easily gain the spot. Wherever the shadows fell upon thebrake a glow-worm made a point of exhibiting itself, and the brightAugust moon sailed slowly above, pleased to look down upon so charminga scene of merriment; for they wrong the moon who assert that she hasan objection to mirth,--with the mirth of fairies she has all possiblesympathy. Here and there in the thicket the scarce honeysuckles--inAugust honeysuckles are somewhat out of season--hung their richfestoons, and at that moment they were crowded with the elderly fairies,who had given up dancing and taken to scandal. Besides the honeysuckleyou might see the hawkweed and the white convolvulus, varying the softverdure of the thicket; and mushrooms in abundance had sprung up inthe circle, glittering in the silver moonlight, and acceptable beyondmeasure to the dancers: every one knows how agreeable a thing tents arein a _fete champetre_! I was mistaken in saying that the brake closedthe circle entirely round; for there was one gap, scarcely apparent tomortals, through which a fairy at least might catch a view of abrook that was close at hand, rippling in the stars, and checkered atintervals by the rich weeds floating on the surface, interspersedwith the delicate arrowhead and the silver water-lily. Then the treesthemselves, in their prodigal variety of hues,--the blue, the purple,the yellowing tint, the tender and silvery verdure, and the deep massof shade frowning into black; the willow, the elm, the ash, the fir, andthe lime, "and, best of all, Old England's haunted oak;" these hues werebroken again into a thousand minor and subtler shades as the twinklingstars pierced the foliage, or the moon slept with a richer light uponsome favoured glade.
It was a gala night; the elderly fairies, as I said before, werechatting among the honeysuckles; the young were flirting, and dancing,and making love; the middle-aged talked politics under the mushrooms;and the queen herself and half-a-dozen of her favourites were yawningtheir pleasure from a little mound covered with the thickest moss.
"It has been very dull, madam, ever since Prince Fayzenheim left us,"said the fairy Nip.
The queen sighed.
"How handsome the prince is!" said Pipalee.
The queen blushed.
"He wore the prettiest dress in the world; and what a mustache!" criedPipalee, fanning herself with her left wing.
"He was a coxcomb," said the lord treasurer, sourly. The lord treasurerwas the honestest and most disagreeable fairy at court; he was anadmirable husband, brother, son, cousin, uncle, and godfather,--it wasthese virtues that had made him a lord treasurer. Unfortunately theyhad not made him a sensible fairy. He was like Charles the Second inone respect, for he never did a wise thing; but he was not like him inanother, for he very often said a foolish one.
The queen frowned.
"A young prince is not the worse for that," retorted Pipalee. "Heigho!does your Majesty think his Highness likely to return?"
"Don't tease me," said Nymphalin, pettishly.
The lord treasurer, by way of giving the conversation an agreeableturn, reminded her Majesty that there was a prodigious accumulationof business to see to, especially that difficult affair about theemmet-wasp loan. Her Majesty rose; and leaning on Pipalee's arm, walkeddown to the supper tent.
"Pray," said the fairy Trip to the fairy Nip, "what is all this talkabout Prince Fayzenheim? Excuse my ignorance; I am only just out, youknow."
"Why," answered Nip, a young courtier, not a marrying fairy, but veryseductive, "the story runs thus: Last summer a foreigner visited us,calling himself Prince Fayzenheim: one of your German fairies, I fancy;no great things, but an excellent waltzer. He wore long spurs, made outof the stings of the horse-flies in the Black Forest; his cap sat on oneside, and his mustachios curled like the lip of the dragon-flower. Hewas on his travels, and amused himself by making love to the queen. Youcan't fancy, dear Trip, how fond she was of hearing him tell storiesabout the strange creatures of Germany,--about wild huntsmen,water-sprites, and a pack of such stuff," added Nip, contemptuously, forNip was a freethinker.
"In short?" said Trip.
"In short, she loved," cried Nip, with a theatrical air.
"And the prince?"
"Packed up his clothes, and sent on his travelling-carriage, in orderthat he might go at his ease on the top of a stage-pigeon; in short--asyou say--in short, he deserted the queen, and ever since she has set thefashion of yawning."
"It was very naughty in him," said the gentle Trip.
"Ah, my dear creature," cried Nip, "if it had been you to whom he hadpaid his addresses!"
Trip simpered, and the old fairies from their seats in the honeysucklesobserved she was "sadly conducted;" but the Trips had never been toorespectable.
Meanwhile the queen, leaning on Pipalee, said, after a short pause, "Doyou know I have formed a plan!"
"How delightful!" cried Pipalee. "Another gala!"
"Pooh, surely even you must be tired with such levities: the spirit ofthe age is no longer frivolous; and I dare say as the march of gravityproceeds, we shall get rid of galas altogether." The queen said thiswith an air of inconceivable wisdom, for the "Society for the Diffusionof General Stupefaction" had been recently established among thefairies, and its tracts had driven all the light reading out of themarket. "The Penny Proser" had contributed greatly to the increase ofknowledge and yawning, so visibly progressive among the courtiers.
"No," continued Nymphalin; "I have thought of something better thangalas. Let us travel!"
Pipalee clasped her hands in ecstasy.
"Where shall we travel?"
"Let us go up the Rhine," said the queen, turning away her head. "Weshall be amazingly welcomed; there are fairies without number all theway by its banks, and various distant connections of ours whose natureand properties will afford interest and instruction to a philosophicalmind."
"Number Nip, for instance," cried the gay Pipalee.
"The Red Man!" said the graver Nymphalin.
"Oh, my queen, what an excellent scheme!" and Pipalee was so livelyduring the rest of the night that the old fairies in the honeysuckleinsinuated that the lady of honour had drunk a buttercup too much of theMaydew.
The Pilgrims of the Rhine Page 17
