by Lucas Malet
CHAPTER VI.
WHICH ATTEMPTS TO SHOW WHY THE SKIES FALL.
Do you know what the snow is and where it comes from?
The Dictionary says it is 'a frozen moisture, which falls from theatmosphere in white flakes.' But that description doesn't seem to makeus know very much more about it somehow.
Some people say the snow is caused by the angels shaking the featherbeds up in Heaven; but that, both scientifically and spiritually too,appears to me an improbable solution. Other people, again, say it isall the Time Spirit plucking his geese. And who are the Time Spirit'sgeese?--Well, if you really want to know, they are all the littlepoets, and little painters, and little musicians, and little playersand all the little inventors of little theories, and little writers oflittle books, who spend their time in diligently trying to persuadethemselves and others that they are great writers of great books, anddiscoverers of a universal panacea for the healing of the nations;and that, in short, they are not any of them geese at all, but asfine swans as you can see on any river or pond in the three kingdoms.And they come cackling, and hissing, and sidling, and waddling upto the Time Spirit every year--specially in the spring and aboutChristmastide--in great flocks, and all cry out together:--
'Is it possible to deny, O Time Spirit, that we are every one of usswans?'
And then, I am sorry to say--for though it is perfectly right andjust, it isn't the least bit agreeable, as some of us know to ourcost--the Time Spirit turns up his sleeves and sets to work with awill, and catches them, though they mostly make a terrible noise andfluster, and plucks them one by one--big feathers first and thensmall--and sends them away looking sadly bare and foolish, and therebyleaving the world in no doubt whatsoever that they are only geese afterall. And some wise persons, who have a perfect right to speak on thematter, think that why we have had so much more snow than usual thelast few winters, is because--what with higher education and women'scolleges, and one thing and another--the flocks of geese grow largerand larger, so that the poor Time Spirit is getting worn to fiddlestrings with everlasting plucking, and it seems not unlikely we maysoon have snowstorms nine months in the year.
But what if a real swan does come among the geese, once in a way?--Ah!that is quite another matter. For the Time Spirit discovers it in avery few minutes, and jumps up and pulls down his sleeves, and slipsoff his hat--he has to wear one, you know, to keep the goose down fromlodging in his hair--and draws his heels together with a snap and makesa bow from the waist, like an accomplished courtier, and says:--
'All hail to you, my master or my mistress!'--as the case may be.--'Foryou the stars shine by night, and the sun rises at morning. All theworld is yours, or shall soon be, if you have patience, and faith, anddaring, and are true to the voice of the daemon within.'
But there is yet another explanation of the snowfall besides this,and it is, perhaps, after all, the most reasonable one to believe in.For when the nights are long and the days are short, and the sunlightis feeble as a sick man's smile, the North Wind wakes from his summersleep and calls to his brother the East Wind, and they go forth overthe earth driving the heavy-laden snow-clouds before them, and the palesnow-fairies who do their will. Down from the ice floes, and the dim,silent, polar wastes, over land and sea, with a shout like the roar ofa battle, and a laugh like the crackle of thunder, while the hillsgrow white with fear under his tread, and the forests bow themselvesand shriek in his fierce breath as the planks and rigging of a shipshriek in a storm at sea, the North Wind comes. He was born hundreds ofthousands of years ago, in the Ice Age, when the glaciers crawled outfrom the heart of the mountains, mile-long, grey-green monsters, overwhat are now fertile meadows and sunny plains--before man or beast, sovigorous was the keen-toothed frost, roamed over the surface of theearth. His eyes are blue and clear; and they dance as you may see thesky dance on a sharp winter's night; and his white beard hangs low onhis chest, which is broad and firm as a hill-side; and he is in thefull vigour of a lusty manhood still, and it promises to be a very longwhile yet before his eye grows dim or his limbs grow weak with age.Some think, indeed, that as he saw man first born into the world, hemay live to see him die off it again--to see this great ball, whichso long has been our human dwelling-place and home, rolling silentout into immeasurable space, a dead planet, locked in the arms ofeverlasting frost.
But be that as it may, on the fair Sunday morning, when our friendlittle Peter, his mother, and brothers, and Eliza, were going throughthe pine forest to the church at Nullepart, the North Wind was upand walking southward, southward over Europe, with the great, greysnow-clouds hurrying on before, for he had hard work to do. And, as theday wore on, he gathered the clouds from east and west, and packed themtogether in a vast, dusky mass over the town, and the forest and thelimestone crags and gorges, and the wide, flat meadows where the cowspasture in summer, and over little Peter's home. And then he bade thesnow-fairies bestir themselves, and prick the clouds as full of holesas the top of a flour-dredge, and wrap all the country in a robe ofspotless white.
Now, it happened that among the snow-fairies there was one who wasvery young and tender-hearted. Indeed she was not really a snow-fairyat all, but a child of the soft South Wind, who, when all her sistersflew away--as the swallows fly in autumn--to the tropics, oversleptherself and got left behind by mistake. And she had joined thesnowfairies because she was dull and lonely, and could find no otherplayfellows, and nothing to do. But, for all that, she did not careto help them in their work, for she had not been brought up to it,you see, and it seemed to her a sad, chilly business. So instead oflaughing and playing and flitting about, and easing the great lumberingclouds of their burden, she sat down by herself in a hollow of one ofthem and cried, and cried. For she could not help thinking of all thesheep on lonely hillsides; and of the small birds seeking food andfinding none in the snow-buried fields, and lanes, and hedges; and oflittle neglected children, of whom, alas! there are always so many, inbare cottage or dreary, city cellar, with no warm clothes, or food,or firing; and of wayfarers on barren heaths and bleak moors; and ofthe beggars, and vagabonds, and outcasts, the sorry throng of refusehumanity, that tramps the high roads of every country of the civilisedworld, with neither home, nor hope, nor money, and as she thought oftheir frost-nipped hands, and bleeding feet, and scanty rags, she criedas if her little heart would break.
But the snow-fairies were vexed with her, and scolded and flouted her,for it is, as you all know, a great nuisance to have somebody cryingand sobbing and making a fuss, when you yourselves feel quite happyand comfortable. And at last, in their irritation against her, theymade such a noise and clamour, and so pushed and plagued and hustledthe poor little creature, that the squabbling and commotion reachedthe ears of the North Wind himself, and he asked what in the name ofcommon-sense was the matter. Then the snow-fairies all pointed at her,and all began chattering at once, as you may hear a flock of starlingschattering in the tops of the beeches at sunset, on a mild March day.But the North Wind told them to go about their business; and he tookup the little fairy and stood her in the hollow of his great hand, andasked her quite gently--for the stronger a man is the gentler he canbe, as you will very likely find out some fine day--why she was so sad.
Then, though she was horribly frightened and blushed up to the tipsof her pretty ears, as a modest young maiden should, she looked thegreat North Wind bravely in the face and told him her little story--howshe had been left behind, how she loved the sunshine and the summer,and how she grieved for the misery and famine that winter brings, toooften, on man and bird and beast.
'And I don't see _why_ it should all happen,' she said; 'or why therecannot be summer all the year.'
Still, though she spoke up so courageously, the poor, little fairytrembled, for she thought that the North Wind would be angry, as thesnow-fairies had been, and that he might crush her tiny life intonothingness in the grasp of his great hand. But the North Wind didnothing of the kind. He looked at her till his clear, dancing eyes grewdim and
misty; and when, at last, he spoke his voice was low and sweetand sad as church bells that the sailor hears far out at sea, as hesails at evening in sight of some fair, foreign coast.
'Ah, my child!' he said, 'all those who have once been happy, young andold, wise and foolish, mortal and immortal, mighty princes, prophets,psalmists, all living creatures, nay, the very earth herself, all thatmy eyes have looked on through unnumbered centuries, have asked andstill ask that question in some form or other; but the answer is notgranted yet. And so, knowing that till the end it may not be told us,we grow humble and grow wise; and learn that it is best to do the workthat is appointed us without doubt or hesitation, careless whetherit be known or unknown, pleasant or unpleasant, hard or soft, kindor cruel even, so that we get it well and honestly done. As for you,you have lost your way and have wandered from the business set foryou to do, and therefore you are filled with sadness, and fears, andquestionings. But have patience for a while, and have faith, too, thatthe mysterious purposes of the Almighty, your Master and mine, willcertainly be made plain at last.--Meanwhile, go and help your cousinsthe snow-fairies. And then, because, though you are honest and brave,you still are frail and tender, when the night of my winter reign isover, I will give you back into the keeping of my kinsman the SouthWind, who will find less sharp and cutting work for you to do.'
And all this, though you may not at first see exactly how, has a greatdeal to do with the story of our friend, little Peter; and therefore,even at the risk of your thinking it somewhat dry and puzzling, it hasseemed to me well to set it down for you to read here.
