The Fairies and the Christmas Child Part 4

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The Wee Men of Morlaix

"Long, long ago," she began, "a lordly castle was built at Morlaix, in the midst of such pleasant surroundings that some little Dwarfs in search of a home thought that they could not do better than build their stronghold underneath it. So they set to work immediately, for they have a very wise rule that when once they decide that a thing must be done, it shall be done at once. By the time that the castle was finished, their home was completed too. Far below the ground they had fas.h.i.+oned a number of oval chambers, with ceilings encrusted with gleaming pearls which they found in the bay, and floors paved with precious amber. Beyond these chambers lay their treasure house, where they kept rich stores of fairy gold, and the winding pa.s.sages which led to the upper world were only just wide enough to allow them to creep through. Their entrances were cunningly contrived to look like rabbit holes, so that strangers might think they led to nothing more than some sandy warren.

But the country folk knew better, for they often watched the little men run in and out, beating a faint tattoo on the silver basins in which they collected the morning dew and the evening mist, which served them for food and drink. Now and then, when the sky was a vault of blue, and the sun shone his brightest, they brought up piles of their golden coins, that they might see them glisten in the light of day. So friendly were they to mortals, that if they were surprised while thus employed, they seldom failed to share their wealth.

One very bleak autumn there was much distress on the countryside, for the harvest had failed for the third season, and many of the smaller farmers were on the verge of ruin. Jacques Bosquet--_Bon Jacques_--his neighbours called him, for he had never refused his help to a friend in need--was one of these. His frail old mother was weak and ailing, and he did not know how to tell her that she must leave the homestead to which she had come as a bride, full fifty years before. In his despair he tried to borrow a thousand francs from a rich merchant in the next town; but the merchant was a hard man, and his mouth closed like a cruel steel trap when he told Jacques roughly that he had no money to lend. As Jacques returned home his eyes were so dim with the tears which pride forbade him to shed, that in pa.s.sing the castle of Morlaix he all but fell over three little men, who were counting out gold by a deep hole.

'What is wrong with you, friend, that you do not see where you are going?' cried the eldest of the three; and when Jacques told them of his fruitless errand, they at once invited him to help himself to their treasure.

'Take all you can hold in your hand!' they urged, and since Jacques'

hand had been much broadened with honest toil, this meant a goodly sum.

The three little men had vanished before Jacques found words to express his grat.i.tude, and he hurried away with a thankful heart. The coins were of solid gold, and stamped with curious signs; to his great joy he very soon sold them for a big price, and had now sufficient not only to pay his debts, but to carry him through the winter.

When the merchant who had received his appeal so churlishly heard of his good fortune, he was full of envy, and determined to lay in wait for the little men himself. Though blessed with ample means, he coveted more, and when at last he surprised the Dwarfs as Jacques had done, he made so piteous a tale that they generously allowed him to take two handfuls instead of one. But this did not content the greedy fellow, and pus.h.i.+ng the wee men rudely away, he stooped to fill his pockets from the heap.

As he did so, a shower of blows rained fiercely round his head and face, and so heavily did they fall that he had much ado to save his skull.

When at last the blows ceased, and he dared to open his eyes, the Dwarfs had gone, with all their gold, and his pockets were empty of even that which they had contained before."

The Wood Elf paused, for a large brown bird had perched himself on a branch which overhung the fountain. She waited until he had dipped his beak in the sparkling stream and flown away before she spoke again.

"That bird is a stranger to these woods," she said presently under her breath, "and I wondered if it were really an Elf or a Fee. One never knows in these parts."

"Tell me!" I urged; for I knew by her look that she was thinking of another story.

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The Bird at the Window.

"There was once a most beautiful lady," she began, "whose face was so kind and gentle that wherever she went the children flocked round her and hung on her gown. No flower in the garden could hold up its head beside her, for the roses themselves were not so sweet, and even the lilies drooped before her exceeding fairness.

From far and near lovers came to woo her, but she would none of them; for ever in her mind was a gallant knight to whom she had plighted her troth in the land of dreams. In the presence of a holy man, whose features were those of the Cure who confirmed her, he had placed a ring upon her finger; and so real did this dream seem, that she held herself to to be the knight's true wife. Her songs were all of him as she sat at her spinning, and her tender thoughts made warp and weft with the s.h.i.+ning threads. When she went to the fountain, she heard his voice in the splash of the falling water, and when the stars shone through her cas.e.m.e.nt, she fancied that they were the adoring eyes of her beloved.

She prayed each night that she might be patient and faithful until he claimed her, for he, and none other, should touch her lips.

But she was very beautiful, and her parents were very poor. And when the lord of those parts saw and desired her, they gave her to him, despite her prayers, though he was bent and old. He carried her off to his grim castle, and that no man but he should gaze on her loveliness, he shut her in his tower, with only an aged widow as her attendant. The widow was half-blind and wholly deaf, and withal so crabbed in disposition that as she pa.s.sed the very dogs in the street slunk off to a safe distance. In vain the beautiful lady pleaded to be allowed to stroll in the gardens, or to ply her needle on the balcony; he would not let her stir from her gloomy chamber, and for seven long years he kept her in durance. His love had by this time turned to hate, for her beauty was dimmed with weeping. No longer did her hair make a mesh of gold for sunbeams to dance in, and her face was like a sad white pearl from which all tints had fled. And the heart of the wicked lord rejoiced, for since he could not win her favour, and she no longer delighted his eyes, he was glad that she should die.

One morning in May when the dew lay thick upon the meadows and every thrush had found a mate, the old lord went off for a long day's hunting, and the aged widow fell fast asleep. The beautiful lady sighed anew as the sweet spring suns.h.i.+ne flooded her prison, seeming to mock her with its splendour. 'Ah, woe is me!' she cried. 'I may not even rejoice in the sun as the meanest of G.o.d's creatures!' And in her great despair she called aloud to her own true knight, bidding him deliver her from her misery. Even as she spoke, a shadow fell across the window. A bird had stayed his flight beside it; he pressed through the bars and was at her feet. His ash-brown plumage and rounded wings told her he was a goshawk, and from the jesses on his legs she saw he had been a'hunting. While she gazed in surprise at his sudden appearance, she beheld a transformation, and in less time than it takes to tell, the goshawk had become a gallant knight, with raven locks and flas.h.i.+ng eyes.

It was the knight of her dreams, and with a cry of joy she flew to him.

'I could not come to thee before, my Sweet,' said he, 'since thou didst not call for me aloud. Now shall I be with thee at thy lightest wish, and no more shalt thou be lonely. But beware of the aged crone who guards thy door! Her purblind eyes are not beyond seeing, and should she discover me I must die.'

And now the beautiful lady no longer pined to leave her prison, for she had only to breathe his name, and her lover reappeared. Her beauty came back to her as gladness to the earth when the sun s.h.i.+nes after rain, and her songs were as joyous as those of the lark when it soars high in the heavens. The old lord was greatly puzzled, and bade the ancient widow keep a careful watch.

'My beautiful lady is gay!' he said, with an ugly smile. 'We must learn why she and sighs are strangers. I had thought ere this to lay her to sleep beneath a smooth green coverlet, and it does not please me to see her thus content.'

The aged crone bathed her eyes in water that flowed from a sacred shrine, so that sight might come back to them, and hid herself behind a curtain when the beautiful lady thought that she had left the tower.

From this place of vantage she beheld, shortly after, the arrival of the goshawk, and his transformation into a handsome and tender knight.

Slipping away unseen, she hastened to her master and told him all, not forgetting to describe the beautiful lady's rapture in her knight's embrace.

The jealous lord was furious with rage, and caused, at dead of night, four sharp steel spikes to be fixed to the bars of the window in the tower. On leaving his love, the goshawk flew past these safely, but when he returned at dusk the next evening, he overlooked them in his eagerness, and was sorely hurt. The beautiful lady hung over her beloved, distraught with grief; all bleeding from his wounds, he sought to comfort her.

[Ill.u.s.tration: She hid herself behind a curtain.]

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'Dear love, I must die!' he murmured faintly, 'but thou shalt shortly bear me a son who will dispel thy sorrows and avenge my fate.' Then he gave her a ring from his finger, telling her that while she wore it neither the old lord nor the widow would remember aught that she would have them forget. He also gave her his jewelled sword, and bade her keep it till the day when Fate should bring her to his tomb, and she should 'learn the story of the dead.' Then, and then only, he commanded, was his son to know what had befallen him.

The beautiful lady wept anew, and in a pa.s.sion of grief begged him not to leave her; but once more bidding her a fond farewell, he resumed the form of a goshawk, and flew mournfully away.

It happened as the knight foretold. Neither the widow nor the old lord remembered his coming, and when the beautiful lady's son was born, the old lord was proud and happy. His satisfaction made him somewhat less cruel to the beautiful lady, who lived but for her boy. In cheris.h.i.+ng him her grief grew less, but though she had now her freedom, she never ceased to long for the time when her son should know the truth about his father.

The boy grew into a lad, and the lad into a handsome and gallant knight. He was high in favour at court, since none could approach him in chivalry or swordmans.h.i.+p, and many marvelled that one so brave and pure as he could be the son of the old lord, whose advancing years were as evil as those of his youth had been. One day his mother and he were summoned by the King to a great festival, and rather than let them out of his sight, the old lord rose from his bed to go with them. They halted on their way at a rich Abbey, where the Abbot feasted them royally and before they left desired to show them some of the Abbey's splendours. When they had duly admired the exquisite carvings in the chapels, and the golden chalice on the High Altar, he conducted them to a chapter room, where, covered with hangings of finely wrought tapestry, and gorgeous embroideries of blue and silver, was a stately tomb. Tapers in golden vessels burned at its head and feet, and the clouds of incense that filled the air floated from amethyst vessels. It was the tomb, the Abbot said, of 'a n.o.ble and most valiant knight,' who had met his death for love's sweet sake, slain by certain mysterious wounds which he bore on his stricken breast.

When the beautiful lady heard this, she knew she had found the resting place of her own true love, and taking his sword from the silken folds of her gown, where she had ever carried it concealed from view, she handed it to the young knight and told him all.

'Fair son, you now have heard,' she said, 'That G.o.d hath us to this place led.

It is your father who here doth lie, Whom this old man slew wrongfully.'

With this she fell dead at her son's feet; and forthwith he drew the sword from its jewelled scabbard, and with one swift blow smote off the old lord's head.

Thus did he avenge the wrongs of his parents, whom he vowed to keep in his remembrance while life should last."

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Chapter V

The white Stone of Happiness.

The fruit trees were a-glow with blossom when we reached Normandy, and the pink and white Elves who played hide-and-seek in the boughs were as lovely as t.i.tania. We spent some time at a big farm, where Father had stayed long ago with Mother, and we drove all over the country in the farmer's gig.

One day I woke quite early, when the birds had only just commenced to twitter, and the sky was still rosy with dawn. I threw open my little cas.e.m.e.nt window as wide as it would go, and the air smelt so sweet, and it was all so beautiful, that I longed to be out-of-doors. In the quiet of the early morning the Elves might be abroad, so I slipped on my things and stole down to the orchard. And there, sure enough, were the Elfin hosts.

But though I told them who I was, they were too shy to talk, and scattered the blossom on my upturned face, when I tried to coax them.

A fat brown thrush scolded me for disturbing her babies at their breakfast, and fluttered round me, beating her wings, until I moved away, when the Elves seemed to be as pleased as she was, for they wanted to be left to themselves.

On the opposite side of the orchard was a bank of moss, and I strolled across and sat down in a little hollow. The moss was soft as velvet, and through the boughs of a pear tree, laden with bloom, I could see the gate to the farm-yard. A speckled hen was the only creature in sight, and it amused me to watch how daintily she pecked this side and that.

All at once there came an excited chorus of "_Cluck-Cluck-Cluck!_" and it seemed as if every fowl in the place were trying to go through the gate. They were led by a fine young c.o.c.k, with beautifully bright green head feathers. Once he was safely through, he perched himself on an empty pail, and crowed indignantly.

"_c.o.c.k-adoodle-do-oo!_" mocked a voice behind him, and a little boy in a red cap gave him a box on the ears which sent him flying.

"That bird thinks twice too much of himself," he grinned, as he ran to me over the gra.s.s. "Who am I? Why, _Nain Rouge_ of Normandy, first cousin to Puck and Robin Goodfellow across the water."