Essential Novelists - George MacDonald. George MacDonald

for a few minutes longer. I was much interested by the information she gave me, and astonished at the language in which she was able to convey it. It seemed that intercourse with the fairies was no bad education in itself. But now the daughter returned with the news, that the Ash had just gone away in a south-westerly direction; and, as my course seemed to lie eastward, she hoped I should be in no danger of meeting him if I departed at once. I looked out of the little window, and there stood the ash-tree, to my eyes the same as before; but I believed that they knew better than I did, and prepared to go. I pulled out my purse, but to my dismay there was nothing in it. The woman with a smile begged me not to trouble myself, for money was not of the slightest use there; and as I might meet with people in my journeys whom I could not recognise to be fairies, it was well I had no money to offer, for nothing offended them so much.

      “They would think,” she added, “that you were making game of them; and that is their peculiar privilege with regard to us.” So we went together into the little garden which sloped down towards a lower part of the wood.

      Here, to my great pleasure, all was life and bustle. There was still light enough from the day to see a little; and the pale half-moon, halfway to the zenith, was reviving every moment. The whole garden was like a carnival, with tiny, gaily decorated forms, in groups, assemblies, processions, pairs or trios, moving stately on, running about wildly, or sauntering hither or thither. From the cups or bells of tall flowers, as from balconies, some looked down on the masses below, now bursting with laughter, now grave as owls; but even in their deepest solemnity, seeming only to be waiting for the arrival of the next laugh. Some were launched on a little marshy stream at the bottom, in boats chosen from the heaps of last year’s leaves that lay about, curled and withered. These soon sank with them; whereupon they swam ashore and got others. Those who took fresh rose-leaves for their boats floated the longest; but for these they had to fight; for the fairy of the rose-tree complained bitterly that they were stealing her clothes, and defended her property bravely.

      “You can’t wear half you’ve got,” said some.

      “Never you mind; I don’t choose you to have them: they are my property.”

      “All for the good of the community!” said one, and ran off with a great hollow leaf. But the rose-fairy sprang after him (what a beauty she was! only too like a drawing-room young lady), knocked him heels-over-head as he ran, and recovered her great red leaf. But in the meantime twenty had hurried off in different directions with others just as good; and the little creature sat down and cried, and then, in a pet, sent a perfect pink snowstorm of petals from her tree, leaping from branch to branch, and stamping and shaking and pulling. At last, after another good cry, she chose the biggest she could find, and ran away laughing, to launch her boat amongst the rest.

      But my attention was first and chiefly attracted by a group of fairies near the cottage, who were talking together around what seemed a last dying primrose. They talked singing, and their talk made a song, something like this:

      “Sister Snowdrop died

      Before we were born.”

      “She came like a bride

      In a snowy morn.”

      “What’s a bride?”

      “What is snow?

      “Never tried.”

      “Do not know.”

      “Who told you about her?”

      “Little Primrose there

      Cannot do without her.”

      “Oh, so sweetly fair!”

      “Never fear,

      She will come,

      Primrose dear.”

      “Is she dumb?”

      “She’ll come by-and-by.”

      “You will never see her.”

      “She went home to dies,

      “Till the new year.”

      “Snowdrop!” “‘Tis no good

      To invite her.”

      “Primrose is very rude,

      “I will bite her.”

      “Oh, you naughty Pocket!

      “Look, she drops her head.”

      “She deserved it, Rocket,

      “And she was nearly dead.”

      “To your hammock—off with you!”

      “And swing alone.”

      “No one will laugh with you.”

      “No, not one.”

      “Now let us moan.”

      “And cover her o’er.”

      “Primrose is gone.”

      “All but the flower.”

      “Here is a leaf.”

      “Lay her upon it.”

      “Follow in grief.”

      “Pocket has done it.”

      “Deeper, poor creature!

      Winter may come.”

      “He cannot reach her—

      That is a hum.”

      “She is buried, the beauty!”

      “Now she is done.”

      “That was the duty.”

      “Now for the fun.”

      And with a wild laugh they sprang away, most of them towards the cottage. During the latter part of the song-talk, they had formed themselves into a funeral procession, two of them bearing poor Primrose, whose death Pocket had hastened by biting her stalk, upon one of her own great leaves. They bore her solemnly along some distance, and then buried her under a tree. Although I say her I saw nothing but the withered primrose-flower on its long stalk. Pocket, who had been expelled from the company by common consent, went sulkily away towards her hammock, for she was the fairy of the calceolaria, and looked rather wicked. When she reached its stem, she stopped and looked round. I could not help speaking to her, for I stood near her. I said, “Pocket, how could you be so naughty?”

      “I am never naughty,” she said, half-crossly, half-defiantly; “only if you come near my hammock, I will bite you, and then you will go away.”

      “Why did you bite poor Primrose?”

      “Because she said we should never see Snowdrop; as if we were not good enough to look at her, and she was, the proud thing!—served her right!”

      “Oh, Pocket, Pocket,” said I; but by this time the party which had gone towards the house, rushed out again, shouting and screaming with laughter. Half of them were on the cat’s back, and half held on by her fur and tail, or ran beside her; till, more coming to their help, the furious cat was held fast; and they proceeded to pick the sparks out of her with thorns and pins, which they handled like harpoons. Indeed, there were more instruments at work about her than there could have been sparks in her. One little fellow who held on hard by the tip of the tail, with his feet planted on the ground at an angle of forty-five degrees, helping to keep her fast, administered a continuous flow of admonitions to Pussy.

      “Now, Pussy, be patient. You know quite well it is all for your good. You cannot be comfortable with all those sparks in you; and, indeed, I am charitably disposed to believe” (here he became very pompous) “that they are the cause of all your bad temper; so we must have them all out, every one; else we shall be reduced to the painful necessity of cutting your claws, and pulling out your eye-teeth. Quiet! Pussy, quiet!”

      But with a perfect hurricane