by W. W. Tarn
CHAPTER VII
FIONA IN THE FAIRY-WORLD
It was very, very dark. Fiona could not see her hand if she held itclose 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 thepoint of a pin. All round her in the dark were little soft sounds;they brushed against her feet, and passed before her face; little softsounds, apparently without bodies. She held the tiny point-featherfirmly in the fingers of her left hand, and touched it from time totime with her right, as she felt her way, one foot before theother--she could not walk--towards the point of light. And with herand about her went the small soft sounds; one would have said thatthey whispered and chuckled in the darkness.
How far and how long she went she could never guess; there was nothingby which to measure time or distance, and evidently she was not goingto feel hunger or fatigue.
At last she became conscious of a change. The white speck of light wasgrowing brighter and larger; and the small soft sounds were becomingtangible. One brushed past her face, and she felt it; she put out ahand, and there was a scuffing and chuckling, as if they were playingblind man's buff with her. Then the light began to take shape; it wasa circular pool lying on the floor and wall of the avenue of blacknessdown which she was passing; and it came from something on the otherside. And the little soft sounds crowded round her; they laughed, theywhispered, they clutched at her dress; they were trying to guide herin a certain direction. She tried to shake them off, and found that,though they could touch her, she could not touch them. And then shecame into the pool of light.
The light came down a sort of short passage between rocks, with awell-trodden floor; and at the end of it, not twenty yards from whereshe stood, she could see the fairy grotto. One grand white carbuncle,as big as an arc lamp, hung from the roof, filling the grotto withdazzling white light; and the radiance of the carbuncle was flung backin a million points of new splendor from the walls of the grotto,shifting and shimmering like the rainbow across a waterfall, ruby andorange, yellow and emerald, sapphire and violet, changing as each newfacet came into play; for the walls of the grotto were set thick withcut jewels of every hue and color. A glorious sight it looked; andFiona suddenly became aware that the soft things that clutched at herdress and the soft things that whispered in her ear, were all tryingto draw her toward the beautiful grotto. But she felt her feather, andit pointed straight on into the dark. So she moved forward; and withthe first step she saw the trap. The floor of the beautiful grottoyawned wide, showing the horrible abyss beneath it; and the darknesswas full of soft flutterings, and the chuckling of mocking laughter.But they touched her no more at the time; and suddenly the darknessfell away on each side like a wall, and she stepped out into daylight.
She was in the desert. The yellow burning sand stretched all roundher, a mass of glittering particles that made the eyes sore; waveafter wave, it went billowing away to the red burning hills that facedand flung back the burning sun. Mile after mile she stumbled along inthat aching heat; and then, as she topped a great hillock of sand, shesuddenly saw the fairy city. Very beautiful it looked, rose-pink on awooded island in a fair lake of water, whose blue mirror gave backevery trembling cupola and minaret; and toward it, down a broad trackmarked by tamarisk bushes, went a goodly company of merchants, withtinkling bells on their camels' necks and golden ornaments on theircamels' heads, the company of a chief who rode ahead on a white Arabsteed with his long jezail laid across his saddle-bow. Here could nodoubt be; and Fiona all but stepped on to the broad path in the trackof the caravan. But even as she turned she caught sight of the featherand checked herself just in time; and the beautiful city of miragemelted away, and there was no caravan there, but only sand marked bythe bones of men, and in place of the tamarisk bushes were grayvultures feasting in a row. She followed the feather straight onacross the burning desert; and on a sudden she walked out of the sandinto shade.
She was out in the forest. Huge trees rose like the pillars of acathedral nave, branching far above her head and shutting out thedaylight; and up their trunks ran starred creepers of every hue,fighting their way up to the sun. Down from the branches hung orchidsof all fantastic shapes, in long still streamers, and great moon mothsfluttered round them, taking their joy in the dim light. And thefarther she went the thicker grew the forest, and the more oppressivethe airless heat. Trailing plants ran across her feet and tried totrip her up; the great trunks closed together till there was barelyroom to force a way between; the thorns of the creepers tore at herflesh, and instead of the beautiful orchids there came on the treeshuge funguses red as blood. And the small soft voices began again;they had caught her up; the forest was full of the same little soundswhich she had heard before, whispering and chuckling and fingering herdress. And then, just as it seemed impossible to fight a way fartherthrough the dense jungle, she came to the open glade. Full of grassand flowers and sunshine it was, and across it ran a gurgling brook,crossed by a little plank bridge; a sweet breeze moved the grass, andbeyond the brook two little spotted deer were feeding; far in thedistance were tiny peaks of snow. The soft fingers were all tugging atFiona's dress, impelling her down the glade; but she had had amplewarning of those soft fingers, and she saw that the feather pointedstraight on through the tangled forest. And even as she moved she sawthat the little bridge was the back of a great water-python; and thefingers loosed their hold of her dress, and the air was full of softwhisperings and laughter. And she walked straight on into the tangledthicket before her; and the forest parted to right and left, and shewalked out.
She was in a fair country of green grass and temperate airs, where thepath lay true and straight before her through vineyards and groves oforanges. Here and there a cherry tree swung its crown of white blossomabove her head, or a cypress stood up tall and straight as a sentinelon duty. Purple flags bloomed under the rocks, and on a clump of brownorchises sat two little jewelled butterflies, burnished green as oldcopper; up the path of the sunlight came a swallowtail with itsstately glancing flight. Everything spoke to her here of fair peaceand security; and when she heard the air still rustling with littlesoft sounds and chuckles, and knew that they had followed her, shebegan to wonder how it was that, now that she knew their ways, theyshould think it worth while. And they were becoming most active. Thesoft 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 flatpath that passed through a fair orchard of lemon trees, where thesunlight threw chequers on to the grass beneath, starred with scarletand purple anemones; and the narrow stony track, terribly steep, whichtoiled away up the bare hillside in heat radiated from the rocks.Never had the soft sounds been so insistent; a myriad gentle handswere trying to steer her, even to push her by force, toward the lemontrees. She saw the folly of them so very clearly; and her foot wasactually raised to take the first step up the hill path, when she feltthe feather turn of itself in her hand, and she became ice from headto foot as she realized that she had all but destroyed herself bydespising her opponents. They had striven this time to force her intothe _true_ path, believing that she would certainly take the oppositeone.
She saw now the end of the fatal hill path, the sudden crumblingprecipice which flung men on to pointed rocks far below; and the airbehind her became full of woe, voiceless wailings and silent howls ofrage, and she saw what she had fought against; a troop of smallformless black things, like immature bats, with pale fingers, thatfled moaning down the path of the sunlight. She knew now that theywould not vex her again.
She passed on through the lemon orchard, and out on to a barehillside, rough with stones and dotted here and there with great oaktrees; plants of asphodel were thrusting their blossoms up among thecoarse 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 thetemple, a fair Doric temple of gray marble, standing in lonely be
autyamong the scattered oak trees. Its metopes were carved with thefigures of gods and heroes of an older day, and round it ran a friezeof warriors who fought with Amazon women. The singing was just over,it seemed; and the double choir of white-robed girls, who had beengiving strophe and antistrophe of some festival ode, had broken intogroups, these playing at ball, those reclining in the shade orstrolling about with their arms round each other's waists. In herchair in the cool portico sat the fair-faced matronly priestess, stillcrowned with red roses, and before her two little boys poured wineinto a crystal goblet. And as she saw Fiona she rose from her chairand greeted her by name, calling her happy that she had now comesafely 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 nowthat you must go, and there is ample time; slake your thirst at thiscrystal goblet, and lie awhile in the shade, while these maidens crownyou with flowers."
But Fiona had learnt her lesson, and she looked at her feather; andthe feather pointed straight along the hillside. So she passed onwithout a look or a word; and as she passed came a noise as of theearth opening; and the pillars of the temple bowed themselves, and themiddle of the building collapsed stone by stone, till only the outercolumns remained among a mass of fallen blocks, and triglyph andmetope and sculptured frieze lay in fragments about them. And amongthe ruins a red fox with two cubs sat and snarled, as she watched acompany of toads crawling in the dust; and of that fair scene all thathad not changed was the pallid asphodel, the asphodel whose home is inthose other meadows where walk the pallid dead.
And as Fiona passed on, the hillside itself dissolved in mist, andthere before her lay the fairy grove. And the guardian of the grove,with white beard sweeping the ground, and old trembling hands, cameout to meet her. And she showed him her feather, and from his belt hedrew out and held up its fellow; and she knew that the path of dangerwas over.
"No one has come through by the way you have come for more years thanmy old memory can follow," he said. "They always fail at the lemonorchard. 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 aperson of the greatest consequence."
And when Fiona said, "I am just an ordinary girl," he again bowed lowand said: "Young lady, I take leave to doubt it."
Then he gave Fiona her directions for finding the King, and warned herthat she must not loiter in the fairy grove, for the fairies werealready gathering for All Hallows E'en.
So Fiona walked swiftly through the grove, not seeing one half of itsbeauties, though she would have loved to have lingered among thetrees. For in the grove grew every tree and plant famous in legend orin history, of which not the tenth part can be told here. There wasthe Norse ash, whose roots bind together the framework of the earth;there the Irish hazel, of whose nuts could a man but taste he wouldknow all knowledge and all wisdom; there the African pomegranate, butfor whose sweetness the Corn-spirit would have disdained to staybeneath the earth, and the race of men would have perished. Therestood Deborah's terebinth and Diotima's plane, and the Bo-tree beneathwhose branches Gautama Buddha sought and found the path ofEnlightenment. There grew the paper-reeds of Egypt, the repositorythrough many centuries of a whole world's learning, the paper-reedsthat grow no longer in their old home, even as the prophet Isaiahforetold; and there the clove, for whose perfumed pistils greatnations had warred together and brave men died under torture. Therestood the English trees, the oak and the white acacia, which had builtthe three-deckers for the greatest sea captain the world has seen.There was that great traveller, the mulberry, which had left its homeon the Yangtse to follow the old Silk Route across Asia; which hadcrossed the stony Gobi, where wild camels run and the Djinn lighttheir lamps at night to decoy travellers; which had seen the Khotangirls wading knee-deep in the Khotan River, searching for the previouswhite jade which should make gods for China, as erstwhile for Ninevehand Troy; which had skirted the wandering lake of Lop-nor, and hadtarried awhile in old dead cities, now buried under the sands of thedreaded Taklamakan; which had seen the turquoise mines of Khorassan,and voyaged on the broad Oxus stream, till from Iran its way lay clearto the west. There grew the cedars of the Atlas, which had aided theirgreat mountain to support the sky, and had sailed south with Hanno tothe Guinea Gulf, to bring home those gorilla hides which lay on thealtar of Melcarth at Carthage; and there the most famous of all thetrees of the forest, the proud cedars of Lebanon, which had onceexulted with their voices over the fall of the king of Assyria, whichhad built for Solomon his temple and his house for the daughter ofPharaoh, and which had given to the princes of Tyre the ships inwhich, greatly daring, they had ranged the three seas, bringing homethe gold of India and the silver of Spain and the tin of Cornwall, thewealth of the east and the west, myrrh and frankincense and purpledye, ivory and apes and peacocks. And last of all was the twisted grayolive, beloved of gray-eyed Pallas Athene, the symbol of all thatraises man above the savage, the tree in whose train, as it moved outfrom its home in Asia, had grown up all the civilizations that ringedthe Mediterranean.
So Fiona passed through the grove and came out on a broad place ofgrass, and right before her stood the fairy ring. But not such a oneas the ring on Glenollisdal which she knew. This ring was of vastsize, and round it grew in a circle huge red toadstools splotched withwhite, the red toadstools from which the witches of Lapland had usedto brew philtres of love and death. But vast as it was, it could nothold all the creatures that swarmed round it. It was a gathering suchas Fiona had never dreamt of. On the outskirts stood an innumerablehost of little strange beings, of every sort and shape, elves andbrownies, gnomes and pixies, trolls and kobolds, goblins andleprechauns; and the babel of them as they whispered together was likethe noise of a flock of fieldfares. And within them and around thering itself stood the fairies.
All the lost peoples and nations and languages, it seemed, were therein miniature; everyone that Fiona had ever heard her father speak of,and many another of which even he knew nothing. There were fairies ofthe Old Stone peoples, brave-eyed, clad in pelts of the saber-tooth,bearing the blade-bones of bisons on which were carved pictures of themammoth and the reindeer. Fairies from Egypt, clad in fine white linenwith girdles of topaz and aquamarine, with fillets round their browsfrom which the golden uraeus lifted its snake's head, bearing blossomsof the blue lotus. Fairies from Babylon, glowing in coats of scarletor of many colors, their eyes deep with immemorial learning, bearingclay tablets on which were signs like the footprints of birds. Fairiesfrom Crete, light of foot in the dance, in flounced skirts adornedwith golden butterflies, crowned with yellow crocuses and bearingvases on which were painted the creatures of the sea, nautilus andflying fish and polyp. Fairies of the Iberians, black-haired andblack-eyed, clad in black cloaks, small and shy and dusty, bearingingots of tin. Fairies from Cappadocia, in peaked shoes, and pelissesof lion's skin trimmed with the fur of hares, moving to the clash ofcymbals, bearing grapes and ears of corn. Fairies from Mexico, withheavy cheek bones, resplendent in mantles woven of the plumage of thequetzal bird, carrying bricks of gold. Fairies from Ethiopia, black asthe black diamond, clad in leopard skins and plumed with the feathersof ostriches, carrying tusks of ivory. Fairies from the land of Sheba,well skilled in riddles, in cloaks of camel's hair buckled with claspsof onyx, bearing caskets of agate filled with spices. Buddhist fairiesof the Naga race, with the sevenfold cobra's hood springing from theirshoulders and shadowing them, languorous and heavy-eyed, carryingcrimson water lilies. Fairies from Cambodia, in stiff dresses of clothof gold, with gilded faces and scarlet eyebrows, bearing pagoda bellswhich tinkled. Fairies of the Golden Horde, bandy-legged, with pugnoses and slits of eyes, clad in dyed sheepskins and carrying thetails of horses. Fairies of the Picts, tattooed to the eyelids, theirplaids dyed with crotal and the root of the yellow iris, wearingbadges of mountain fer
n or bog-myrtle and bearing jars of heather ale.Fairies of Britain, in deerskin cloaks fastened with brooches ofenamel, with golden torques circling their throats, bearing sprays ofmistletoe. Fairies of the Tuatha-de, with all the youth of the worldin their eyes, clad in robes of saffron, crowned with rowans andbearing harps. Fairies from Greece, erect and lissom, beautiful as asculptor's dream, crowned with wild olive and bearing each the roll ofa book. Fairies of old England, in Lincoln green, with feathers of thegray goose in their caps, bearing bows of yew and branches of the may.Fairies from Baghdad, radiant as visions of the night-time, theirturbans and their crooked scimitars jewelled with rubies of Badakshan,bearing magic lamps. Fairies from Quinsay, dainty as porcelain, theirsilken robes embroidered with blossoms of the almond and the peachtree, 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 singleberyl, green as the sea; and on the throne sat the King of theFairies, with eyes bright as the dawn and deep as the sea caves, in acloak of Tyrian purple with clasps of amethyst. His crown and sceptrewere of white gold, white gold which has long since perished out ofthe upper world, and in the end of his sceptre was set a doublepentacle of clear crystal brought from the Island of Desire. And inthe beryl throne, if he looked at it through the crystal, were shownto him the reflections of all things that he might wish to see. If helooked directly, he saw all that had happened in the world in thepast; and if he reversed the crystal, he saw all that should happen inthe future; but if he held the pentacle edgewise, then he saw thepresent, which no man ever sees, and was the greatest magic of all.Round the throne stood his guards, black as Moors, in jackets andtrousers of emerald green clasped with orange zircons; half of thembore trumpets of silver, and half of them carried spears with heads ofgreen obsidian as sharp as steel. And on either side of the throne, ona stool, sat a strange creature, a little wizened elf with a largebook on his knee. One wore a white cap, and he bore an inkhorn and abundle of long quills; the other wore a black cap, and he bore apenknife.
Fiona edged herself as far forward as she could into the ring ofstrange beings, and found herself next an old Leprechaun with a facelike 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 saythere are two to be tried to-night. As you see, we have attemptedsomething out of the ordinary in the way of a welcome." And he wavedhis arm proudly round the enormous assembly. "Had far to come?" heasked.
Fiona told him how long it had taken her.
"That's nothing," he said. "There are people here to-night who, assoon 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 forthe 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 pompousaspect, 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, thosetwo with the books."
"Why are there two?" asked Fiona.
"One to remember and one to forget, of course, stupid," said theLeprechaun. "Whereever were you educated? Do you think kings want toremember _everything_?"
"It must be very easy forgetting," said Fiona.
"Hardest job in Fairyland," said the Leprechaun. "I suppose you knowlots of people with perfect memories; but you never knew one with aperfect forgetfulness, eh? Whitecap there only has to write his bookup; but poor Blackcap--he's the one that forgets--his book is writtenup to start with, and he has to get the pages clean again with hispenknife. He never gets them _quite_ clean. They say he has nightmareevery night over the things he can't forget altogether."
The King had been talking to one of the officers of his guard. He nowrose and held out his sceptre, and there was a great silence round theFairy ring.
"Before we dance to-night," he said, "we have, as you know, to try twoprisoners." He turned to the officer of the guard, and said, "Let thembe produced."
The officer at once produced the Urchin from nowhere in particular, asa conjurer produces half-crowns. The boy looked rather large among theLittle People, but otherwise he was much as Fiona had last seen him;his shirt and knickerbockers were covered with earthstains and hestill had the same length of useless rope coiled round his waist.
But Jeconiah? Was this the prosperous financier, this wretched apologyfor 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 likethe ghost of a parody; the officer had to set it on one of the greattoadstools, 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 thatwe thought it useless to attempt to take him through the doorway as hewas, so we left his body behind and only brought away the essentialpart of him. This is all that there really is of him, sire; the restwas wind. When we began to sift him we were afraid that he had noreal existence at all, and that there would be nothing to bringbefore 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 yetrepresented.
"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 withoutlooking, into the crowd. But thick as the crowd was, the guinea passedstraight through the forest of hands held out for it, and fell into atiny brown hand behind them. Fiona knew where she had seen that handbefore.
The owner of the hand at once stepped forward into the ring. He seemedto be the most singular being in Fairyland. Fiona's first impressionwas that he was just a large bald head, the color of parchment andwrinkled all over; and this impression remained, even when sherealized that he did possess a small body, with the usual allowance ofarms and legs. Out of his great head looked a pair of quiteincongruous eyes, bright as beads, and full of happy drollery. Behindhim 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 singularcreature with the head proceeded to climb to the top of the stack,where he sat down, cracking his fingers and laughing hugely at somejest of his own, evidently on the best of terms both with himself andhis audience. Then he caught Fiona's eye, and deliberately winked ather; but somehow it carried no offence, for the creature seemedabsolutely free from malice.
"Privilege honorable profession defend oppressed," he remarked; "dutyclients submit large number points," and he patted the books he saton. He had a habit of clipping his words as he spoke which was totallydestructive of the smaller parts of speech, and made his remarkssound 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 orabout the 20th day of September then last past in despite of the peaceof the realm and the safety of the lieges with a stone or some othermissile 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, ashore lark, and so forth. When he had finished, instead of evidencebeing 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 nointention."
But Fiona did not wait to hear what it had to say. Forcing her wayinto 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, youknow. We rarely receive visitors now. We shall try to make you welcomewhen 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 trynor punish. But his part of it was equally his own fault, and unlessthere is a good defence he will have to be punished."
The creature on the bookstack was nodding and signing to Fiona, butshe 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 whilethe young lady wishes. Officer!"
And immediately the fairy ring was strewn with a strange collection ofobjects, looking rather like the contents of an old curiosity shopthat had gone bankrupt. The officer held them up one by one for Fionato see.
"When we heard you were coming," said the King, "we collected a fewlittle things for your inspection. It is so long since we had any usefor any of them that many of them seem to have developed seriousdefects, which we regret; but they are the best we could find at shortnotice. 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 hasunfortunately become very deaf with age; but if you can make him hear,we believe he is still in fair working order. This," as a frayedgirdle was held up, "is the famous cestus of Aphrodite, which shelent to Helen of Troy. Its wearer used to become the most beautifuland unpopular creature in the world. It will still confer beauty,though hardly suited to the modern style; the unpopularity weguarantee. This," pointing to a huge book, "contains the truth of thatwhich in your world passes as knowledge. It would delight your father.He might publish selected chapters, and watch the critics cut them topieces. This," as a battered trumpet was exhibited, "is Fame. Yourpraises 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 agreat ruler, and would probably die in exile. And under this," and hepointed 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 thatyou have heard of. Do any of these please you? If not, we haveothers."
Fiona never thought about it for a moment, of course. She had not doneall that she had done to hesitate now. She did not look at the King'sface, and she took not the least notice of the creature with the head,who was dancing about in a perfect agony, trying to attract herattention.
"Please your Majesty," she said in breathless haste, "I came here tofind the Urchin and take him home with me. That is my wish."
She had hardly spoken the words when her instinct told her somethingwas wrong. A sort of chill seemed to run through the air, and thecolor seemed to go out of the fairy world. The creature with the headstopped dancing about and began to wring its little hands. She lookedup at the King's face, and read there, was it disappointment? was itregret? She hardly knew.
"A very natural and proper wish," said the King gravely. "We shall ofcourse accept it as such, and grant it with great pleasure. Theyounger 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 sherealized that it would have meant nothing to her to have includedJeconiah in her wish, and that for Jeconiah it would have meanteverything. And she realized also that, worthless and evil as he hadbeen in life, selfish, mean, a thief and a liar, he was still a humanbeing, and had a soul and possibilities of which the fairy world couldknow nothing. She felt a wave of humiliation pass over her; and sheresolved that, whatever he was, and whatever happened, she would notgo home without Jeconiah.
The charges against Jeconiah were then read: stealing a treasure, andbeing 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 offersubmit State cure. First count plead not guilty; intention stealtreasure admitted but did not succeed."
Fiona, in her new-found humility, had been listening to what thecreature 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 faras was consistent with their own rules; and that perhaps the creaturewith the head, for all his oddity, knew what he was doing. She askedthe 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 theKing's most intimate friend, and far the ablest lawyer in Fairyland."
"Defence to first count not admitted," the King was saying. "Yourclient cannot plead his own bungling of the theft in mitigation of hiswrongdoing. Only the intention counts here."
The Chancellor looked immensely relieved at the King's words, thoughit 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 defencethis 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 areconvicted of stealing a treasure, and it is admitted that you are aworthless character. On the first count, I sentence you to be handedover to the executioner to be extended until you become a proper size.If you survive, you will then undergo, as offered by your counsel, theState cure at the hands of the State hypnotizer." He turned to theChancellor. "Any further submission?"
Fiona had gone over to the stack of books, and bent down over thelittle creature with the head.
"I have made a most terrible mistake," she said, in a low voice. "Ihave spoilt everything. I see that you are kind; can you help us?"
"Should have come me first," said the creature, quite gently. "Triedattract attention. Never neglect anyone merely because odd and ugly.May have good heart. Sad mess now; but think see daylight. Anyinfluence 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 countshere but intention. Younger prisoner no intention hurt shore lark;therefore on Majesty's ruling same as if did not hurt it. Thereforenever was guilty. Human prisoner adjudged not guilty is just same asif came here own free will; so held Majesty's father"; and by someextraordinary trick he got the top book open and flopped down amongthe leaves, from which position he read out bits of an ancientjudgment. "Consequently younger prisoner both entitled and boundwish."
The King consulted Whitecap.
"It seems a sound chain of reasoning," he said. Then he turned to thePublic Prosecutor. "Have you anything to urge against it?"
"Only that, if he wishes wrong, we can't detain him, because of theyoung 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 crossedtheir spears before her.
"No interference allowed with anyone who is going to wish," said theofficer.
Then she tried to call to him, and found that she could not speak. Itwas like a nightmare. She looked helplessly at the Chancellor; henodded, and spelt on his fingers the word "think."
Then Fiona understoo
d what he had meant by asking her if she had anyinfluence over the Urchin. She knew that she had a good deal; and bitsof conversations with her father came back into her mind. She had madeone bad blunder, and she had to correct it as best she could; andwithout more ado she concentrated her whole mind on taking possessionof the mind of the Urchin. Could it be done at all? And if so could itbe 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 greatboxes, old sea chests made of Spanish chestnut, battered and stainedand clamped with bands of iron; and on each was the picture, halfobliterated by time and salt water, of the Madonna of the Holy Cross.The officer flung back the lids, and showed each chest full to thebrim of glittering golden doubloons.
"That is the treasure from the Venetian galleon which you wereseeking," said the King. "We removed it long ago into our safecustody, lest it should tempt men; but it would seem that it temptsthem none the less. Now wish."
The Urchin, his eyes bulging out of his head, stared at the shininggold. He murmured "gun," but fortunately so low that the King did nothear him.
Fiona kept her eyes fixed hard on the boy, and bent every effort ofmind and will to the one thought, that he must wish as she wished. Ifonly 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 abjectwretched creature that was Jeconiah, and of the back of the Urchin'shead. 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 turningpink, as they always did when he was in a difficulty. Then he began toshuffle his feet uneasily. Fiona felt that every atom of life andforce in her was being concentrated on that one act of will; she didnot think she could go through with it many seconds longer, or shewould collapse. And then the Urchin turned his head toward her; hisface was scarlet, and his eyes were wavering before the fixed gaze ofher own; he _must_ do as she wished. She flung everything into onesupreme effort--the last reserves which no one thinks they possesstill utter necessity teaches them the contrary; and then the Urchinspoke, 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 tolean 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 Chancellorstarted a war dance on his stack of books, and nearly fell off on hishead. The King rose from his throne, but he took no notice of theUrchin; he turned straight to Fiona and bowed to her.
"My compliments, young lady," he said; "the prettiest piece ofthought-transference it has ever been our privilege to see. Where didyou learn to do it?"
"I never learnt," stammered Fiona. "I made a great mistake, as yourMajesty saw, and something had to be done, and your friend suggestedthis way."
"You needn't mind having made a mistake," said the King. "If you don'tmake mistakes sometimes you'll never make anything else. And you havemade 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 submitnew point arising young lady's action. Client entitled wish. Did notwish 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 wouldsubmit 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 beno time to dance; and if we didn't dance no one knows what wouldhappen to the world above. Even I don't know that. So as we do notgenerally have three human beings here at once, and as substantialjustice has been done, I propose now to exercise the royal prerogativeof 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 ownworthless character. In order, however, to do the best for you thatcan be done, before you leave us the State hypnotizer will take you inhand and instil into you a few decent feelings. He won't hurt you, andyou won't remember. The effect, I fear, will not be permanent, but itwill ease our conscience. And as a sign to the world above that wehave treated you liberally, you will find that you will be unable toattend 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 whichwe 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 haveasked nothing for yourself. And now what are we to do for you?"
"I think I have everything I want, now, thank your Majesty," saidFiona.
"Did we not hear talk of a treasure?" said the King.
"Yes," said Fiona; "but--I was not thinking about a treasure, yourMajesty."
"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 sometimeby returning to our kingdom, we will see what can be done in memory ofyour visit. Any time you like. And by the front door, please. You willrun no risks that way."
"And now," said the King, stretching out his sceptre over the greatthrong, "we will dance." He turned to Fiona and the Urchin. "It willbe a little while before Mr. Johnson is ready to accompany you home,"he said. "Perhaps you will honor us meanwhile by attending the dancealso."
So the fairies danced before the King; and the fairy ring whirled andblazed with the color of them, till it was gayer than a gorse-bank inblossom, and brighter than a swarm of dragon-flies on a Junegrass-field, and more vivid than a fall of shooting stars; and themusic that they made was wilder than the wind in the strings of aharp, and sweeter than the blackbird's song, and dearer than all theburns on the moor murmuring in unison. And the two children sat at theKing'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 toldthem such stories as they had never heard before, till betweenlaughter and tears they nearly fell off the steps of the throne, andthe Chancellor laughed and cried with them for sheer joy in his ownstory-telling; and if there were three happier people in the worldthat night I do not know where they were. And the night itself passedaway as a dream that men dream, and its hours seemed to them but as afew minutes--and then across the music and the dance cut the shrillharsh scream of a peacock as he greeted the day. The children saw theKing 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 rosefrom the ground and wreathed its arms about them; and the beryl thronedissolved in mist, and the figure of the King above them, pointing,grew dim and huge, and spread and grew, a purple shadow that hung overthem, . . . and they were standing alone in the fairy ring onGlenollisdal, under the purple sky, with the white mist wreathingitself about their feet, and the pale November dawn coming slowly upout of the sea.
Did the Urchin fling himself on the grass at Fiona's feet and thankher in broken accents for all she had done for him? I regret to statethat the first thing which the Urchin did was to feel in his pocketand 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'mgoing to get that gun."
Then something seemed to prick him; he began to
look uncomfortable andshuffle his feet, while his ears turned pink; and at last he managedto 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 thatJeconiah was awake. The nurse met him in the passage, wide-eyed andrather frightened.
"He's so strange," she said.
"Tut, tut," said the doctor; "told you he might wake like that. Kindof change in personality? Just so. Often happens. Seldom permanentthough. What's he done?"
"Well, doctor, of course we all know Mr. Johnson's reputation," saidthe nurse. "He's thanked me three times, and hoped I didn't tiremyself; and he had all the servants up and said he'd see their wageswere raised, and the cook gave notice on the spot because she said shedidn't like practical jokes; and he says he wants to go out and gatherbuttercups and daisies, and play with the little frogs; and he's sentfor some old gun that he says he's got to buy for his nephew; and hehasn't opened any of the telegrams that have been waiting for him; hesays he mayn't attend to business till he has learnt a fairy tale, andhe's had the library ransacked, and he's tearing his hair becausethere's no such thing in it."
"Oh, well," said the doctor, "we must just have patience, nurse. Iexpected something of the sort. Just humor him; if you can't find afairy tale, try him with a history book; he'll never know thedifference; and I'll send him up a nice soothing mixture. Veryinteresting case; ve-ry interesting."
And the doctor, calling up his best professional smile, bustled intoJeconiah's room.
* * * * *
It was the same afternoon, a still afternoon of Indian summer, thatthe old hawker, accompanied again by the black terrier, was going downthe 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 withinterest a group on the shore. It consisted of Jeconiah and theUrchin, and they sat on the little patch of sand at the mouth of theburn. The Urchin had across his knees the rusty old gun bought for himby Jeconiah, who had nevertheless exacted the doubloon from him inexchange. He fingered the gun lovingly, while he gazed withundisguised impatience at the proceedings of his uncle. Jeconiah'scoat lay on the grounds beside a sheaf of unopened telegrams, and hewas putting the finishing touches to a noble castle of sand; itsdrawbridge was supported by his double watch chain, and its turretsbore a suspicious resemblance in contour to the inside of his hat. Hepatted 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'vegot to, you've got to, you know; and you won't keep me much once I getsome cartridges."
Jeconiah began to look alarmed.
"But I haven't found one yet," he said, and glanced anxiously at thepile 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 abeautiful place called Capel Court, and he used to hunt the wild bullsand the stags and the poor little guinea pigs that abounded in thatsalubrious locality. And there were two young ladies there, calledCora 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 hewould 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. Thenhe started afresh.
"Once upon a time there was a great dragon with seven heads, and heate seven princesses every day for dinner. . . ."
"That's better," said the boy, encouragingly, as he settled himself tolisten.
The old hawker resumed his walk.
"They haven't made a very good job of him, after all," he remarkedaloud, apparently to the terrier. "But I expect that sort isincurable."
Was it a flicker of sunlight? Or did the black terrier really wink?
