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+Project Gutenberg's Fairies and Folk of Ireland, by William Henry Frost
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Fairies and Folk of Ireland
+
+Author: William Henry Frost
+
+Illustrator: Sydney Richmond Burleigh
+
+Release Date: July 13, 2006 [EBook #18824]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRIES AND FOLK OF IRELAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Sankar Viswanathan, and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by The Kentuckiana Digital Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           [Illustration: ]
+
+
+                           FAIRIES AND FOLK
+
+                              OF IRELAND
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                         WILLIAM HENRY FROST
+
+
+
+               ILLUSTRATED BY SYDNEY RICHMOND BURLEIGH
+
+
+
+
+                               NEW YORK
+
+                       CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+                                 1900
+
+
+
+
+                         COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY
+
+                       CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To
+
+Jane Grey Allen and Elizabeth Allen
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I.    O'DONOGHUE
+
+II.   THE BIG POOR PEOPLE
+
+III.  THE LITTLE GOOD PEOPLE
+
+IV.   THE CLEVERNESS OF MORTALS
+
+V.    THE TIME FOR NAGGENEEN'S PLAN
+
+VI.   LITTLE KATHLEEN AND LITTLE TERENCE
+
+VII.  A CHAPTER THAT YOU CAN SKIP
+
+VIII. THE STARS IN THE WATER
+
+IX.   A YEAR AND A DAY
+
+X.    THE IRON CRUCIFIX
+
+XI.   THE OLD KING COMES BACK
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+"'IS IT TIME?' THE WARRIOR SAID"            _Frontispiece_
+
+"THROUGH THE FLYING WATER I SAW THE OLD KING"
+
+"'BLESSED DAYS THERE WERE.' SHE SAID"
+
+"THEY WERE CHANGED INTO FOUR BEAUTIFUL WHITE SWANS"
+
+"WILL YOU HAVE A LIGHT FOR YOUR PIPE, YOUR MAJESTY?"
+
+"I WAS SITTIN' THERE, WID A SPIGGOT OVER ME SHOULDER"
+
+"THE HORSE WAS NOTHING BUT THE BEAM OF A PLOUGH"
+
+"WHERE ARE YOU BOUND IN THAT SHIP?"
+
+"HERE'S THE POPE'S BULL FOR THAT SAME"
+
+"SHE KNEW THAT THERE WERE GOOD PEOPLE HERE"
+
+"'PAT,' SAYS HE, 'BRING ME A PIPE'"
+
+"PLUMP DOWN HE FELL THROUGH THE QUILT"
+
+"AND THEN DONALD WENT HOME"
+
+"THERE'S A BLESSING ON THIS SAME SACK"
+
+"THERE WAS A WOMAN LYING ON A GOLD COUCH"
+
+"HE FORGOT THE PSALM THAT HE HAD BEEN READING"
+
+"HOLD THE SPEAR STRAIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU"
+
+"THE NET WAS PULLED AWAY FROM HIM"
+
+"HE SAYS THAT I AM NEVER TO BE AFRAID OF THEM"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+"SHOULD YOU ASK ME, WHENCE THESE STORIES?"
+
+
+The story which runs through and makes up the bulk of this book is my
+own. The intention has been, however, to make it conform to the laws
+governing certain beings commonly regarded in this country as
+mythical, as those laws are revealed in the folk-lore of many peoples,
+and particularly of the Irish people. Almost every incident in which
+the fairies are concerned might occur, and very many of them do
+actually occur, in Irish folk-lore. But in a real folk-tale there are
+usually only two or three, or, at any rate, only a few, of the
+characteristic incidents, while this story attempts to combine many of
+them.
+
+The shorter stories wherewith the main story is interspersed are all,
+to the best of my information and belief, genuine Irish folk-tales. I
+have told them in my own way, of course. I have sometimes condensed
+and sometimes elaborated them, but I have seldom, if ever, I think,
+materially changed their substance. I have never had the opportunity
+to collect such stories as these for myself, and if I had, I should
+probably find that I had not the ability. I have therefore had to turn
+for the substance of these tales to collections made by others--men
+whose patient and affectionate care and labor have preserved a great
+mass of the beautiful Irish legends, which, without them, might have
+died.
+
+It seems hardly right to give to any one of these collectors a
+preference over the others by naming him first. But when I count up my
+indebtedness, I find that the book to which I owe more stories than to
+any other is Patrick Kennedy's "Legendary Fictions of the Irish
+Celts." From this book I have borrowed, as to their substance, the
+story of Earl Gerald, in Chapter II. of my own book; the story of the
+children of Lir, in the same chapter; the account of the changeling
+who was tempted by the bagpipes, which Naggeneen tells of himself, in
+Chapter V.; the changeling story which Mrs. O'Brien tells, in Chapter
+VI.; and the most of the story of Oisin, in Chapter IX., besides part
+of the story of the fairies' tune, in Chapter VII. With respect to
+Oisin I got a little help from an article on "The Neo-Latin Fay," by
+Henry Charles Coote, in "The Folk-Lore Record," Vol. II. The story of
+the fairies' tune is in part derived from T. Crofton Croker's "Fairy
+Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland." This delightful book
+as well deserves the first place in my list as does Kennedy's, for it
+gave me one of my most important stories, that of O'Donoghue, in
+Chapter I., and it gave me Naggeneen. Him I first saw, with Mr.
+Croker's help, sitting on the cask of port in the cellar of old
+MacCarthy of Ballinacarthy, as he himself describes in Chapter III. It
+is not enough to say that after that he came readily into my story; he
+simply could not be kept out of it. The tale of the fairies who wanted
+to question a priest, in Chapter X., is also from Croker. Mrs.
+O'Brien's method of getting rid of a changeling is founded on one of
+Croker's stories, and a story almost exactly like it is told by Grimm.
+There is also a form of it in Brittany. Two books by W.B. Yeats have
+been of much value--"Irish Fairy and Folk Tales" and "The Celtic
+Twilight." Of the former Mr. Yeats is the editor, rather than, in a
+strict sense, the author, though it contains some of his own work, and
+his introduction, notes, and other comments are of great interest.
+From this book I have the story of Hudden, Dudden, and Donald, in
+Chapter VII. Mr. Yeats reproduces it from an old chap-book. A version
+of it is also found in Samuel Lover's "Legends and Stories of
+Ireland." Those who like to compare the stories which they find in
+various places will not fail to note its likeness to Hans Christian
+Andersen's "Big Claus and Little Claus." The story of the monk and the
+bird, in Chapter IX., Mr. Yeats reproduces from Croker, though not
+from the work of his which has already been mentioned. I could not
+resist the temptation to better the story, as I thought, by the
+addition of an incident from a German version of it, and everybody
+will remember the beautiful form in which it appears in Longfellow's
+"The Golden Legend." From Mr. Yeats's "The Celtic Twilight" I have the
+little story of the conversation between the diver and the conger, in
+Chapter II. It is a pleasure to refer to two such fine and scholarly
+works as Dr. Douglas Hyde's "Beside the Fire" and William Larminie's
+"West Irish Folk-Tales and Romances." From the former of these I have
+borrowed the substance of the story of Guleesh na Guss Dhu, in Chapter
+IV., and from the latter that of the ghost and his wives, in Chapter
+VII.
+
+Having thus confessed my indebtedness, it would seem that my next duty
+was to pay it. I fear that I can pay it only with thanks. I have not
+taken a story from the work of any living collector without his
+permission. It thus becomes my pleasure, no less than my duty, to
+express my gratitude to Mr. Yeats for permission to use the stories in
+"Irish Fairy and Folk Tales" and "The Celtic Twilight;" to Dr. Hyde
+for his permission to take what I chose from "Beside the Fire," and to
+Mr. Larminie and his publisher, Elliott Stock, for the same permission
+with regard to his "West Irish Folk-Tales and Romances." My thanks are
+equally due to Macmillan & Co., Limited, for permission to take
+stories from Kennedy's "Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts," the
+rights to which they own. I wish to say also that in each of these
+cases the permission asked has been given with a readiness and a
+cordiality no less pleasing than the permission itself.
+
+I have learned much concerning the ways of Irish fairies from Lady
+Wilde's "Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland"
+and "Ancient Cures, Charms, and Usages of Ireland," and I have gained
+not a little from the books of William Carleton, especially his
+"Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry," but from none of these
+have I taken any considerable part of a story. Indeed I have found
+help, greater or less, in more books than I can name here.
+
+It may seem by this time that I am like the lawyer who conceded this
+and that to his opponent till the judge said: "Do not concede any
+more; you conceded your whole case long ago." But I have not conceded
+my whole case. I have used the threads which others have spun, but I
+have done my own weaving. The shorter stories have been told before,
+but they have never been put together in this way before, and, as I
+said at first, the main story is my own.
+
+W.H.F.
+
+NEW YORK, September 1, 1900.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+FAIRIES AND FOLK OF IRELAND
+
+[Illustration:]
+
+I
+
+O'DONOGHUE
+
+
+It was in a poor little cabin somewhere in Ireland. It does not matter
+where. The walls were of rough stone, the roof was of thatch, and the
+floor was the hard earth. There was very little furniture. Poor as it
+was, the whole place was clean. It is right to tell this, because,
+unhappily, a good many cabins in Ireland are not clean. What furniture
+there was had been rubbed smooth and spotless, and the few dishes that
+there were fairly shone. The floor was as carefully swept as if the
+Queen were expected.
+
+The three persons who lived in the cabin had eaten their supper of
+potatoes and milk and were sitting before the turf fire. It had been a
+poor supper, yet a little of it that was left--a few potatoes, a
+little milk, and a dish of fresh water--had been placed on a bench
+outside the door. There was no light except that of the fire. There
+was no need of any other, and there was no money to spend on candles
+that were not needed.
+
+The three who sat before the fire, and needed no other light, were a
+young man, a young woman, and an elderly woman. She did not like to be
+called old, for she said, and quite truly, that sixty was not old for
+anybody who felt as young as she did. This woman was Mrs. O'Brien. The
+young man was her son, John, and the young-woman was his wife, Kitty.
+
+"Kitty," said John, "it's not well you're lookin' to-night. Are ye
+feelin' anyways worse than common?"
+
+"It's only a bit tired I am," said Kitty, "wid the work I was afther
+doin' all day. I'll be as well as ever in the morning."
+
+"It's a shame, that it is," said John, "that ye have to be workin'
+that way, day afther day, and you not sthrong at all. It's a shame
+that I can't do enough for the three of us, and the more, maybe, that
+there'll be, but you must be at it, too, all the time."
+
+"What nonsinse ye're talkin', John," Kitty answered. "What would I be
+doin', settin' up here like a lady, doin' nothin', and you and mother
+workin' away like you was my servants? Did you think it was a duchess
+or the daughter of the Lord Lieutenant ye was marryin', that ye're
+talkin' that way?"
+
+"And it'll be worse a long time before it's betther," John went on.
+"Wid the three of us workin' all the time, we just barely get along.
+And it's the end of the summer now. What we'll do at all when the
+winter comes, I dunno."
+
+The older woman listened to the others and said nothing. Perhaps she
+had heard such talk as this so many times that she did not care to
+join in it again, or perhaps she was waiting to be asked to speak. For
+it was to her that these younger people always turned when they were
+in trouble. It was her advice and her opinion that they always asked
+when they felt that they needed a better opinion than their own. The
+three sat silent now for a time, and then John broke out, as if the
+talk had been going on in his mind all the while: "What's the good of
+us tryin' to live at all?" he said. "Is livin' any use to us? We do
+nothin' but work all day, and eat a little to give us the strength to
+work the next day, and then we sleep all night, if we can sleep. And
+it's that and nothing else all the year through. Are we any better
+when the year ends than we were when it began? If we've paid the
+rent, we've done well. We never do more."
+
+"John," the old woman answered, "it's not for us to say why we're here
+or what for we're living. It's God that put us here, and He'll keep us
+here till it's our time to go. He has made it the way of all His
+creatures to provide for themselves and for their own, and to keep
+themselves alive while they can. When He's ready for us to die, we
+die. That's all we know. The rest is with Him."
+
+"I know all that's true, mother," said John; "but what is there for us
+to hope for, that we'ld wish to live? It's nothing but work to keep
+the roof over us. We don't even eat for any pleasure that's in
+it--only so that we can work. If we rested for a day, we'ld be driven
+out of our house. If we rested for another day, we'ld starve. Is there
+any good to be hoped for such as us? Will there ever be any good times
+for Ireland? I mean for all the people in it."
+
+"There will," the old woman said. "Everything has an end, and so these
+troubles of ours will end, and all the troubles of Ireland will end,
+too."
+
+"And why should we believe that?" John asked again. "Wasn't Ireland
+always the poor, unhappy country, and all the people in it, only the
+landlords and the agents, and why should we think it will ever be
+better?"
+
+"Everything has an end," the old woman repeated. "Ireland was not
+always the unhappy country. It was happy once and it will be happy
+again. It's not you, John O'Brien, that ought to be forgetting the
+good days of Ireland, long ago though they were. For you yourself are
+the descendant of King Brian Boru, and you know well, for it's many
+times I've told you, how in his days the country was happy and
+peaceful and blessed. He drove out the heathen and saved the country
+for his people. He had strict laws, and the people obeyed them. In his
+days a lovely girl, dressed all in fine silk and gold and jewels,
+walked alone the length of Ireland, and there was no one to rob her or
+to harm her, because of the good King and the love the people had for
+him and for his laws. And you, that are descended from King Brian, ask
+if Ireland wasn't always the poor, unhappy country."
+
+"But all that was so long ago," said John; "near a thousand years, was
+it not? Since then it's been nothing but sorrow for the country and
+for the people. What good is it to us that the country was happy in
+King Brian's time? Will that help us pay the rent? And how we'll pay
+the rent when the winter comes, I dunno, and if we don't pay it we'll
+be evicted."
+
+"Shaun," said his mother, calling him by the Irish name that she used
+sometimes--"Shaun, we'll not be evicted; never fear that. Things are
+bad, and they may be worse, but take my word, whatever comes, we'll
+not be evicted."
+
+"Mother," said the young man, "you never spoke the word, so far as I
+know, that wasn't true, but I dunno how it'll be this time. We've been
+workin' all we can and we only just manage to pay the rent and live,
+and here's the summer over and the winter coming, and how will we pay
+the rent then?"
+
+The mother did not answer this question directly. She began talking in
+a way that did not seem to have anything to do with the rent, though
+it really had something to do with it, in her own mind, and perhaps in
+her son's mind too.
+
+"It's over-tired that you are with your hard day's work, Shaun," she
+said, "and that and seeing Kitty so tired, too, has maybe made you
+look at things a little worse than they are. We've never been so bad
+off as many of our neighbors; you know that. And yet I know it's been
+worse of late and harder for you than it might have been, and you
+can't remember the better times that our family had, and that's why
+you forget that the times were ever better. No, you wasn't born then,
+but the time was when good luck seemed to follow your father and me
+everywhere and always. Yes, and the good luck has not all left us
+yet, though we had the bad luck to lose your father so long ago. We
+could not hope to be rich or happy while the whole country was in such
+distress as it's been sometimes, yet there were always many that were
+worse off than we, and when I think of those days of '47 and '48 it
+makes the sorrows seem light that we're suffering now. And I always
+know that whatever comes, there'll be some good for me and mine while
+I live. I've told you how I know that, but you always forget, and I
+must tell you again."
+
+They had not forgotten. They knew the story that was coming by heart,
+but they knew that the old woman liked to tell it, so they let her go
+on and said not a word.
+
+For a little while, too, the old woman said not a word. She sat with
+her eyes closed, and smiling, as if she were in a dream. Then she
+began to speak softly, as if she were still only just waking out of a
+dream. "Blessed days there were," she said--"blessed days for Ireland
+once--long ago--many hundreds of years. O'Donoghue--it was he was the
+good King, and happy were his people. A fierce warrior he was to guard
+them from their enemies, and a just ruler to those who minded his
+laws. It was in the West that he ruled, by the beautiful Lakes of
+Killarney. The rich and the poor among his people were alike in one
+thing--they all had justice. He punished even his own son when he did
+wrong, as if he had been a poor man and a stranger.
+
+"He gave grand feasts to his friends, and the greatest and the best
+men of all Erin came to sit at his table and to hear the wise words
+that he spoke. And the greatest bards of all Erin came to sing before
+him and his guests of the brave deeds of the heroes of old days and of
+the greatness and the goodness of O'Donoghue himself. At one of these
+feasts, after a bard had been singing of the noble days of Erin long
+ago, O'Donoghue began to speak of the years that were to come for
+Ireland. He told of much good and of much evil. He told how true and
+brave and noble men would live and work and fight and die for their
+country, and how cowards would betray her. He told of glory and he
+told of shame. He spoke of riches and honor, and poetry and beauty; he
+spoke of want and disgrace, and degradation and sorrow.
+
+"Those who sat at his table listened to him in wonder. Sometimes their
+hearts swelled with pride at the noble lives and deeds of those who
+were to come after them, sometimes they wept at the sufferings that
+their children were to feel, and sometimes they hid their faces from
+each other in shame at the tales of cowardice and of treachery.
+
+[Illustration: "'BLESSED DAYS THERE WERE,' SHE SAID."]
+
+"As he finished speaking he rose from the table, crossed the hall,
+and walked out at the door and down to the shore of the lake. The
+others followed him and watched him, full of wonder. They saw him go
+to the edge of the lake and then walk out upon it, as if the water had
+been firm ground under his feet. He walked far and far out on the
+bright lake as they stood and gazed at him. Then he turned toward
+them, he waved his hand in farewell, and he was gone. They saw him no
+more."
+
+The old woman paused for a moment and the dreaming look came back to
+her face. Then she went on. "They saw him no more--but others saw
+him--and I have seen him. Every year, on the 1st of May, just as the
+sun is rising, he rides across the lake on his beautiful white horse.
+He is not always seen, but sometimes a few can see him. And it always
+brings good luck to see O'Donoghue riding across the lake on May
+morning. And I saw him."
+
+Again there was a pause, but she had no look of dreaming now. Her eyes
+were open and she seemed to be looking at something wonderful and
+beautiful that was far off. Slowly and softly she began speaking
+again. "I was a girl then. My father lived by the Lakes of Killarney.
+On that May morning I was standing at the door as the sun was rising.
+I was looking out upon the lake, far away to the east. The first that
+I saw was that the water, far off toward the sun, was ruffled, and
+then all at once a great, white-crested wave rose, as if a strong wind
+had struck the water, only all the air was still, and no wind ever
+raises such a wave as that on the lake. The wave came swiftly toward
+me, and I drew back, in a kind of dread, though I knew that it could
+not reach me where I stood. But still I looked--and then I saw him.
+
+"Through the flying water and foam and mist I saw the old King, on his
+white horse, following the great wave across the lake. The sun made
+all his armor gleam like the silver of the lake itself, and the plume
+of his helmet streamed away behind him like the spray that a strong
+wind blows back from the crest of a breaker. After him came a train of
+glowing, beautiful forms--spirits of the lake or of the air, or some
+of the Good People--I do not know. They wore soft, flowing garments,
+that were like the morning mists; they carried chains of pearls and
+they scattered other pearls about them, that glistened like the drops
+of a shower when the sun is shining through it. They had garlands of
+flowers, and they plucked the flowers out and threw them high in the
+air, so that they fell before the King. They looked like flecks of
+foam from the waves, turned rosy and violet by the rising sun, but
+they were flowers. And there was a sound of sweet, soft music, like
+harps and mellow horns.
+
+"The King and his train came nearer and I saw them plainer, and the
+music sounded louder. Then they passed me and moved far away again on
+the lake. The sight of them grew dim and the music grew faint, and I
+strained my eyes and my ears for the last of them, and they were gone.
+Then I could move and speak and breathe again, for it had seemed to me
+that I could not do any one of these things while the King was
+passing, and I knew that I had seen O'Donoghue."
+
+The old woman stopped, as if the story were ended, but the younger
+people did not speak, for they knew that she had something else to
+tell. "O'Donoghue had passed and was gone," she said, "but he always
+leaves good luck behind him, and he left the good luck with me. That
+summer some rich young ladies came from Dublin to see the Lakes of
+Killarney. They heard the story of O'Donoghue, and the people told
+them that I was the last who had seen him. They came to my father's
+house and asked me to tell them what I had seen. They seemed pleased
+with what I told them, or with something that they saw in me, and they
+asked my father to let them take me back to the city with them, for a
+lady's maid. He did not like to let me go, but they said that they
+would pay me well and would have me taught better than I could be at
+home. He was poor, there were others at home who needed all that he
+could earn, I wished to go, and at last he said I might.
+
+"So I went to Dublin and lived in a grand house, among grand people. I
+tried to do my duties well, and they were kind to me. They kept the
+promise that they had made to my father. They gave me books and
+allowed me time to study them, and they helped me in things that I
+could not well have learned by myself, even with the books. I was
+quick at study, and in the little time that I had, I learned all that
+I could. Three times they took me to London with them, and I saw still
+grander people and grander life.
+
+"Those were happy days, but happier came. Your father came, Shaun. He
+was a servant of the family, like myself--a coachman. But he was wiser
+than I, and he talked with me and showed me that there was something
+better for us than to be servants always. We saved all the money that
+we could, and when we had enough we came here, where your father had
+lived before, and took a little farm. The luck of O'Donoghue was
+always with us. We had a good landlord, who asked a fair rent. We both
+worked hard, we saved more money and took more land, and all our
+neighbors thought that we were prosperous, and so we were.
+
+"Then came '47. Nobody could be prosperous then. Nobody that had a
+heart in him at all could even keep what he had saved then. What we
+had and what our neighbors had belonged to all, and little enough
+there was of it. It is well for you young people to talk of these
+times being hard. Harder than some they may be, but good and easy
+compared with those days of '47 and '48. You talk of injustice and
+wrong to Ireland! What think you of those times, when every day great
+ships sailed away from Ireland loaded down with food--corn and bacon,
+and beef and butter--and Ireland's own people left without the bit of
+food to keep the life in them? All summer long was the horrible wet
+weather, and the potatoes rotting in the ground before they'ld be
+ripe, and never fit to eat. To add to all that was the fever, that
+killed its thousands, and then the cold. And when the days came again
+that the crops would grow, many and many of the people were so weak
+with the hunger and the sickness that they could not work in the
+fields. Ah! and you call these hard times!
+
+"Those were the bad days for Ireland, those days of '47. Not even the
+luck of O'Donoghue could make us prosper or give us comforts then. But
+we lived through the time, as many others did. The poor helped those
+who were poorer than themselves; the sick tended those who were
+sicker; the cold gave clothes and fire to those who were colder. The
+little money that we had saved helped us and some of our neighbors.
+And we lived through it all.
+
+"Better times came, though never again so good as the old. We worked
+again and we saved a trifle. Then you were born to us, John. We had a
+worse landlord now. He was of the kind that cared nothing for his
+tenants and nothing for his land, but to get the last penny off it.
+The rent was raised, and we never could have paid it but for the care
+and the skill and the hard work of your father. And then, John, you
+know that when you were hardly old enough to take his place with the
+work, let alone knowing how to work as well as he, he died and left
+us--Heaven rest his soul!"
+
+For a long time the old woman said no more, and neither of the others
+spoke. Then she said: "John, the country is in trouble enough and the
+times are hard enough for you and for Kitty, here, and for all of us,
+I know. But don't be cast down. There have been worse days than these;
+there have been better days, too, and there will be better again."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+II
+
+THE BIG POOR PEOPLE
+
+
+There was a knock at the door, and John opened it. "God save all here
+except the cat!" said a voice outside.
+
+"God save you kindly!" John answered.
+
+A young man and a young woman came in. They were neighbors--Peter
+Sullivan and his wife, Ellen. "Good avenin' to you, Pether," said
+John; "you're lookin' fine and hearty, and it's like a rose you're
+lookin', Ellen."
+
+"It's more like nettles than roses we're feelin'," Ellen answered,
+"but something with prickles anyway, wid the bother we have every day
+and all day."
+
+"Thrue for you, it's hard times," said John; "we was speaking about
+them just the minute before you came in; but we all have to bear them.
+It's not you ought to complain, as long as you've good health; now
+here's Kitty--I dunno how--"
+
+"It's not the hard times I'm speakin' of now," said Ellen; "they're
+bad enough, goodness knows; but it's the bother we have all the time,
+and we can't tell how or why. Half the time the cow gives no milk, and
+when she does, you can make no butther wid it. The pig, the crathur,
+won't get fat; he ates everything he can reach, and still he looks
+like a basket wid a skin over it. The smoke of the fire comes down the
+chimney, the dishes are thrown on the floor, wid nobody near them, and
+such noises are goin' on all night long that never a wink of sleep can
+a body get. What we'll do at all if it goes on, I dunno."
+
+"By all the books that ever was opened and shut," Peter added, "it's
+all thrue what she says, and more. What wid all that and what wid the
+throubles that's on the whole counthry, if I only had the money saved
+to do it, I'ld lave it all to-morrow and go to the States--I would
+so."
+
+"Leave off the things you do that make you all these troubles," said
+the older Mrs. O'Brien, "and you'll have no more need to go to the
+States than others."
+
+"What things are them that we do?" Ellen asked.
+
+"Haven't I told you before this," said Mrs. O'Brien, "that it's the
+Good People that trouble you? If you'ld treat them well, as we do,
+they'ld never bother you. If you'ld even take good care never to harm
+them, it's likely they'ld never come near you."
+
+"It's the fairies you're speakin' of," said Peter. "Sure I don't
+believe in them at all. It's old woman's nonsense that your head's
+full of, savin' your presence, Mrs. O'Brien. There's no fairies at
+all. Don't talk to me."
+
+"You'ld better be more respectful to them, Peter," Mrs. O'Brien
+answered. "Say less about not believing in them and don't call them by
+that name, that they don't like. Call them 'the Good People' or 'the
+gentry.' They don't like the name that you called them, any more than
+they like those who disbelieve in them or those who try to know too
+much about them. Speak well about them and treat them well, as we do,
+and they'll not trouble you; maybe they'll even help you. Didn't you
+see, as you came in, how we left something for them to eat and drink
+outside the door there? We've not much, but they like fresh milk and
+clean water, and we always give them these, and they hold nothing but
+friendliness for us. Look and see now if they've taken what we left
+there for them after supper."
+
+Peter went to the door and looked. "There's nothing in the dishes
+there," he said; "but how do we know it wasn't the pig that ate it, or
+some poor dog, maybe?"
+
+"You don't know," said Mrs. O'Brien, "only as I tell you, and you'ld
+better be attending to them that know more than yourself. If you did
+chance to give a meal to some poor dog, instead of to the Good People,
+there'ld be no great harm done, but it's the Good People that get what
+we put there. We always leave it for them and they always come and
+take it, and it's that makes them friendly, and so they would be to
+you, if you did the same. But you do nothing for them, because you say
+you don't believe in them, and you do worse than nothing. Didn't I see
+Ellen the other evening throwing out some dirty water and never saying
+'Take care of the water?'"
+
+"And what if I did?" said Ellen. "Can't I throw out wather when I
+plase, widout talkin' about it?"
+
+"You can if you like," said the old woman, "but when you throw out
+water without warning, it's as likely as not some of the Good People
+may be passing, and they don't like dirty water to be thrown on them;
+and so after that your cow gives no milk, your pig is thin, and your
+dishes are thrown around the room. Do as you like with your water, or
+with anything else, but if you anger the Good People, be sure they'll
+do you harm."
+
+"It's superstitious you are. Mrs. O'Brien," said Peter; "I dunno what
+it is that's throubling us, but there's no fairies at all."
+
+"Superstitious, is it?" said the old woman. "And so you're not
+superstitious at all, and you don't believe in the Good People! Now
+tell me, Peter Sullivan, when you came to that door just now and said
+'God save all here,' like a decent man, why did you add 'except the
+cat?' What did you mean by those words 'except the cat?' Tell me that
+now."
+
+"Why, sure, Mrs. O'Brien," Peter answered, just a bit confused, "sure,
+we're told that cats is avil spirits, so we mustn't put blessings on
+them, and when we say 'God save all here,' we add onto it 'except the
+cat,' so as not to be calling down a blessing on an avil spirit."
+
+"Ah!" said Mrs. O'Brien, "it's not the likes of you that's
+superstitious. You can't put a blessing on the poor cat, when you're
+blessing everybody and everything else in the house, for fear you'ld
+be putting it on an evil spirit; but you're not superstitions, and so
+you throw dirty water on the Good People as they're passing, and you
+call them by names that they don't like, and then you wonder what it
+is that's troubling you."
+
+"No, Mrs. O'Brien," said Peter, again, "I dunno what it is at all. It
+may be the avil spirits themselves, for what I know, and whatever it
+is. I'ld go away and leave it and leave the country, if I had the
+money to get to the States. I heard once of a man that was druv out of
+the counthry by a monsther that I suppose was maybe something like
+the fairies--like them in making trouble for the man, anyway. It was a
+great conger that lived in a hole in the Sligo River, and I suppose he
+was ten yards long, and the man was a diver. He was gettin' stones out
+of the bottom of the river, and the conger says to him, 'What are you
+afther there?' says he. 'Stones, sor,' says the diver. 'Hadn't you
+betther be goin?' says the conger. 'I think so, sor,' says the diver,
+and afther that he never stopped goin' till he got to the States."
+
+"That's you, Peter," said the old woman; "you don't believe in the
+Good People or strange monsters or anything of the sort, but you want
+to run away from them."
+
+If Peter had been quite honest about it, he could scarcely have said,
+even to himself, whether he believed that there were any fairies or
+not; but he was really afraid of them, though he put on such a bold
+front and said that he did not believe in them, to make people think
+that he was uncommonly knowing. "Mrs. O'Brien," he said, "do you think
+it's true, what they say, that in the States you can pick up goold
+everywhere in the streets?"
+
+"What good would it do you if it was true?" she asked.
+
+"What good would it do me? Are ye askin' what good would goold do me?
+Sure, then, wouldn't I pick up all of it I could carry, and wouldn't I
+take land wid it and pay rent and buy stock for a big farm and grow as
+rich as Damer? What good would goold be? Ha! Ha! What couldn't you do
+in a country where ye could be pickin' up goold in the street?"
+
+"There's no gold to be picked up in the streets there, any more than
+here," said the old woman, "and if there was, it would be no use to
+you. Only suppose, now, that you had picked up all the gold you could
+carry, and that you wanted to buy a loaf of bread with it. And suppose
+you went into a baker's shop and chose even the smallest loaf of bread
+you could find, and threw down a whole gold sovereign for it--aye, or
+a hundred gold sovereigns. Would the baker sell you the bread for your
+gold, do you think? Wouldn't he say to you: 'Go on out of this, for
+the silly Irishman that you are! What for would I be giving you good
+bread for that gold of yours, when I can pick up as much and as good
+as that any minute here before my own door and keep my bread as well?'
+If you could find gold in the street, it would be worth no more than
+the stones that you find there."
+
+"I don't know how that is, Mrs. O'Brien," said Peter, "but I can't see
+why goold wouldn't be goold, wherever you could find it."
+
+"It's not sensible," said John, "to be talkin' of findin' gold in the
+streets, but there's a deal in what Peter says, for all that, and it's
+often I've thought, too, that I'ld go to the States and be away from
+all these throubles, if only we could save up the money to take us all
+there. It's not any gold or any riches I'm thinkin' about, but what I
+want to know, mother, is this: Could a man in the States, if he was
+strong and if he worked hard--and if he didn't drink a great
+deal--could he make enough to keep himself and his wife both, so that
+she needn't work too hard--not so that she would sit idle, I don't
+mean, but so that she needn't be doin' hard work and doin' it all the
+time--could he do that?"
+
+"That's the sensible and the honest talk," said his mother; "he could
+do that. Those that do nothing get nothing, in the States the same as
+anywhere else. But I've talked with them that know, and they tell me
+that in the States those that will work are paid for their work, and
+those that are strong and industrious and honest can keep their
+families from want, and that's more than some can do here, God help
+them!"
+
+"It would be a great thing," said John, speaking slowly, as if he were
+trying to make himself believe this dream of a land where a man's work
+could make his wife and his children sure of a home and food--"a great
+thing. And do you think, mother--but no, no--I suppose not--do you
+think, if we was once there--do you think that I could work enough to
+make it so that it would be easier for you and for Kitty both? Could
+one do enough for three?"
+
+"It would be easier than here, maybe," was all that the old woman said
+in answer to this. She had heard this talk of America many times
+before, and she did not like it. She would rather believe, and make
+others believe, that better times were coming for Ireland. She was not
+so young as the others and not so ready to leave her old home, yet
+lately she had seen how it was growing harder and harder to stay, and
+there seemed to be little left of the good luck of which she boasted.
+
+She was thinking of all this now, and John knew her thoughts, though
+she did not speak them, and he said: "You always tell us that there's
+betther times comin', mother, and I've learned to know that all you
+say is true. She was sayin' it just before you came in, Pether. But
+how can we believe in the betther times? They don't come. They get
+worse and worse. How do we know they'll ever come?"
+
+Again Mrs. O'Brien seemed lost in deep thought, or in a dream, just as
+when, a little while before, she had told them of O'Donoghue. What she
+told them now was a sort of answer to John's question, but perhaps
+she told it quite as much to draw their thoughts away from America.
+She was silent for a little while, and they all waited for her to
+speak.
+
+"Good times for Ireland there will be again," she said, "when Earl
+Gerald comes back. It was hundreds of years ago that Earl Gerald lived
+in his great castle of Mullaghmast. He was a strong warrior and he
+fought many a good fight for his people against their foes. More than
+that, he was powerful in magic. He could work mighty charms and he
+could change himself into any form he liked.
+
+"His wife knew that he could do this, but he had never shown himself
+to her in any form but his own. She often begged him to let her see
+what his magic could do, and to change himself to some other form for
+her. But he knew there was danger in it, and he put her off with one
+reason and another. But at last, she asked him so many times, he told
+her that if she took any fright at all while he was in any form but
+his own he could never live in the world again in his own form till
+all the people of the country had passed away many times. 'I'ld not be
+a fit wife for you,' she said, 'if I'ld be easily frightened.'
+
+"'You might not be easily frightened,' he said, 'but you might have
+great cause, and if you were only a little frightened you would never
+see me like myself again.'
+
+"Then one day, as they were sitting together, the Earl turned away his
+head and muttered some words which his wife could not understand, and
+that instant he was gone, and instead of him sitting beside her she
+saw a little goldfinch flying around the room. The goldfinch flew out
+at the window into the garden; then it flew back and sat on the lady's
+shoulder and on her hand and on her head, and it sang to her, and so
+they played together for a time. Then it flew out into the open air
+once more, but in a second it darted back through the window and
+straight into the lady's bosom. The next instant she saw a wild hawk,
+that was chasing the little bird and was coming straight through the
+window after it. She put both her hands over her bosom, to save her
+husband's life, but she was frightened and she gave one scream as the
+hawk darted into the room, dashed itself against a table, and was
+killed. Then she looked where the little bird had been, and it was
+gone. She never saw Earl Gerald again.
+
+"But Earl Gerald was not dead, and he is not dead, though all this was
+hundreds of years ago. He is sleeping, down under the ground, just
+beneath where his old castle used to stand. His warriors are there
+with him. They are in a great hall. The Earl sits at the head of a
+long table and the men sit down the sides. All rest their heads upon
+the table and all are asleep. Against the wall there are rows of
+stalls, and behind each man, in one of the stalls, is his horse.
+
+"Once in every seven years Earl Gerald wakes at night. He rises and
+mounts his horse. A door of the hall opens. He rides out into the free
+air. He rides around the Curragh of Kildare and then back into the
+cave, to sleep again for seven years.
+
+"While he is out the door is open. Once, long ago, a horse-dealer was
+going home late, and he had been drinking a little. He saw the door in
+the hill open and he walked in. And there he found himself in a hall,
+dim and high. A row of dim lamps hung along the hall, and he saw the
+smoke of them rise up to the roof, where many old banners, faded and
+torn, stirred a little in the light breeze that came in by the open
+door. And the light of the lamps shone down and glistened on the
+bright armor of rows of men who sat with their steel helmets bowed
+upon the table, and behind them were rows of horses, with their
+saddles and their bridles on, ready for their riders.
+
+"There was no sound in the cave but the shuffle of his own foot, and
+the stillness and the sight that he saw made him afraid. His hand
+trembled, and a bridle that he had fell upon the floor. The noise
+echoed and echoed through the cave, and the warrior who sat nearest to
+the poor man raised his head. 'Is it time?' the warrior said.
+
+"'Not yet, but soon will be,' the man answered, and the warrior's head
+sank again upon the table. The man went out of the cave as quickly as
+he could, and he never could find the door of it again.
+
+"They say that Earl Gerald's horse has silver shoes. They were half an
+inch thick when the Earl's sleep began. When they are worn as thin as
+a cat's ear it will be time. Then a miller's son, who will have six
+fingers on each hand, will blow a trumpet, and Earl Gerald and all his
+warriors will come out of the cave. They will fight a great battle and
+will conquer the enemies of Ireland. Then the country will be peaceful
+and prosperous and happy, and Gerald will be its King for forty
+years."
+
+Peter's mind could not be set at rest by any such stories as this
+to-night. "What's the good of all thim old tales to us?" he asked,
+"Can we pay our rint wid the knowledge that Earl Gerald will be King
+of Ireland for forty years? They do be all the time fortellin' and
+prophesyin' and predictin' this thing and that thing and the other
+thing in thim old tales, and nothin' ever comes o' thim. Did you ever
+know, now, Mrs. O'Brien--I ask you--will you tell me this--did ye ever
+know of any of the prophecies in any of thim old woman's tales comin'
+thrue?"
+
+"It's surprised I am," said the old woman, "to hear you, Peter
+Sullivan, talking that way--you, that had a decent man for your
+father, and that's a decent man yourself, all but knowing
+nothing--you, that have heard the stories of your people. Tell me now,
+did you ever hear what was foretold of the children of Lir, and did
+you ever hear if it came true or not?"
+
+Perhaps Peter had never heard about the children of Lir, or perhaps he
+had heard and did not like to say so, because the story would be proof
+that a prophecy had come true. At any rate, he said nothing. But the
+old woman seemed resolved that if he had never heard about the
+children of Lir he should hear about them now.
+
+"Lir was a powerful man in the old days of Ireland," she said, "He had
+three sons and one daughter, and their mother was dead. The names of
+the sons were Hugh, Fiachra, and Conn, and the name of the daughter
+was Fair-shoulder, and beautiful and good children were they all. Lir
+was visiting once at the castle of Bogha Derg, the King of Conacht,
+and he saw the daughter of the King, and he fell in love with her and
+married her.
+
+"For a time they were happy, and then the new wife began to be jealous
+of the love of her husband for his four children. It troubled her so
+much that she began to lose her beauty and her health, and at last she
+took to her bed and did not leave it for a year. And after that time
+there came a great Druid to visit her. You know who and what the
+Druids were, I think. They were the priests of the old religion of
+Ireland, before St. Patrick came and made the people Christians. They
+were powerful in magic; they could bring storms and could drive them
+away; they could foretell the future; they could work powerful
+enchantments on people and beasts, and trees and stones, and they
+could do many other marvellous things.
+
+"This Druid talked with the wife of Lir for a long time alone. He made
+her tell him all that troubled her, and then he told her what she
+could do to be rid of her husband's children. He gave her a magic wand
+and went on his way.
+
+"Then she rose from her bed and took the four children with her in her
+chariot and set out for her father's castle. On the way she ordered
+the driver of the chariot to kill the children, but he refused. Then
+they passed near a lake, and the step-mother told the children to go
+into the water and bathe. But Fair-shoulder believed that she meant
+them some harm, and she refused to go, and begged her brothers not to
+go. So the step-mother called her men, and she and they forced the
+children out of the chariot and pushed them into the water. Then she
+touched each of them on the head with the Druid's wand, and they were
+changed into four beautiful white swans.
+
+"After she had done that, she went on to her father's castle. When her
+father had welcomed her, he said, 'Where are your husband's children?'
+
+"'They are at home,' she answered, 'in their father's castle.'
+
+"'And are they well?'
+
+"'They are well.'
+
+"Now the King himself was a Druid, and more powerful than the one who
+had given his daughter the wand. More than that, he was a good man,
+and the other was a wicked one. He did not believe what his daughter
+told him about the children, and so he put her into a magic sleep.
+When she was asleep he said to her, 'Where are your husband's
+children?'
+
+"And she answered, 'They are in the lake which we passed by the way as
+we came here.'
+
+"'And what did you do to them?'
+
+"'I changed them into white swans.'
+
+"'Why did you do that?'
+
+"'Because my husband loved them more than he loved me.'
+
+"He woke her out of the magic sleep and called all his people
+together. Before them all he told her that she should be punished for
+her wickedness, and then he changed her, by his Druidic power, into a
+gray vulture. Then he said to the people: 'This creature that was my
+daughter has laid a wicked enchantment on her husband's children. She
+has changed them into swans. They must keep that shape for many
+hundreds of years; they must swim in the lakes and the seas and fly
+over the land, and they must travel far and must suffer much. But
+there is a hope for them. Many, many hundred years will pass away--so
+many that even the Druid's eye can scarcely see what is at the end of
+them. But at last there shall come strange men across the sea to
+Erin--men with shaven heads. They shall build houses and shall set up
+tables in the east ends of their houses, and they shall ring bells.
+And when the swans that were the children of Lir shall hear the first
+sound of these bells, they shall have their human shape again, and
+then they shall be happy forever. But she--the gray vulture--she shall
+fly in the sky, where it is stormy and cold. Where there are thick
+clouds and where the rain is made, there shall be her home. She shall
+not fly where the heaven is blue and where the sun shines warm. The
+bells of the good men from over the sea shall bring her no peace. Her
+way shall be with the wind and the hail. If she has any rest it shall
+be on the peak of some wet crag, where the snow whirls around her, or
+the fog drives past her, or the sleet cuts against her, or the cold
+spray of the sea dashes over her. And it shall be so with her till the
+Day of Doom.'
+
+"When the King had finished speaking the gray vulture flew away, and
+she was never seen again. But the King and all the court rode in
+chariots to the lake where the white swans were, and Lir and all his
+people came there, too, when they heard what had been done. And there
+they all stood and listened to the singing of the four swans. So
+beautiful was the song that those who listened could think of nothing
+else while they heard it. They left their horses and their chariots
+and stood on the shore of the lake and listened to the enchanting
+music, and never thought of food, or of drink, or of sleep. Even the
+horses listened to the song as the people did. Day and night they
+stood there, and many days and nights, and no hunger came upon them,
+and they felt no cold and no heat, and no wind and no wet.
+
+"But the time came when the enchantment that was upon them compelled
+the four white swans to leave the place. They rose up into the air and
+flew away and out of sight into the sky. Then the King and his people,
+and Lir and his people, went back to their castles, and they never saw
+the four white swans again.
+
+"The four white swans flew to Loch Derg, and there for many years they
+swam on the lake, and fed and slept among the rushes along the shores.
+In the summer the lake was pleasant and cool, the air was clear and
+mild, the sky was blue, and the sun was bright and beautiful. Then
+Fair-shoulder and her brothers forgot that they were unhappy. They
+sang songs to one another and scarcely remembered that they had ever
+been anything but swans, swimming on this peaceful water. But when the
+winter came and the ice was all around, and the wind from the north
+blew the snow against them, so that it froze among their feathers and
+they could scarcely move, they were so stiff and so cold--then they
+remembered how happy they had been in their father's castle. They
+could not sing now--not even sad songs. They only longed to have their
+human shape again and to be back in their old home.
+
+"But after many, many years more had passed they ceased to wish for
+home. They had been swans so long now that it did not seem to them
+that they had ever been anything else. When the winter came again and
+again and again, and the days of chilling storm and the nights of
+freezing darkness were upon them, the poor brothers longed for nothing
+but the end of it all. The thought of the old castle hall, with its
+bright fires and its feasts and its music of minstrels and its dances
+and its games, was only another pain to them, and they wished only to
+die and to leave their sorrows.
+
+"Then they crowded close together, to be as warm as they could, and
+Fair-shoulder tried to spread her wings over her brothers, to keep the
+storm from them. She tried to comfort them, and she told them again
+and again the story that she had heard from the people who stood by
+the lake to hear them sing, the story that the King had told, that,
+after many hundreds of years, strange men should come across the sea
+to Erin--men with shaven heads; that they should build houses and set
+up tables in the east ends of their houses, and that they should ring
+bells; and when the swans should hear the first sound of those bells
+they should have their human shape again, and then they should be
+happy forever.
+
+"For three hundred years they were at Loch Derg, and then, by the
+power of their enchantment, they were compelled to leave it. They flew
+to the sea of Moyle, and there they stayed, through the summer's heat
+and the winter's cold, for three hundred years more. Still the sister
+told her brothers of the strange men who were to come to Erin and of
+the bells that were to free them. But they could not be comforted. The
+strange men were too long in coming.
+
+"When the three hundred years were past they had to fly away again to
+another sea. As they flew, they passed over the spot where their
+father's castle had stood and where they had been happy children
+together. Not a stone of the beautiful castle could they see. It had
+all crumbled down, and the grass had grown over it for many a year.
+They saw the fox that had its hole where their father's bright hearth
+fire had been, and they saw the ditch of dirty water where their
+father used to welcome kings and bards and wise men at his gate. They
+kept their way through the air and saw no more; yet they had seen all
+that there was to see. It gave the poor swans only a little ache at
+the heart, for they were past hope now. They had suffered too much to
+believe anything or to think of anything but the suffering that was
+past and the more suffering that was to come.
+
+"The end of their journey came and they swam in a new sea. Again the
+sister tried to cheer her brothers, but they could not be cheered. The
+strange men with the shaven heads would never come, they thought. They
+had waited for them too long.
+
+"But the hundreds of years that had passed had done more than to bring
+sorrow to the poor swans. In lands far away a new faith had grown up,
+not like the Druids' faith. And at last across the sea to Erin came
+the holy St. Patrick. He brought monks with him, and they had shaven
+heads. They went about the island and preached, and built chapels. In
+the east end of each chapel they set up an altar, and they said masses
+and rang bells. And they built a chapel on the island that has since
+been called the Isle of Glory.
+
+"And so, one bright morning, Fair-shoulder and her brothers were
+swimming near the Isle of Glory, when, of a sudden, there came to them
+from the shore the sweet sound of a bell. Then Fair-shoulder called to
+her brothers, and they all swam to the shore. And as soon as they were
+on shore their form of swans was gone. Fair-shoulder was a beautiful
+young girl again, and the brothers were strong, beautiful boys. They
+walked up to the little chapel together, and there a monk baptized
+them.
+
+"And as soon as they were baptized they were young and strong no
+longer. Fair-shoulder was an old, old woman, and her brothers were
+old, old men. They were so weak with the age of a thousand years that
+they fell upon the floor of the chapel. The monks took them up and
+cared for them for a few days, and then they died. And so the word of
+the Druid came to pass, that when the strange men should ring their
+bells the children of Lir should be swans no longer, and should be
+happy forever."
+
+They all waited for a few minutes, to be sure that there was no more
+of the story, and then John said: "Mother, it's easy for you to be
+tellin' us them tales, and they may be all thrue enough, and I'm not
+sayin' they're not. But what good are they to us? The word of the
+Druid came thrue, but how long was it in comin' thrue? A thousand
+years?"
+
+"A thousand years or more," said his mother; "but the stories can
+teach us to be patient, if they can do nothing else."
+
+"They may do that," said John; "the blessed Lord He knows you've been
+patient, and He knows the rest of us have tried to be. But what does
+it all come to? We can't wait a thousand years for the betther times.
+Pether, here, is right. The States would be a betther place for all of
+us. If we had the money I'ld say that we ought to go there."
+
+"It's not the bad times alone that's in it," said Peter. "As I told
+you before, I could stand them. It's the bother that we're put to all
+the time. It's that would make us go to the States this minute, if we
+had the chance. But I suppose your mother could never be leavin'
+Ireland now, John; she's gettin' so old now, maybe she couldn't stand
+the journey."
+
+"Have no fear about that," John answered; "mother's not so old as
+you'ld make out, and she's likely to live longer now than some others
+that's here this minute."
+
+As he said this John felt Kitty's hand suddenly holding his closer,
+and he knew that he ought not to have said it. "Don't mind what I'm
+sayin'," he said to her in a whisper; "I dunno what I'm talkin' about,
+but I didn't mean you at all, darlin', nor anybody particular. It'll
+all come right somehow, and we'll soon see the roses back in your
+cheek, and the smile on your lips, and the light in your eyes. Don't
+mind what I said."
+
+"But what's the use talkin' of it at all?" said Peter. "You've no
+money and we've less. We might as well be talkin' of goin' to the moon
+as to the States."
+
+The old woman did not seem to be paying any attention to what the
+others were saying, and now nobody at all said anything for a little
+while. Then Mrs. O'Brien began: "John and Kitty, I think sometimes
+it's true I'm getting old and foolish. I don't know what has made me
+talk the way I have to-night I've seen it coming--oh, I've seen it
+coming all along--yes, longer than any one of you has seen it--and I
+knew I couldn't stand in the way. And yet to be leaving the old
+places--the old fields and hills and paths--the old streams and trees
+and rocks--the old places where your father and I walked and sat and
+talked so often together, where you were born and where he lies--I
+couldn't bear to think of it. It's old and weak and foolish I'm
+getting, and I couldn't bear to think of it. And so I've tried to make
+you think of other things and to make you think that it would be
+better somehow, some time. Maybe I've said too much, and maybe I've
+kept you from going when you ought to have gone, but you'll know that
+it was because I couldn't bear to think of leaving all the dear
+places, and you'll forgive me; John and Kitty, you'll forgive me. I
+can say no more. If I couldn't think of it, yet I must do it. It is
+right that we should go, and we will go."
+
+"And why should you be talkin' that way, mother?" said John. "Was it
+what you said that kept us from goin' to the States long ago? Sure, if
+you had said nothing at all, we hadn't the money to go, and so what
+difference was it what you said?"
+
+"Listen to me, John," said his mother; "it was all through me that you
+didn't leave this land of sorrow long ago. It was because it had been
+a land of joy as well to me that we all stayed here; and now, since
+you're sure that it's right and best for you to go, it's not the want
+of money that shall stand in your way. It's yourself knows, John, that
+your father--Heaven be his bed!--was always the careful and the saving
+man, and I always tried to help him the best I could. The times got a
+little better with us, as you know, after those worst ones in '47 and
+'48, and we saved a little again--it was not much, but it was
+something. Your father left it with me before he died, and he said:
+'Keep it always by you till you need it most. Don't use it till the
+time comes when you can say, "I shall never need this money more than
+I need it now."' So I have always kept it, and I have it now. That was
+why I told you not to fear about the winter. It would have paid our
+rent if all else had failed, and it would have taken us all through
+the winter. But it's better that it should take us to the States. If
+we stayed here and used the money, we'ld be as bad off in another
+year. Kitty will be getting strong again there, and it'll be better
+for all of us. The time that your father said has come; I'm sure we'll
+never be needing the money that he left more than we're needing it
+now. There's no more to be said; we'll go."
+
+For a little while no more was said. John and Kitty gazed at the old
+woman in wonder. The thing that they had thought about for so long,
+and wished for as a happiness that could never be, was come to them.
+And now it scarcely seemed a happiness; it was half a sorrow. Then
+Ellen spoke: "Oh, Mrs. O'Brien, it was always you was the good
+neighbor to us! It was always you was with us in joy and in sorrow!
+What'll we ever do at all when you're gone and we're left here alone,
+with none to be so kind to us as you've always been?"
+
+And Peter said: "I was thinkin' that same. The Lord go wid you and
+keep you, wherever you go, but it'll be the sad day for us when you go
+away."
+
+"Peter and Ellen," said the old woman "how could you think that we'ld
+do a thing like that? You may be a fool sometimes, Peter, but you're
+your father's son. Do you know what your father did for us, Peter?
+When my John was dying with the fever, he sat and watched with him,
+and brought him the water and the whey all night, and night after
+night, when I was so worn out that I could watch no longer. He might
+have taken the fever himself, and he might have died with it, and he
+did take it, but the Lord spared his life for a while after that,
+Heaven rest his soul! And another thing that John said to me before he
+died was this: 'As long as you have a bit to eat or a drop to drink or
+a penny to buy, never let Tom Sullivan or any of his want more than
+you want yourself.'
+
+"And so, Peter and Ellen, when we go to the States, you'll both go
+too. There's enough of the money to take us all there. If you're ever
+able to pay it back, you can do it, if you like; but if not, we'll
+never ask you for it. If we went away from here without you, my
+husband would look down from Heaven and see me doing what he told me,
+with his dying breath, never to do. He would come to me at night and
+he would say: 'Mary, you are deserting in their sorrow the children of
+them that never deserted us in our sorrow.' Do you think that I could
+bear that? Do you think that I would do that?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now I have told you all the talk that went on in the O'Briens' house
+that night. Perhaps you think that I have been a good while in doing
+it. If you will forgive me, I will try to get on with the story a
+little faster after this. Only one word more about this talk: you must
+not think that this was the first time that these five people had ever
+gone over and over this subject of America, or "the States," as they
+called it. They had talked of it many times, but Mrs. O'Brien had
+never given the word that they should go. The rest of them talked on
+and on of what they wished. But when she spoke, they all knew that she
+spoke of what was to be. They knew now that they should never talk of
+going again, but they should go.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+III
+
+THE LITTLE GOOD PEOPLE
+
+
+There was a good deal of commotion that night in the rath near where
+the O'Briens and the Sullivans lived. Do you know what a rath is? I
+suppose not. It is hard work to tell stories to you, you are so
+ignorant. I will tell you what a rath is. First I will tell you what
+it looks like. It looks like a mound of earth, in the shape of a ring,
+covered with turf, and perhaps with bushes. They are found all over
+Ireland. Some people, who have studied so much that they have lost all
+track of what they know and of what they don't know, say that these
+raths were made by the people who lived in Ireland many hundreds of
+years ago, and that they were strongholds to guard themselves and
+their sheep and their cattle from their enemies or from wild beasts.
+But people who know as much as Mrs. O'Brien, know that they are the
+places where the fairies live, or the Good People, as she would call
+them.
+
+On this night that I have been telling you about, the Good People
+inside the rath were eating and drinking and dancing and making merry
+generally, as they do, you know, the most of the time. Perhaps you
+would like to have me tell you how the inside of the rath looked too.
+I will do the best I can. In the first place, the walls were all of
+silver and the floor was all of gold. Perhaps you don't know--no, I
+suppose you don't know--still you may happen to have heard of this
+before: the fairies know just where to find pretty much all the gold
+and silver and precious stones that there are in the world, if they
+happen to want them. They don't want much of them, of course--only
+just enough to make the walls and the roofs and the floors of their
+houses of, and to put all over their clothes and to make all their
+furniture and dishes of, and all their carriages and their boats, and
+a few other things--but they know where to find plenty of gold and
+silver, if they want it.
+
+Now I think that I had better give you a little science. I believe
+that a book which children are to read, always ought to teach
+something, so I mean to teach you as much as I can. You must know,
+then, that gold is one of the heaviest things in the world. Now you
+know that the earth is always whirling round and round, so that the
+things that it is made of naturally get shaken up more or less.
+Besides that, it was once a good deal softer than it is now, so that
+the things that it is made of could move about more than they can now.
+And so the most of the gold, being, as I said, one of the heaviest
+things, got sifted down toward the bottom--that is, toward the centre
+of the earth. Only a little of it was left near the top, compared with
+what went to the bottom. It would not be at all surprising if the
+middle of the earth were a solid lump of gold, a thousand miles thick.
+But we poor men cannot dig down very deep into the earth. We can only
+scratch a little dirt off the top, and if we happen to grub up a few
+pounds of gold we think that we are rich, and the rest of the world
+thinks so too.
+
+But the fairies laugh at us. They know how to go as deep into the
+earth as they choose, and so any fairy who chooses can give away gold
+all his life, and still have more of it in his dust-bin all the time
+than all the kings in the world have in their treasuries. And the
+other fairies don't call him rich.
+
+But now we will go back to the rath. Of course it was all under the
+ground, so that there was no daylight. At the time we are talking
+about, there would not have been any anyway, for it was night. The
+place was lighted up with thousands of diamonds and rubies and
+emeralds, which were set all over the ceiling and shone like lamps.
+Now I won't call you ignorant just because you say that you don't
+understand how diamonds could light up anything, for I don't
+understand it myself. Let us talk about it together and try to decide.
+Suppose you try the experiment. Some night, after dark, take all the
+diamonds you have--every one of them--and carry them into a dark room
+and spread them out, and see if they light up the room at all. I am
+sure that you will find that they do not. On the contrary, if you let
+go of them, you will have to go and get a light to hunt for them by.
+But I suppose the fairies have some other kind of diamonds than ours,
+or else they know some other way of using the same kind. Sometimes
+they use fireflies, caught in spider-web nets, but these are generally
+for out of doors. To light up their houses they almost always use
+diamonds.
+
+There were two tiny bits of turf fire in the rath. One of them was at
+one end of the hall, where the King sat, for the King to light his
+pipe by, and the other was at the other end, for the other fairy men
+to light their pipes by. Fairies do not like fire, as a rule, and they
+would never have any more of it about than they could help. But I know
+that they must have had some, for I know that Irish fairies smoke
+pipes, and how could they light them unless they kept a little fire on
+hand?
+
+Now, I know what you will say to that. You will say: "If they could
+light a room with diamonds, why couldn't they light pipes with them?"
+Well, that is not very easy to answer, but I feel sure that even a
+fairy would never think of lighting a pipe with a diamond. I have
+owned up already that I don't know exactly how they light rooms with
+them, but it is easier for me to imagine a diamond giving light than
+giving heat. Isn't it for you? Now, be honest about it.
+
+At one end of the hall sat the King and the Queen, on their thrones.
+Near them were half a dozen fairy men who were playing on pipes and
+fiddles. All over the floor there were dozens and scores of fairies,
+men and women, dancing to the music. All around the walls stood or sat
+many more of them, looking at the dancers, and now and then applauding
+and shouting at particular ones, or talking together, or simply
+smoking their pipes.
+
+Suddenly two fairies rushed into the hall, with a little sound like
+the noise of a humming-bird's wings when it passes close to you. From
+the lower end of the hall, where they came in, they went straight
+through the crowd to where the King and Queen sat. They dropped on
+their knees before them for an instant, and then rose and spoke to
+them. In a moment the King clapped his hands, with a sign for the
+pipers and the fiddlers to stop playing. The instant that they
+stopped, everybody in the hall was still.
+
+The King stood up and said to them: "Will ye be still now and listen,
+all of ye, to the news that's come to me this minute, and then will ye
+help me to think what we're to do about it at all? Here's these two
+that's just come in, and they're just afther tellin' me that they've
+been at the O'Briens' house this evenin', and there they heard talk
+betune the O'Briens and the Sullivans, and it's all decided that both
+the O'Briens and the Sullivans is goin' to the States. And it's sorry
+I'll be to see the O'Briens lavin' the counthry. I don't care so much
+for the Sullivans."
+
+"It was the O'Briens," said the Queen, "that always put the bit and
+sup outside the door for us, and what we'll be doin' widout the milk
+and the pertaties and the fresh wather, I dunno."
+
+"Ye needn't be throubled about that," the King answered; "haven't we
+always enough to eat and drink of our own, whatever happens?"
+
+"Thrue for you," said the Queen, "we have our own food and drink, but
+it's not the same that we get from human people. Ye know that same
+yourself, and it's you as much as any that'll be missin' them things
+when the O'Briens is gone."
+
+"That's the thrue word too," said the King; "it'll be the bad day for
+us all out, when they go. What for are they lavin' the counthry at
+all?"
+
+"If ye plase, Your Majesty," said one of the fairies who had brought
+the news, "we heard all that too. It's the hard times that's in it.
+It's that makes them all want to go, and then, more than that, it's
+the bother the Sullivans are put to all the time, wid the cow givin'
+no milk and the pig not gettin' fat, and all that, and they're bound
+that they'll go away and stand it no longer."
+
+"Is that it?" said the King. "It's that divil Naggeneen that's in it.
+I told him he could bother them a little if he liked, but not to
+bother them too much, and now he's drivin' them and their neighbors
+out of the counthry, and we all have to suffer for it. He'll make it
+up to us in some way, if they go, or I'll take it out of him. Come
+here, Naggeneen! What are ye doin' down there by yourself? Come up
+here and stand forninst me, till I give ye a piece of me mind. Now,
+what's all this about the O'Briens and the Sullivans lavin' the
+counthry? What have ye been about wid them?"
+
+A fairy who had not been in the hall before had just come in at the
+far end from the King, who had caught sight of him. He was smoking a
+pipe. He had his hands in the pockets of his little green breeches, he
+wore a red jacket, and on his head was a red cap. He came slowly up
+the hall, when the King called him, and stood before the throne. "Take
+off your cap, ye worthless vagabone," said the King, "when you speak
+to me."
+
+"I wasn't spakin' to you," said Naggeneen; "it was you that spoke to
+me. You called me, and here I am to the fore, though I don't belong to
+your pitiful little thribe, and I needn't come when you call, if I
+don't like."
+
+"Oh, needn't ye?" said the King. "Take off your cap now, or it'll be
+taken off for ye."
+
+Naggeneen took off his cap.
+
+"Now," said the King, "what have ye been doin' to the Sullivans, that
+they're lavin' the counthry and persuadin' the O'Briens to go wid
+them?"
+
+"I've been doin' nothin'," said Naggeneen, "but what you said I might
+do."
+
+"Oh, haven't ye?" said the King. "And what was that?"
+
+"Oh," said Naggeneen, "I just took all the cream and the most of the
+milk from their cow, and you yourself had a share of it, as you know
+well; and I put a charm on their pig, so that it wouldn't get fat, no
+matter how much it 'uld be atin'; and then I druv the smoke of their
+fire down the chimney, and I threw the dishes and the pans around in
+the night, just so they wouldn't get lazy wid restin' too well, and a
+few more little things like that."
+
+"Was that all ye did?" said the King. "And how long have ye been at it
+that way?"
+
+"Ever since the day that Mrs. Sullivan threw the dirthy wather on me,
+as I was passin' the house. But I'm not the only one that's in it.
+Some of your own people here have helped me, and good they are at
+divilment too."
+
+"And those things was all you did, was they?" said the King. "And
+didn't I tell ye ye could bother them a little, but not too much? What
+would ye have done if I had told ye to do what ye liked wid them?"
+
+"What would I have done then? Oh, I'ld have shown ye the real fun
+then. What would I have done then? I'ld have pinched them and stuck
+pins in them all day and all night. I'ld have put charms on
+themselves, so that they'ld grow thinner than the pig. I'ld have took
+the pertaties out of the creel when they were put to drain at the
+door. If they went away from home I'ld make them think that they saw
+their house burning up, and so I'ld scare them to death. What would I
+do if you gave me leave? What wouldn't I do?"
+
+"Well, you've done enough as it is," said the King, "to get the whole
+of us into throuble, and now let's hear what you're goin' to do to
+get us out of it. Here they are lavin' the counthry and takin' the
+O'Briens wid them, that was always the good neighbors to us, and they
+themselves were sometimes useful in their own way, in spite of
+themselves. And now I ask ye, Naggeneen, what are ye goin' to do to
+get us out of the throuble ye've got us into?"
+
+"I'm in no throuble meself," Naggeneen answered, "and I dunno what I
+have to do wid any throuble that you may be in."
+
+"You're in no throuble yourself? Haven't ye been as good as livin' on
+the Sullivans all this time? And now what are ye goin' to do widout
+them?"
+
+"I'm goin' to do nothin' widout them; I'm goin' wid them."
+
+"Goin' wid them! Goin' wid them!"
+
+"Them was me words; you and your silly little thribe can do what ye
+like; I'm goin' wid them. It's a stuffy little place, this rath of
+yours, and I've a notion thravellin' would be good for me health, any
+way."
+
+"But how can ye go wid them?"
+
+"It's not hard at all," said Naggeneen, "and it's been done before
+this. I was near doin' it meself once. I don't suppose ye remember me
+old friend MacCarthy."
+
+"MacCarthy of Ballinacarthy?" the King asked.
+
+"The same," said Naggeneen, "and it was he was the good friend to
+mortal or fairy. It was he kept the good house and the good table and
+the good cellar--more especially the good cellar. That was not so many
+years ago--a hundred and odd, maybe. A fine man he was; we don't see
+his like now. I lived wid him the most of the time--in the cellar. And
+the strange thing about him was that, though nobody ever had a bad
+word for him, though all his servants said that he was the kindest and
+the best masther that ever stepped, he could get nobody to stay in the
+place of butler. It was all well enough wid the rest--cooks, maids,
+hostlers, stable boys--but the first time ever a new butler went into
+that beautiful wine cellar for wine, back he'ld come in a hurry and
+say that he'ld lave his place the next day, and nothing on earth would
+keep him in it. Now, wasn't that strange?"
+
+"Did you say you lived in that cellar?" the King asked.
+
+"The most of the time," said Naggeneen.
+
+"Then it was not strange," said the King.
+
+"Any way, strange or not strange," Naggeneen went on, "it was the
+truth. Never a butler could he keep in his service. A new butler would
+come and he'ld think he was a made man, old MacCarthy was that well
+known and that well liked all over the counthry. He'ld wait once at
+dinner and then down he'ld go to the cellar for wine. Sometimes he'ld
+come back wid the wine and oftener he'ld come back widout it, but
+every time he'ld say: 'Mr. MacCarthy, sir, it's much obliged to you I
+am for all your kindness, but I'll have to be lavin' your service
+to-morrow.' And nobody could see the why of it.
+
+"And at long last there was young Jack Leary, that had been all his
+life in old MacCarthy's stable, and he knew how the old man was bad
+off for a butler, and he made bold to ask for the place. 'If I make ye
+me butler,' says the old man, 'will ye go into the cellar and bring
+the wine when I ask ye, and make no throuble about it?'
+
+"'Is that all?' says Jack; 'sure, yer honor, I'ld be glad to spend all
+me time, day and night, in the cellar, only ye might be wantin' me
+somewhere else now and then.'
+
+"'Then look sharp,' says old MacCarthy, 'for there's gintlemin comin'
+to dinner to-day. Wait on the table the best ye know how, and at the
+end of it, when I ring the bell three times, do ye go to the cellar
+and bring plenty of wine, and let's have no more nonsinse about it.'
+
+"'Niver say it twice,' says Jack; 'yer honor can depind on me.'
+
+"Well, ye may belave I was listenin' to all this, for I wasn't in the
+cellar all the time. 'His honor may say it twice,' says I to meself,
+'or as many times as he likes, but you'll never go into that cellar
+twice, Jack, me fine boy.'
+
+"So Jack went about his work, and the dinner went all well enough,
+till late in the evenin', when old MacCarthy rang the bell three
+times, and off started Jack for the cellar, wid a basket to bring back
+the wine. 'It's the silly lot they war,' says he to himself, 'thim
+butlers, that they'ld be afraid to go to the cellar and bring back a
+bit of a basket full of wine. The only thing I don't like about it is
+that I can't bring it back in me skin instead of in the basket.'
+
+"He was thinkin' like this in his mind as he went down the long, dark
+stairs wid his candle, and you may depend I was ready for him, by the
+time he got to the bottom. So no sooner did he touch the key to the
+lock than I give him a sort of a laugh and a scream that set the empty
+wine bottles that stood outside the door a-dancin' together. Jack was
+a good bold boy, sure enough, and he got the key into the lock and
+turned it. Wid that I swung the door open for him, so hard that it
+crashed against the wall and near shook the house down. And then me
+fine boy saw all the casks and the hogsheads in the cellar a-swingin'
+and a-rockin' and a-whirlin' around, as if all the wine had been in
+him instead of in them.
+
+"You may be sure he didn't wait long afther that, but he just dropped
+his basket and fell all the way up the stairs and into the room where
+the gintlemin was waitin' for their wine. Well, it was then that old
+MacCarthy was in the towerin' rage. Never a word could Jack say to
+tell where he'd been or how he came back, or why.
+
+"'Gintlemin,' says MacCarthy, 'ye'll get your wine, if I have to go to
+the cellar for it meself. But this I tell ye: I'll live no longer in
+this house, where I can't get servants to serve me. I'll be lavin' it
+to-morrow, and no later. The next time ye find me at home, ye'll find
+me in a place where I can keep a butler and have him do his work.'
+
+"Wid that he took the lantern and started for the cellar himself.
+Ye'll guess that I was in the dining-room as soon as Jack and heard
+all this, and I was back in the cellar, too, before MacCarthy got
+there. I was sittin' on a cask of port, when he came in and saw me be
+the light of the lantern. I was sittin' there, wid a spiggot over me
+shoulder. 'Are ye there?' says MacCarthy. 'Who are ye, anyway, and
+what are ye doin' there?'
+
+[Illustration: "I WAS SITTIN' THERE, WID A SPIGGOT OVER ME SHOULDER."]
+
+"'Sure, your honor,' says I, 'a'n't we goin' to move to-morrow, and
+it's not the likes of a kind man like you that would be wishin' to
+lave poor little Naggeneen behind.'
+
+"'Is that the way of it?' says MacCarthy. 'Well, if you're agoin' to
+move wid us, I see no use in movin' at all. If I'm to have you in me
+cellar, wherever it is, it may as well be at Ballinacarthy as
+anywhere.'
+
+"And from that day till the day of his death me and old MacCarthy was
+the best of friends. And he always brought all his wine from the
+cellar himself."
+
+"And what has all that to do wid us?" said the King.
+
+"What has it to do wid ye?" said Naggeneen. "It has nothin' to do wid
+ye, unless ye want to make it, and never a care I care whether ye do
+or not. But it has a good deal to do wid me. It shows, doesn't it,
+that I was ready to go wid old MacCarthy, and him runnin' away from
+me; and just so I'm ready to go wid the Sullivans, now that they're
+runnin' away from me. I've given ye a good hint. Ye can do as ye
+plase."
+
+"It's glad I'ld be," said the Queen, "if we could be rid of the
+Sullivans and Naggeneen both at once, but I dunno what we'll do at all
+if the O'Briens go away."
+
+"I'm not over-fond of Naggeneen meself," said the King, "but it's a
+sharp bit of a boy he is, and I'm thinkin' he may not be far from
+right this time. It might be that a new counthry would be as good for
+us as for the O'Briens or the Sullivans, and, anyway, we'ld still be
+near to them."
+
+"Do ye mean," the Queen said, "that ye think we might all go to the
+States along wid the O'Briens and the Sullivans and Naggeneen?"
+
+"If Naggeneen goes," the King replied, "he'll go along wid us; we'll
+not go wid him; but it was just that same that I was thinkin'. And yet
+we couldn't do a thing like that widout the lave of the King of All
+Ireland."
+
+When the King spoke of the King of All Ireland, of course he meant the
+King of all the fairies in Ireland. He was himself only the King of
+this rath. Of course you know that the people of Ireland have no kings
+of their own any more.
+
+"Naggeneen, me boy," said the King, "just take your fut in your hand
+and go to the King of All Ireland. Give him me compliments and ask him
+would he think there was anything against the whole of us goin' to the
+States."
+
+"Is it me that would be runnin' arrants to the King of All Ireland,"
+Naggeneen answered: "me, that don't belong to your thribe at all, and
+forty lazy spalpeens around here wearin' their legs off wid dancin' or
+rustin' them off wid doin' nothin' at all?"
+
+"It's thrue you don't belong to me thribe," said the King, "and glad I
+am of that same. But while ye stay in me rath ye'll do what I bid ye.
+Why would I kape a dog and bark meself? Go on, now, and do what I tell
+ye, or ye know what I'll do to ye. Be off now!"
+
+Naggeneen was off.
+
+Now, while Naggeneen is gone with his message to the King of All
+Ireland, I will just take a minute to say something that I have felt
+like saying for quite a little while. He will not be gone much more
+than a minute. What I have to say is this: Nearly all the people in
+this story, mortals and fairies, too, had the way of speaking that
+most Irish people have, which we call a brogue. Mrs. O'Brien had only
+a little of it--just the bit of a soft brogue that comes from Dublin,
+where she had lived for a long time. The most of the others had a good
+deal more. But as I go on with the story from here, I see no use in
+trying to write the brogue. It is hard to spell and confusing to read.
+If you do not know what a good Irish brogue is, you would never learn
+from any attempt of mine to spell it out for you; and if you do know
+what it is, you can put it in for yourself. I may have to try to write
+a little of it now and then, for there is some Irish that does not
+look like Irish when it is written in English, but I shall use as
+little of it after this as I can. Naggeneen is back by this time.
+
+Naggeneen sauntered into the hall where the King and the Queen and all
+the company were waiting for him, with his hands in his pockets, quite
+as if he had been out for a quiet stroll and had come back because he
+was tired of it. "Well," said the King, "did you see the King of All
+Ireland?"
+
+"I saw him with my good-looking eyes," Naggeneen answered.
+
+"And what did he say?"
+
+"He said he'ld come here and talk to you himself, and, by the look of
+him, I think it's a pleasant time he'll be giving you."
+
+"Then why is he not here as soon as you?" the King asked.
+
+"Oh, nothing would do for him," said Naggeneen, "but that he and his
+men must come on horseback. They can come no faster that way, but they
+think it's due to their dignity. They had to wait for the horses to be
+ready, and so I beat them."
+
+Naggeneen had scarcely said this when the door flew open at the end of
+the hall, and, with a rush and a whirl, in came a great troupe of
+fairies on horseback--the King of All Ireland and his men. They all
+leaped down from their horses, and instantly every horse turned into a
+green rush, such as grows beside the bogs. The King of All Ireland
+walked quickly up to the King of the rath and stood before him, with
+an awful frown on his face. The King of the rath was plainly nervous.
+"Will you have a light for your pipe, Your Majesty?" he asked.
+
+"Never mind my pipe now," said the King of All Ireland. "Tell me first
+of all, who is this messenger that you sent to me?" The King of All
+Ireland had only a little bit of brogue--the Dublin kind.
+
+"Sure," said the King of the rath, "that's only poor Naggeneen."
+
+"Only poor Naggeneen!" cried the King of All Ireland. "And what are
+you doing with him? Do you see the red jacket he has on? Why doesn't
+he wear a green jacket, like your people? You know what his red jacket
+means as well as I. He belongs to the fairies who live by themselves,
+not to those who live together honestly in a rath. Why do you have him
+with your honest green jackets?"
+
+"Sure, Your Majesty," said the King of the rath, "I thought it was no
+harm. He said he was tired of being by himself, and you know how handy
+he is with the fiddle or the pipes. If he'd been a fir darrig, that's
+always playing tricks and making trouble everywhere, why, then, of
+course--but he was only a poor cluricaun--"
+
+"Yes," the King of All Ireland interrupted, "only a poor cluricaun,
+that does nothing but rob gentlemen's wine cellars and keep himself so
+drunk that he's of no use when he's wanted for any good. And hasn't he
+made you as much trouble as any fir darrig could do?"
+
+"I was a lepracaun, too, once, Your Majesty," Naggeneen said.
+
+"A lepracaun, were you? What did you do then? And when was it and how
+did it happen that a lazy lump like you was ever a lepracaun?"
+
+"It was a long time ago," said Naggeneen, ready enough to talk about
+anything to draw the King's thoughts away from the trouble that he had
+made. "After old MacCarthy, of Ballinacarthy, died, those that came
+after him did not keep up his cellar well, and I felt lonely and sad,
+and I didn't care to drink any more--"
+
+"Lonely and sad you must have been," said the King of All Ireland;
+"but you did drink still, did you not, though you didn't care for it?"
+
+"True for you, Your Majesty," said Naggeneen, "I did a little, just
+for my health. But I was so lonely and so falling to pieces with
+idleness--"
+
+"Falling to pieces with idleness!" the King interrupted again. "If
+idleness could make you fall to pieces, there wouldn't have been a
+piece of you left big enough to make trouble in a fly's eye, these
+last seven hundred years."
+
+"As you say, Your Majesty," Naggeneen went on, "but, anyway, I was a
+lepracaun, and I did what any other lepracaun does: I sat in the field
+or under a tree and made brogues. But it was sorry work and people was
+always trying to catch me, to make me show them the gold they thought
+I had. And one time a great brute of a spalpeen did catch me, and he
+nearly broke me in two with the squeeze he gave me, so that I wouldn't
+get away till I'd showed him the gold. And I nearly had to show it to
+him, but I made him look away for a second, and then of course I was
+off. And after that my friend the King here let me come and live in
+the rath, just for company--not that I belong to his little tribe at
+all."
+
+"And now you see," said the King of All Ireland, turning from
+Naggeneen to the King of the rath, "what trouble comes to you from
+taking those into your rath that have no right there. He's sending
+people out of Ireland that might be of use to you and to all of us. He
+wants to go with them, and that is no loss, but you want to go, too
+and to take all your people. That might be a loss, though I don't know
+that it would."
+
+"We think it's best that we should go, Your Majesty," the King of the
+rath answered, meekly, "if you see no reason why not."
+
+"I see reasons enough why not," said the King of All Ireland. "You
+don't know where you are going, nor what you'll find there. You don't
+know how you're to live, nor whether it'll be any fit place to live.
+You don't know whether the people there will help you or hinder you."
+
+"Wherever the O'Briens go, they'll help us," the King of the rath
+answered. "We don't like to have them leave us here."
+
+"You've gone contrary to the law enough already," said the King of All
+Ireland, "in taking in this fellow with the red coat. Now you may take
+all the consequences of it and go where you like. I don't care where
+you go and I think nobody cares, only I think it may be best for all
+the Good People in Ireland to have you out of it. Mount your horses,"
+he shouted to his men, "and we'll be off out of this!"
+
+He took one of the little green rushes from the floor and sat astride
+it, as a little boy rides on his father's cane. "Borram, borram,
+borram!" he said, and instantly the rush was a beautiful white horse.
+Every one of his men did the same. Each one took one of the rushes and
+sat astride of it and said, "Borram, borram, borram!" and every one of
+the rushes grew into a horse. There was a little whirring sound, like
+that of a swarm of bees, and they were all gone.
+
+Everybody in the rath was silent for a few minutes. The King and the
+Queen looked at each other and were much troubled. Naggeneen, without
+making a bit of noise, scuttled down to the farthest corner of the
+hall. The others seemed not to know where to look or what to do or to
+think. Then the King turned toward them and said; "It's all over; we
+couldn't stay here now. Wherever has Naggeneen got to?"
+
+The fairies who were nearest to Naggeneen hustled him forward and he
+stood before the King again. "Naggeneen," said the King, "it's trouble
+enough you've made for all of us, and it's ballyragging enough you and
+all the rest of us have got for it, and we don't know, as His Majesty
+said, what more is to come. So now do the only thing you was ever good
+for and give us a tune out of the fiddle."
+
+It was the only thing that Naggeneen was good for, and the only thing
+that was not mischief that he liked to do. He took a fiddle from one
+of the fairies who had been playing for the dancing before all the
+confusion began. He held the fiddle under his chin for a moment, while
+everybody waited, and then he began to play.
+
+He played first some old tunes that every fairy in Ireland knows well.
+But not every fairy in Ireland can play them as Naggeneen did. They
+were tunes which everybody listening in that rath had known for
+hundreds of years. There were wild and strange airs that made them
+remember days when Ireland was a strange country, even to them; then
+the music was full of wonder and mystery, like the spells of the old
+Druids; then it was strong and free and fierce, and they thought of
+Finn McCool and the Fenians, and the days when Erin had heroes to
+guard her from her foes. The fiddle was telling them the story of
+their own lives and of all that they had ever seen and known. Now it
+was a strange music, which they could not understand--which the player
+could understand as little as the rest--but it was soft and sweet, and
+yet deep and bold, and the fairies trembled as they remembered the
+holy Patrick and a mighty power in the worlds of the seen and of the
+unseen. This passed away and the music came with the stir and the
+swing of marching men, and the fairies were again in the days of King
+Brian Boru, with Ireland free and brave and strong. It grew sad; it
+gushed out like sobs from a broken heart; then it was quieter, but
+still full of a softer sorrow; now it was merry and reckless. It made
+the fairies remember all that they had ever seen in the lives of the
+people whom they had known so long--the cruel hardship, war, sickness,
+hunger, and then, besides, the faith, the kindliness, the
+light-heartedness that had saved them through it all. There were tunes
+that every man and woman in Ireland knows--tunes that you know--old
+airs that every Irish fiddler or piper or singer learns from the older
+ones, that the oldest ones of all learned, they say, from the fairies.
+And under all the music, whether grave or gay, there went a strain of
+grief, sometimes almost harsh and sometimes scarcely heard, and as the
+fairies listened to it they grew pale at the thought that now they
+were to go away from all that they had known, to find something which
+they did not know. While they were thinking of this the music changed
+again. It was a soft murmur, like the sound of the sea that is kept
+forever in a sea-shell. Then it grew loud and rough, with the rush of
+winds and the crash of waves. The fairies were filled with fright, and
+before they knew that they were afraid, the music was singing a song
+of hope, and then, all at once, it grew as merry as if there had never
+been a sad thought in the world.
+
+For a moment the fairies listened to it and all their feet began to
+stir restlessly on the floor. One of the fairy men caught the hand of
+a fairy girl--a fairy girl with cheeks like the tiny petals in the
+heart of a rose, with a white gown like a mist, and hair like fine
+sunbeams falling on the mist; he threw his arm about her waist, and
+they danced away down the hall. In an instant all the rest were
+dancing, too, alone, in pairs, and in rings. Naggeneen looked on and
+laughed till he could scarcely play. All this time his music had moved
+him less than anybody else who heard it. He did not feel what he had
+made the others feel, but he knew how to pour it all out of his
+fiddle.
+
+The King made a sign for him to stop. All the dancers were still in an
+instant. The lights in the hall went out. The next minute, if you had
+been outside the rath and had laid your ear down on the turf which
+covered it, you would have heard nothing more than you might hear
+under the turf at any other time or in any other place.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+IV
+
+THE CLEVERNESS OF MORTALS
+
+
+If you live in the city of New York, or if you have ever been in the
+city of New York for any long time, you know how disheartening, how
+terrible, and how altogether unreasonable the climate can be at times.
+But you also know how heavenly it can be on an autumn day, when the
+sky and the air and the water are all in a good humor. To see and to
+feel the best of it, you must be down in the Narrows, or somewhere
+near there. The fierce heat has gone out of the air, but there is a
+gentle warmth left in it. All the shores near you are turning from
+green to brown and yellow, with here and there a dash of red. The sun
+makes every sail in the bay a gleaming spot of white. Far up the bay
+you see just an end of the city, with the tall buildings standing so
+close that it looks like one great castle, built all over a hill that
+slopes steeply down to the water on both sides. The Bridge looks like
+a spider's web, spun across to the other shore. Beyond it all the
+hills look purple, through the thin mist. If, instead of having seen
+all this often, you saw it for the first time--if you were coming from
+a far country, where you had always been poor--if you had toiled all
+your life to pay your rent, never expecting to do more--then perhaps
+you would look, more than anything else, at the giant woman standing
+before you and holding her torch high into the sky to light the world.
+
+It was on such a day as this that the O'Briens and the Sullivans saw
+New York first. It was on the same day that the fairies who had left
+the rath and followed them saw it too. The O'Briens and the Sullivans
+had left their old home and gone to Queenstown, and the fairies had
+followed them. Cork and Queenstown had rather alarmed the fairies.
+They did not like the look of a city. It looked cold and stony and
+uncomfortable. It did not look like a good place to dance out of doors
+at night. They almost wished that they had stayed at home and let the
+O'Briens and the Sullivans go where they liked without them. Some of
+them even wanted to go back, but Naggeneen laughed at them, and
+fairies can stand being laughed at even less than human beings. But
+they all hoped that when the O'Briens and the Sullivans got wherever
+they were going, it would not prove to be in a city.
+
+Then the O'Briens and the Sullivans went on board a ship and were
+stowed away in a place forward, with many other people, which the
+fairies did not think roomy or airy or pleasant in any way. But they
+were not obliged to stay in it. They found better places on the ship.
+Nobody could see them, so they went where they liked. They went out on
+the bow, where the lookout stood, and watched with him for sails and
+for tiny puffs of smoke by day and for little glimmers of light by
+night. They ran about the bridge and swarmed up the rigging. They even
+danced on the deck, as if they were in a field at home; and the deck
+was dewy at night, just like the field. They fluttered and whirled in
+circles around the red light on the one side of the ship and the green
+light on the other side, and they reminded them of the rubies and the
+emeralds that had helped to light their own rath.
+
+One day they saw swimming in the water beside the ship an ugly
+creature, like a man, with a red nose, tangled green hair, green
+teeth, and fingers with webs between them, like a duck's foot. There
+was another creature, like a woman, very beautiful, but with green
+hair, like the man. These were merrows--sea fairies.
+
+"Where are you bound in that ship?" the merrows called to them.
+
+[Illustration: "WHERE ARE YOU BOUND IN THAT SHIP?"]
+
+"Where would we be bound at all," the King answered, "but to the
+States, where the ship's bound?"
+
+"And what are ye goin' there for?" the merrows asked again.
+
+"Sure," said Naggeneen, "it's followin' the O'Briens and the Sullivans
+we are, and it's the long way they're takin' us."
+
+"Could you tell us what the States is like at all?" asked the King.
+"Is it like Cork?"
+
+"There's parts of them," said the man merrow, "that's more like Cork
+than Cork itself, and there's other parts of them that's no more like
+Cork than the sea here is like Cork Harbor."
+
+"But are there no places there," the King asked again, "like the
+country parts of Ireland, with the fields and the bogs and all?"
+
+"I can't tell you that," the merrow answered. "We've never been far on
+the land. Deep down under the sea it's the same way it is under the
+sea about Ireland. There's the land at the bottom, with the sand all
+fine and firm, like a floor, and there's the water above, like a green
+sky, and there are the shells and the sea-flowers, and there are the
+weeds that wave around you and over you, like red and green and purple
+curtains to your house, and it's all as cool and as neat as any of the
+sea-places around Ireland. And if you like to go up to get the warmth
+of the sun or the light of the stars, there's white sand where you
+can lie at your ease, and there's great rocks where you can sit and
+look out over the sea and get the fresh breeze. And that's all we know
+of it; we've not been away from the sea."
+
+And after a week of voyaging through the sea--after going on and on
+for so long and so far that both fairies and mortals began to think
+that they must soon fall over the edge of the earth--the ship suddenly
+stood up straight, instead of rolling and pitching about, and a little
+later they saw the giant woman before them, holding up her torch, and
+beyond her they saw the city. And then it was only a bit of a while
+longer till they came close to the city.
+
+"Look at it!" cried the King to all the fairies, who were crowded at
+the bow; "it's like the country, after all! Look at all the grass and
+the trees! But it has an iron chain all around it. I don't like the
+look of that." All fairies hate iron. They more than hate it; they
+simply cannot endure it. To touch any iron at all would hurt a fairy
+more than it would hurt you to touch it when it was red hot.
+
+"But it's only a small place, anyway," said Naggeneen. "Look at the
+houses beyond there! There was nothing like them in Cork! And do you
+mind them strings of coaches, running along up in the air?"
+
+"I was takin' note of them," said the King; "sure it's the strange
+country!"
+
+The fairies all followed the O'Briens and the Sullivans. They were
+resolved not to lose sight of their only friends, in a land like this.
+They found that the O'Briens and the Sullivans were quickly taken to a
+big round house, in the very bit of a place like the country that they
+had first seen. The fairies did not like the inside of the big round
+house, so the King left a few to watch the O'Briens and the Sullivans,
+and to bring word if they made any important move, and the rest went
+out and found pleasanter places on the grass and under the trees. They
+had managed to get into the Battery Park without touching any of the
+horrible iron chains that were around it. They would have been a very
+sorry-looking company, if anybody could have seen them.
+
+"I don't like it at all," the King said, "and nothing would please me
+better than to be at home again. If they're going to live in that big
+round house, I dunno what we'll do. We want to be near to them, and
+yet this is no place for us. We could stand it a little while, maybe.
+The grass is fine and smooth for dancing, but these lights, like suns,
+that they have all around on the tops of the poles, are terrible. Do
+they want no night at all here? And then what a noise there is! It's
+nothing but rattle and roar all day, and then the boats do be
+screeching around all night."
+
+"Have no fear," said the Queen. "The O'Briens would never live in a
+place like this. They'll soon be out of it, and then we'll follow them
+and find a better place near where they go."
+
+It proved that the Queen was right. Before long there came an alarm
+from those who had been left to watch, that the O'Briens and the
+Sullivans were coming out. In a moment more they came, and the whole
+tribe followed them. Old Mrs. O'Brien, who never forgot anything that
+was worth remembering, had not forgotten to write to some old friends
+who had come to America years before, that she and her son and his
+wife and their neighbors were coming. These old friends had found
+tenements for them, and soon they were in new homes. There was enough
+of Mrs. O'Brien's money to keep them for a little while, and they
+hoped that before it was gone, John and Peter would find work and
+would be getting more money.
+
+The fairies followed them, filled with more and more wonder. For miles
+they followed, and then for more miles. It was not that the distance
+troubled them. They could have gone a hundred times as far without
+thinking of being tired. But they could scarcely believe their eyes
+when they saw these never-ending stone roads and these never-ending
+rows of stone and brick houses, all built so that they touched one
+another. They could not understand how people could live so close
+together, nor why they should want to do it, if they could. Perhaps
+you have never thought of it, but it is really true that the ways of
+mortals are just as wonderful to fairies as the ways of fairies are to
+mortals.
+
+Indeed, the place where they found themselves at last was not a
+pleasant one for fairies. It was two places, in fact, but they were so
+much alike that there was nothing to choose between them. A tenement
+had been found for the O'Briens, up many flights of stairs, in a house
+with many other tenements. There was barely enough room in it for them
+to live, though it was better, in that respect, than their old cabin
+in Ireland. The stairs and the passage were far from clean, and they
+led down to a street that was just as far from clean.
+
+It was hard all over with square stones, which had sunk, in places,
+and made hollows, which were filled with muddy water. Lean cats
+scuttled about here and there, and ran away, if anybody came near
+them, as if they expected to have stones thrown at them, and then,
+when the danger seemed past, they rummaged in the ash-barrels for
+scraps of meat or fish or bread. The people who lived in the houses
+sat on the doorsteps and on the curb-stones, and chattered and
+laughed and quarrelled and slept. The sun shone into the street, but
+it could not shine between the houses. A breeze blew up from the East
+River, which was not far away, but the air was none too fresh, for all
+that. The place that had been found for the Sullivans was in another
+street, not far away. It was much the same, as I have said, but it was
+even smaller, for there were only two of the Sullivans, and they could
+get on with less space.
+
+The fairies were fairly terrified at all this. And was it any wonder?
+The poor little Good People! They had been used to a beautiful, bright
+hall, to green, fresh grass to dance on in the quiet, misty moonlight,
+and to cool shade for the day. What could they do in such a place as
+this? They remembered how the King of All Ireland had told them that
+they did not know whether the place where they were going was a place
+fit for them to live in.
+
+The first thing that the King did was to send some of the fairies in
+all directions to see if they could spy out any place where the whole
+tribe could live in a decent and comfortable manner. The street, he
+was sure, would never do. Of course, if the Fairy King wanted a rock
+or a hill to open and let him into it, it would open, and he could
+live in it, if he chose, just as he used to in his own old rath. And
+no mortal who might happen to be about would know that anything
+unusual was happening. And just so the street would open for him, if
+he wanted it to. But before he had decided to try it he saw a place
+where some men had opened it, and that was quite enough for him. If
+you have ever seen a New York street opened, you know what it was
+like; if you have not, it is of no use to try to tell you.
+
+But the messengers whom the King had sent in all directions were
+scarcely gone when those who had started toward the west were back
+with joyful news. "We have found a beautiful place," they said. "It's
+only a bit of a way from here, and if we live there we'll not be far
+from the O'Briens. Ye never saw grass smoother in your life, though
+it's not quite so green, maybe, as it is at home. And then there's
+tall trees of all kinds, and there's bushes that'll have flowers on
+them, belike, in the right time of the year. And there's smooth roads
+and walks, and there's hills and great rocks, that we could live
+inside of as easy as in a rath itself. It's a much quieter place than
+here, too, and the air is better, though it's so near. It's not wide
+toward the west, but off to the south it reaches as far as we can see,
+like a forest."
+
+The King left a guard to watch, lest the O'Briens should like the
+place as little as himself and should leave it and be lost, and then
+he hurried with the rest to see the new country that had been
+discovered. If you know New York very well indeed, you have guessed
+already that it was the north end of Central Park which the fairies
+had found. But you may know New York pretty well and not know, as a
+good many people who live in it do not, that there is any north end to
+Central Park, still less that it is far prettier than the south end.
+
+After all the distressing streets and houses that he had seen, the
+King was delighted with it. He found a big rock, which was the base of
+a hill, and at the top of it stood a queer little square stone house.
+Back in this hill, he declared, behind the rock and under the stone
+house, would be as pleasant a place to live as ever the rath was. He
+made the rock open, and he and all the fairies with him went in,
+although the policemen and the men and women in carriages and on
+horses and on bicycles and on foot who were all about, did not see
+that the rock looked at all different.
+
+"A fine place for us it will make," said the King; "we couldn't be
+asking for a better. Get to work now, all of you. Hollow out the
+inside of the hill, only leave pillars to hold up the roof, and go and
+find gold for the floor and silver for the walls, and you can have
+every other pillar gold and every other one silver, after you get the
+rest done, and take down the rock that you left. And then find
+diamonds and rubies and emeralds to light it with."
+
+No, I am not going to explain to you how the fairies did all this. I
+shall not tell you how they got the rock out nor what they did with it
+after they got it out. I will tell you all that there is any need of
+your knowing about it, and that is that in a very short time it was
+all done; that the new fairy palace was as much larger and finer and
+better than any fairy palace in Ireland ever was as we Americans
+intend that everything here shall be larger and finer and better than
+anything anywhere else. And it was all done before the most of the
+messengers who had been sent in other directions got back to tell what
+they had found.
+
+These fairies went straight to where the O'Briens lived, and there the
+fairies who had been left on guard told them where to find the King,
+and asked them to say to him that they were tired of their duty and
+they wished that he could send somebody else to take their places.
+
+The fairies were not much surprised when they found the King and all
+the tribe settled in a new palace, as comfortably as if they had never
+moved. The building of a palace in a night is no more to a fairy than
+it is to a New York man to come back after he has been out of town for
+a month and find a house twenty stories high in a place where there
+was a hole in the ground when he went away.
+
+"What's the use at all to be tellin' Your Majesty what we've found in
+the places we've been," said one of the first who came back, "and you
+livin' this minute in the finest palace that was ever dug out of a
+hill?"
+
+"You may tell us all the same," said the King.
+
+"Well and good," said the fairy. "It's to the south I've been. First
+there's all this island that we're on, down to the place with the
+grass and the iron chain around it. Then there's the bay, with the
+ships. Then there's another island, with hills and trees, and then
+there's the sea, and a long shore, all sand, and hundreds of houses,
+big and little, where people live. And that's all."
+
+Another fairy said: "I went farther to the west than this, but not
+much farther till I came to a great river. Of course I couldn't be
+crossin' the runnin' water, so I went round the mouth of it and then
+kept on. The country was all flat for a good way, and bars of iron
+everywhere, laid two and two, so many of them that I didn't dare rest
+anywhere, and there were towns and plenty of people, and then at long
+last I came to hills."
+
+I suppose you know, without my telling you, that fairies cannot bear
+to cross running water, any more than they can bear to touch iron, and
+that was why this fairy had to go around the mouth of the Hudson River
+instead of going across it.
+
+Then came another fairy, who had been to the north, and he said: "It
+beats everything, the lovely country I've seen. Never a better did I
+see anywhere. Hills and woods and mountains, and the trees all yellow
+and red and green and brown. I went up the big river on this side for
+a long way, and then I saw great mountains on the other side. So
+beautiful they looked, I wanted to go to them, only, sure, I couldn't
+cross the river. So I went round the head of it and came down back to
+the mountains. And there I found that they were full of fairies
+already. But they seemed to be Dutch, and it's little English they
+could talk, let alone Irish. Still we got along, and they gave me some
+mighty fine drink that they had. And they said that we could come
+there, the whole tribe, and welcome kindly, and I'ld say it was a good
+place to go, only it's farther off than this from them we want to be
+near."
+
+"We'll stay where we are," said the King. "It's as well that we know
+what's all around us, but here we'll be more to ourselves, as many
+people as there are, for I'm thinkin' there's no fairies but us here."
+
+Then slowly out of the crowd of fairies one came forward and said:
+"Your Majesty, could I be saying something that's breakin' my heart?
+It's hard for me to say and it'll maybe be harder for you to hear; but
+it's on my mind and I can't get it off my mind. Will you forgive me if
+I say it?"
+
+And the King answered: "It's much that's bad and a little that's good
+we've heard since we left our own home. But it's best that we know all
+there is to know, bad or good. Say what you have to say."
+
+"It's not far I've been," said the fairy; "only around here in the
+city that's all about us; but many things I've seen, and wonderful
+things. Ah, Your Majesty, don't blame me for what I'm saying, but
+what's to become of us all and of you yourself, I dunno. We know all
+about magic; we've known all about it for years--aye, for ages. And we
+thought that made us better than mortals. We thought they could never
+do the things we could do; maybe they never can. But oh, Your Majesty,
+they're doing things as good as we can do, or better. You wouldn't
+believe what the mortals in this country do, if you wasn't after
+seein' it. They do things as wonderful as we ourselves, and it's iron,
+iron, iron everywhere. We can do nothing with iron--we can't touch
+it--and what will we do at all to be ahead of them, or even up with
+them?"
+
+"What's all this they do?" said the King.
+
+"You saw yourself," the fairy said, "the coaches that went along up in
+the air. They go on bridges, miles long, built of iron. And they run
+on bars of iron. You saw for yourself that they had no horses, and the
+coach in front that pulls them is all made of iron, and men ride in
+them, as if it was no harm at all to touch iron. And that's not all.
+There are other coaches that go in the streets without horses. They
+have no iron coach in front to pull them. They go in different ways.
+Sometimes there's an iron rope, that's all the time moving and moving
+along under the street, and there's a gripping iron under the coach
+that takes hold on it, and so it's pulled along. And sometimes there's
+only a little string--not iron, I think, but some other metal--and
+something just reaches down from the coach and touches it, and that
+makes it go. I dunno how it is, but it makes it go. And sometimes
+there's fire comes out of it."
+
+Then another fairy came out of the crowd and stood before the King.
+"Your Majesty," he said, "I can tell you more than that. I have been
+about the city, too, and I went into some of the houses. I saw a man
+talking to a little box on the wall. I came close and I heard that the
+box was talking to him too. I thought there was a fairy inside it, but
+I looked inside, and there was nothing there but iron and strange
+works that I couldn't understand. There were little strings of copper
+coming out of the box, and then a long string of iron, that led away
+over the tops of the houses."
+
+The fairy stopped and shivered as he thought of the horrible string of
+iron. Then he went on: "I followed it and it came into another house,
+where there was so much iron that I couldn't stay there. But the
+strings of iron came out of this house and led in all directions. I
+followed them and I listened everywhere and I found what they were
+for, though how they do it all I dunno. And it's this way: Anywhere
+that there's a box you can talk to them that's in the house where all
+the iron strings go. And if they like to help you, you can talk to
+anybody else where there's a box. It may be a mile off or it may be a
+dozen miles off. Many a time those in the house where all the strings
+are will not help them that wants to talk, but when they will, it's
+easy. Yes, Your Majesty, one man talks to another ten miles off, as if
+he was standing by his side."
+
+"Your Majesty," said another fairy, "you saw yourself the bright
+lights that were at the place where the grass was, that we came to
+first, and you've seen thousands more of them since. Do you know that
+they're not candles, and they're not lamps, and that there's no fire
+to them at all? There's strings of something, whatever it is, from one
+of them to another, and the light goes through that, whatever it is."
+
+"There's another thing that they do with strings like that," said
+still another fairy. "I saw men doing it not far from here. They made
+a hole in a rock and they put one end of a string in it. Then where
+the other end was, a man pushed a thing like a sort of handle, and the
+rock was all burst open, and nobody had touched it."
+
+And another fairy said: "Your Majesty, there are boats all the time
+going across the rivers--across the running water. Of course we always
+knew that mortals could cross running water, but these boats go
+without sails or oars, like the ship that we came here on. To be sure
+I couldn't go on one, because it was across running water, but I went
+near one, when it was at the shore, and it was all full of iron, and I
+got the most awful pains from being near it. It was as bad, almost, as
+I felt coming here, when I'ld get too near the iron sides of the
+ship."
+
+"And a strange thing it was that I saw too," said another fairy. "I
+saw people looking into little boxes of wood, so I looked in too. And
+in one I saw a woman dancing, and in another there were horses
+running, and in another I saw two men fighting. And it was not a real
+woman or real horses or real men, but only pictures that moved and did
+the things that real people and horses would do."
+
+The King listened to all this and then he sat and thought. "What is
+there in it that I can't do?" he asked. "Do you not all know of the
+coaches in Ireland that are drawn by horses without heads and driven
+by coachmen without heads?"
+
+All the fairies looked at one another and nodded and said, "Yes, yes,
+we know."
+
+But Naggeneen came forward and stood before the throne. Nobody had
+noticed that he had been listening or that he was there. "And what if
+those coaches were in Ireland?" he said. "They had horses, though the
+horses had no heads. Can you make iron coaches go without any horses
+at all?"
+
+The King was trying to talk boldly, but he stammered and grew pale at
+the very thought of having anything to do with an iron coach, and he
+did not answer. He went on instead: "Can I not send any one of you on
+a message, as fast as the wind?"
+
+"But can you talk for ten miles," Naggeneen asked, "and will the very
+voice of you go as fast as the lightning?"
+
+"Why would I want to be doin' that," said the King, "when I can send a
+messenger as fast as I like?"
+
+"That's not the question," said the cruel Naggeneen; "can you do it?"
+
+"I never tried," said the King. "And can I not light up this palace,"
+he went on, "or any other palace, with diamonds? Can I not make a
+light so that a man who looks behind him when he is going on a journey
+or at work in the fields will think his house is on fire and run
+back?"
+
+"And when he has run back," said Naggeneen, "will he find that his
+house is on fire? You know that he will not. It's only glamour, and
+he'll soon be laughing at you. Oh, we can catch a few firebugs in
+spiders' webs and deceive a boy or a girl that's passing, and maybe
+make them turn aside and dance with us, but can you put real lights
+all over the country for miles--lights that will burn on and on and
+show real things? Our lights are lies themselves and they can no more
+than lead a silly mortal astray for a time; their lights tell the
+truth. What else can you do?"
+
+The King had lost the most of his boldness. "They say," he said, "that
+men can burst open the rock. Can I not do that as well?"
+
+"You can open this rock for us to pass through," said Naggeneen; "and
+what then? A man can see it open for a moment, if you choose to let
+him, and the next minute it's all as one as if you had never touched
+it. And the man thinks that's wonderful, for he doesn't know that you
+can do it no other way. All glamour again! Can you burst the rock open
+and leave it open, so that it will always be so, for mortal and for
+fairy?"
+
+"Why should I want to be doin' that?" said the King.
+
+"For the same reason makes the men want to do it, but you couldn't.
+And those boats that cross the river, full of iron--can you make them,
+and can you cross the running water in them?"
+
+The King had no voice to answer. "And the pictures in the boxes,"
+Naggeneen went on; "can you make pictures dance?"
+
+"Sure," said the King, "I can make a man think he sees anything I
+like--a woman dancing or a horse running, or anything."
+
+"Glamour! Glamour! Glamour!" cried Naggeneen. "You can make him think
+he sees! Yes, but he does not see. You can no more make a picture
+dance than you can cross a river!" And Naggeneen turned on his heel
+and walked off, as if he thought the King a poor creature that was not
+worth talking to.
+
+The King had no more courage left in him than if he had been talking
+to the King of All Ireland instead of to Naggeneen. "Naggeneen," he
+cried, "come back and tell us something better nor all this. It's not
+pleasant you are in your talk, and it's often you make me angry with
+you, but after all you're cleverer than any of us. Tell us what to do.
+It was not like this where we lived before. There we could do all
+manner of things that mortals could not, and they were afraid of us."
+
+"And so here too," said Naggeneen, "you can do all manner of things
+that mortals cannot, but they can do as many that you cannot--as many
+and better."
+
+"But what are we to do," the King went on, "to show them that we're
+their masters? Sure we're cleverer than them all out, and we can prove
+it in some way."
+
+"King," said Naggeneen, speaking as boldly as if he were himself a
+greater king, "you can never prove that you're cleverer than men, for
+you're not cleverer. It was a poor, wasted, weak, and sorrowful
+country that we came from, and it's a rich, new, strong, and happy
+country that we've come to. There's the differ. Clever you are, maybe,
+and your people, too, and I may be clever in my own way, and we may
+play our little tricks on mortals, as I did on the Sullivans, if
+they're as stupid as them. But mortals can be cleverer than we ever
+can when they are clever, and they can beat us every time if they know
+how. And do you know why? Because they have what we have not--because
+they have souls. I heard a school-master say once that the word
+'mortal' was made from a word that meant death. And they call mortals
+that, I'm thinkin', because they never die. But you will die, King,
+and all your people, and I. We live on and on for thousands of years,
+and men come and change and pass away, but at the last day we shall be
+gone, as a bit of cloud up in the sky is gone when the sun shines on
+it. That's why men will always be greater and finer and stronger than
+us, with all our magic."
+
+The fairies were all so terrified that they shrank away from Naggeneen
+and clung together and shook, in their fright, for this fear of living
+for a long time and then going out like a candle is their greatest
+fear. There was not a bit of color left in the King's face now. It was
+almost with a sob that he spoke again, and there was a kind of
+beseeching in his tone as he said: "Naggeneen, don't talk like that to
+us! We don't know it! It may be so, but we don't know it! We've tried
+many a time to find out, but no one that knew would ever tell us! We
+may have souls! We don't know that we've not! We may be saved!"
+
+"You do know it!" Naggeneen cried. "Why will you try to deceive
+yourselves? You've no soul and I've no soul, and there's no way that
+we can have them. If there'd been any way, I'ld have had one long ago.
+But we'll never have them, and mortals will always outwit us, if they
+half know how. Shall I tell you how one of them outwitted me--a big,
+lazy, stupid gommoch, with not enough brains to keep his neck safe?"
+
+The fairies were far past caring whether they heard a story or not,
+but they listened as Naggeneen went on. "I'm after tellin' you," he
+said, "that if there was any way that one of us could be gettin' a
+soul, I'ld have had one long ago. This was the way I tried it, and a
+silly mortal outwitted me. Guleesh na Guss Dhu was the name that was
+on him. I had heard--and I believed it--that if I could get a mortal
+woman married to me--a woman with a soul--that I would get a soul,
+too, that way. Well, I was never over-modest in my tastes, you know,
+and I thought that the daughter of the King of France was about right
+for me. A beautiful girl she was, with the rose and the lily fighting
+in her cheeks, and she was eighteen years old. But sure I thought that
+the differ of a few thousand years in our ages would be nothing to me,
+and I hoped it would be nothing to her either.
+
+"I was living in a rath and wearing a green jacket then. All the
+others in the rath promised that they'ld help me. The King's daughter
+was to be married to the son of the King of another country on
+November Eve; and you know there's no better time to steal a girl than
+the night she's to be married, and November Eve is a fine time, too,
+so it was settled that we'ld go over to France and steal her on that
+night. But, as you know, we needed a mortal to help us. How else could
+we be bringin' her across from France? If we could put her on a horse
+behind a man, she'ld have flesh and blood to take a grip of, but if
+she was put up behind one of us, she might as well try to hold to a
+puff of smoke. You know that.
+
+"We got ready, making sure that we'ld find some fool of a mortal ready
+for us when the time came, and sure enough, when we'd been out for a
+little look at the country before starting, and were coming back,
+there sat this same Guleesh na Guss Dhu, between the rath and the
+gable of his father's house, that was near by, staring up at the moon,
+like he'd never seen one before. There was no need to try to catch him
+or to bring him with us, or the likes of that. All we had to do was to
+let him hear us as we passed and let him see the door of the rath
+open, and in he came of himself to see what it was all about. We
+hadn't let him see ourselves yet, but he heard us all calling: 'My
+horse and bridle and saddle! My horse and bridle and saddle!' and what
+did he do but call out after us: 'My horse and bridle and saddle!'
+
+"There was the beam of a plough lying near, and I changed it into a
+horse for him, and pleased he was when he saw it standing forninst
+him, with its bridle of gold and saddle of silver and all. The minute
+he saw it he jumped on it, and then we let him see all ourselves and
+our horses, and he nearly fell off again, with the sight of the crowd
+of us.
+
+"Then I said to him: 'Are you coming with us to-night, Guleesh?'
+
+"'I am,' he said.
+
+"And with that we set off, and we overtook the wind that was before
+us, and the wind that was behind us did not overtake us. And we never
+stopped till we came to the sea. Then every one of us said: 'Hie over
+cap! Hie over cap!' and Guleesh said it after us, and the next second
+we was all up in the air, and we never stopped till we was in Rome.
+And why the whole tribe wanted to go by the way of Rome, never a know
+I know, for it's not on the way from Ireland to the palace of the King
+of France at all.
+
+"Then I spoke up to Guleesh and says I: 'Do you know why we brought
+you here?' says I. 'The daughter of the King of France is to be
+married this night, and we mean to carry her off, and we need you so
+that she can sit behind you on the horse, for you are flesh and blood
+and she'll have something to hold to. Will you do that for us now?'
+
+"'I'll do whatever you say,' says Guleesh; 'and where are we now, if
+you please?'
+
+"'We're in Rome,' says I.
+
+"'Oh, in Rome is it?' says Guleesh. 'Sure, then, I'm glad of that. The
+priest of our parish lost his place a little while ago, only because
+they said he drank too much, as if there'ld be any harm in that, and
+now is the fine time to go to the Pope and get a bull to put him back
+in his place.'
+
+"'Ah, we've no time for that, Guleesh,' says I, 'and we must be
+gettin' to the palace of the King of France before we lose any more.'
+
+"'Not a foot will I go,' says Guleesh, 'till I get the bull for the
+priest. You can go on and leave me here if you like, and you can stop
+for me when you come back.'
+
+"Well, we had more talk about it, and then one of the others says:
+'Sure, Naggeneen, we can't go without him and we can't get him to come
+with us, so we'll have to try to get the Pope's bull for him. Go with
+him to the Pope and help him all you can, and we'll wait for you.'
+
+"'Come with me, then,' says I, and I took him by the hand, and before
+he knew how I did it, I had him in the room where the Pope was. The
+Pope was sitting by himself, reading a book, and he had a tumbler of
+hot whiskey, with a little bit of sugar, beside him on the table, all
+as comfortable as you please. 'Now, Guleesh,' says I, 'ask him for the
+bull, and tell him that if he won't give it to you, you'll set the
+house on fire. Then leave the rest to me.'
+
+"So Guleesh walked up to him as bold as you please, and when the Pope
+saw him he was near scared to death, because he thought that nobody
+could get into the room where he was. Then Guleesh says to him: 'Don't
+be afraid, Your Honor; all I want of you is your bull to put our
+parish priest back in his place, that lost it some time ago, because
+somebody told lies about him and said that he drank too much. And when
+I have your bull I'll be leavin' you in peace again.'
+
+"'Go on out o' this,' says the Pope; 'where are all my servants?' and
+he began calling for them, but Guleesh put his back against the door,
+so that nobody could open it on the other side, and then he began
+telling the Pope all about the priest, and the Pope had nothing to do
+but listen.
+
+"And when he was done the Pope refused up and down to give him any
+pardon for the priest. 'Then,' says Guleesh, 'unless you give it to
+me at once I'll burn your house.' And with that I began blowing fire
+out of my mouth all around the room.
+
+"'Oh, stop the fire,' cries the Pope, 'and I'll give you the pardon or
+anything else you ask!'
+
+"So then I stopped the fire, and the Pope sat down and wrote the
+pardon for the priest, giving him back his old place, and gave it to
+Guleesh. That second I caught him by the hand and we were off again
+through the keyhole to where the other fairies were. In another minute
+we were all on our horses and away again. We overtook the wind that
+was before us, and the wind that was behind us did not overtake us
+till we were at the palace of the King of France. And there my fine
+boy Guleesh saw sights that he never saw the like of before.
+
+"The place was almost as fine as this of yours here. There were long
+tables all about it, with everything on them that a body would be
+wanting to eat and drink, and as fast as any of it was eaten or drunk,
+there was more put in its place. Then there were hundreds of noblemen
+and ladies, all in clothes of silk and velvet and gold and silver, and
+all covered with jewels, till they shone in the light of the gold
+chandeliers, almost like they'd been chandeliers themselves. And they
+were talking and laughing and singing and playing, and some of them
+were dancing--not so well as we dance, of course, when we've a mind,
+but enough to make Guleesh think he was seeing the grandest sight that
+ever was in the world entirely. And up at one end of the hall was an
+altar and two bishops, ready to marry the Princess to the King's son
+as soon as it would be the right time.
+
+"'And which of them all is the Princess?' says Guleesh to me.
+
+"'That one there near to ye,' says I, pointing her out."
+
+Naggeneen stopped in his story and seemed to forget for a moment that
+he was telling it. "Oh, but she was the beauty of the world!" he went
+on, speaking so low that the fairies could scarcely hear him. "There
+was the lily and the rose in her cheeks, and her arms like snow, and
+her hair like soft gold. Not like the gold that you dig out of the
+ground for your palace, but gold with life in it. And her eyes were
+like two big violets with the dew on them. And there stood the others
+all around her, all merry and happy, and she--
+
+"'What is she crying for?' says Guleesh to me. 'Sure it's not right
+that eyes like those would have tears in them.'
+
+"'True for you, it's not, Guleesh,' said I, 'and it's because there's
+no love in her heart for the man that she's to be married to. It's
+her father that's compelling her, for he has some arrangement of the
+sort with the other King, that's the father of the young man. And it's
+for that,' I said, 'that we're going to carry her off, and it's the
+best thing we could be doing for her as well as ourselves.'
+
+"Just that minute the young Prince came and offered her his hand, and
+away they went in the dance, and the tears in her eyes all the time.
+And as soon as the dance was over, the King, her father, and the
+Queen, her mother, came and said that it was time they were married,
+and the two bishops waiting there all the time. So they led the Prince
+and the Princess up toward the altar, and she with the rose all gone
+out of her cheeks and only the lily left. But when they were not more
+than four yards from the altar I put out my foot before the Princess,
+and she fell, and then, with a word of a charm, I made her invisible
+to all but Guleesh and ourselves. Then I made a sign to Guleesh, and
+he took up the Princess and ran with her out of the hall, and all the
+rest of us after them. 'My horse and bridle and saddle!' says every
+one of us, and the same says Guleesh. He lifted the Princess up behind
+him on his horse and we were away again. We overtook the wind that was
+before us, and the wind that was behind us did not overtake us till
+we came to the sea. 'Hie over cap!' cried every one of us, and 'Hie
+over cap!' cried Guleesh, and in a moment we were in Ireland again.
+
+"Another minute and we were close to our own rath, and it was then
+that all the work of the night was lost. For then what did the fool
+Guleesh do but take the Princess in his arms and leap down off his
+horse, and he cried: 'I call you to myself, in the name of--' Oh, now,
+you little cowards, you've no call to shrink away like that and to try
+to be hiding in the dark corners! You know I can't say the name that
+he said. But he said it, and then the enchantment was all gone, and he
+saw that the horse he'd been riding was nothing but the beam of a
+plough and that the horse that each of the others had was only an old
+broom, or maybe a rag weed, or the like of that.
+
+"And you know that there was no getting the Princess away from him
+after the words that he said. But I came close to her and struck her
+on the mouth. 'Now, Guleesh,' said I, 'you may keep her if you will,
+but she'll be dumb forever.' And with that we all disappeared from
+them.
+
+"But you may be sure I watched them. They stood there together and
+Guleesh talked to her and tried to make her talk back, but it was of
+no use at all, and he soon found that she was dumb completely. Then
+he stood thinking what would he do with her, and at last he took her
+by the hand and started toward the priest's house. It was getting near
+day now, and the priest was up by the time they came to the door, and
+he opened it himself. And when he saw Guleesh and the girl, sure he
+thought they were come to be married, and he said: 'Ah, Guleesh, isn't
+it the nice boy ye are, that ye can't wait till a decent hour to be
+married, but ye must be comin' to me this early? And don't ye know I
+can't marry ye lawfully anyway, and I put out of my place?'
+
+"Then says Guleesh: 'Sure, father, you can marry me or anybody else
+you like, for you have your place back again, and here's the Pope's
+bull for that same. But it's not that I come for, but to ask you to
+give shelter to this young lady, the daughter of the King of France.'
+
+[Illustration: "HERE'S THE POPE'S BULL FOR THAT SAME."]
+
+"And with that he takes the Pope's bull out of his pocket and gives it
+to the priest, and the priest looked at the writing and the seal and
+saw that there was no doubt but it was right. And so he made Guleesh
+and the Princess come in and sit down, while Guleesh told him the
+whole story, and not a word of it would he have believed only there
+was the Pope's bull that he couldn't deny, and so at long last he had
+to believe all that Guleesh told him. And the end of it was that the
+Princess stayed at the priest's house, for they didn't know how to
+send her back to her father's palace, and they had no money, and she
+couldn't speak to help them. And the priest gave out that she was the
+daughter of his brother, that lived in another county, and that she
+was making him a visit. And Guleesh went home and said how he'd been
+sleeping beside the rath all night."
+
+Naggeneen paused in his story, while all the fairies drew quietly
+closer to him. "Do you see," he said, "how I was tricked by a fool of
+a mortal? Oh, she was the beauty of the world, and he took her from me
+with a word, as easily as you'ld steal the butter out of a churn. And
+that was not all.
+
+"I said to myself that I was not done with my revenge on them yet. She
+could not speak and it was a sore punishment on the both of them. Yet
+she stayed on at the priest's house. The priest wrote letters to her
+father, as I heard, and gave them to merchants who were travelling,
+but none of them ever reached him. And Guleesh got mighty serious
+about his soul all at once, so that he had to be at the priest's house
+every day, and every day he saw the Princess. She could never talk to
+him, but she learned to make signs that he could understand. And so it
+went on for a year.
+
+"And then, when it was November Eve again, and we had been out of
+the rath and were all coming into it again in a great crowd, there sat
+Guleesh, the same as before. He couldn't see us, but he must have
+heard us, for you could see that he was listening with all his ears.
+And I thought now was the fine time to be having the laugh on him. By
+that time everybody was shouting: 'My horse and bridle and saddle! My
+horse and bridle and saddle!' and Guleesh shouted as before: 'My horse
+and bridle and saddle! My horse and bridle and saddle!'
+
+"'Now is my chance to be even with him,' thought I, and I said: 'Ah,
+Guleesh, my boy, is that yourself that's to the fore again? You'll get
+no horse to-night and you'll play no more tricks on us. How are you
+getting on with your Princess? Does she talk to you much? Or do you
+just like to sit and look at her?'
+
+"And when I said that, he looked so pale and so sad that I almost
+screamed with joy, and I couldn't keep myself from whispering to the
+man that was next to me: 'And isn't he the stupid omadhaun, not to
+know that there's an herb growing close to his own door that would
+give her back her speech if he'd only boil it and give it to her?'
+
+"'It's the stupid omadhaun he is,' said the other man.
+
+"Oh, and it was me that was the omadhaun, to be saying it at all. Oh,
+why couldn't I hold my jaw? But it was like some spell was on me, and
+I had to say it. I had to say it! I couldn't have kept it back if I'd
+tried. And he heard every word!
+
+"It's little more there is to tell. The next morning, as soon as there
+was light, there was Guleesh searching for any herb that was strange
+to him around the door. And it was not long till he found it. Then he
+boiled it, and he drank some of it himself, to see whether it might be
+poison, and it put him into a deep sleep. And when he woke he went to
+the priest's house and told the whole story and gave the Princess some
+of the drink, and then she went to sleep and did not wake till the
+next day. And when she woke she had her speech back.
+
+"Ah, well, by this time they was both in love with each other, and all
+that I did for myself or against them had only helped them. But it was
+not long before the Princess was saying that she must be off to her
+father, and nothing that the priest and Guleesh could do would make
+her stay. So the priest took the jewels that she had on her when
+Guleesh first brought her, and he sold them and gave her the money,
+and she took it and paid her way back to France.
+
+"And after that great grief and melancholy came over Guleesh, and
+nothing would do him but he must start off for France to find the
+Princess again. Start off he did, and that was the last that I ever
+saw of him, only I heard that he found the Princess at her father's
+court and that at long last they were married."
+
+There was nothing strange in the last that Naggeneen had told--nothing
+more strange, I mean, than that a peasant boy should marry the
+daughter of the King of France--but his voice, before he had ended,
+was so low and so full of grief that all the other fairies kept very
+still to listen, and when he had told his story none of them spoke for
+a little while. At last the King said: "How long was all this ago,
+Naggeneen?"
+
+"Many years," Naggeneen answered; "I couldn't be counting how many."
+
+"Then what is it to you now?" said the King. "Sure they're both dead
+long ago, and here are you as sound as ever."
+
+"Yes," Naggeneen cried, "as sound as ever and as sound as I'll ever
+be. They're not dead. They had souls. They're alive now, and when what
+they call 'the Last Day' comes, they'll live still, forever. And then
+I shall go out, like a shadow when the light falls on it. There's no
+more of me that can last than a shadow. And you will go out that way,
+too, and all of us. It was not her that I wanted so much. It was the
+soul that I thought I'ld get, and her married to me. That was it. And
+a stupid mortal had tricked me twice. It was then I left the rath. It
+was then I could bear to look at nobody, man or fairy. Then I put on
+the red jacket and went by myself. After a time I was a lepracaun, and
+a cluricaun, and nothing at all, as it suited me, and sometimes I
+lived in a rath with others, as I have in yours, and other times I
+went by myself. But I never forgot how I was tricked by a mortal, and
+I've never forgot how I missed getting a soul when I was near to it.
+
+"You've never liked me; you've always thought me sour and harsh and
+cruel. Do you see why now? Since that time I've always hated all men,
+because of the one that tricked me; and I've always hated all women,
+because of the one I lost; and I've always hated all fairies, because
+they are all as weak and helpless and pitiful as myself. I hate myself
+and I hate all of you, because there's no good for any of us in all
+the world forever."
+
+"Naggeneen," said the King, "we've never been too fond of you, it's
+true, but maybe we'ld have liked you better if you'd told us this
+before. But you're cleverer than all of us. Tell us what we'll do now,
+so that these mortals won't be getting the better of us all out."
+
+"What'll you do?" Naggeneen answered; "there's nothing you can do.
+They'll outwit you, whatever you do."
+
+"But there must be some way. Tell us what to do, Naggeneen," the King
+pleaded.
+
+"I'll tell you what to do, then," said Naggeneen; "send out your
+people and let them learn the ways of men. Let them learn to make the
+iron coaches that go up in the air; let them learn to make the coaches
+that go on the ground, with the iron ropes; let them learn to talk
+miles away through iron strings; let them learn to make the bright
+lights that you see; let them learn to open the rock so that it will
+not close again; let them learn to cross running water in boats full
+of iron; let them learn to handle iron and do what they like with it,
+as if it were only gold, and then, maybe, they'll be able to do all
+the things that men do."
+
+The fairies were simply cowering away from the King and Naggeneen and
+shivering and squealing with fright at the talk of handling iron and
+crossing running water. "Ah, Naggeneen," said the King, "you know we
+can't do all that. Tell us what we'll do at all."
+
+"There's nothing that you can do," said Naggeneen. "There's only one
+thing I know you can try, and I think that'll do no good either."
+
+"But what is it?" said the King. "We'll try it, anyway."
+
+"It's not the time to try it yet," Naggeneen answered. "When the time
+comes I'll tell you."
+
+"Then, Naggeneen," said the King, "give us a tune out of the fiddle."
+
+And Naggeneen took the fiddle and played. But there was no merriment
+in it now. It was only the breath of sorrow and loss and
+disappointment that breathed from the shivering strings. The fairies
+did not dance; they only stood and listened, pale and still. In a few
+moments the King gave the sign for Naggeneen to stop, and in a minute
+more the lights were out and the whole palace was as quiet as the
+hill, before any palace was there.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+V
+
+THE TIME FOR NAGGENEEN'S PLAN
+
+
+Little happened that needs to be told in the next few months, either
+to the fairies or to the human people. John O'Brien and Peter Sullivan
+were not long in finding work to do, and they were paid for it, and
+the two families got on better than they had in Ireland. The O'Briens
+got on better than the Sullivans. John was a better workman than
+Peter. Peter could do the work that was set before him in the way that
+he was told. But John could do better than that. He could see for
+himself how the work ought to be done, and he saw that if he did it
+well he might get better work to do. In Ireland, work as he would, he
+could no more than live, and so he had come to care little what he did
+or how he did it. But it was different here. The men who employed him
+saw that he was not a common workman, and soon they gave him better
+than the common work and more than the common pay.
+
+But Peter was a common workman. Then, too, John's mother knew how to
+care for the house better than Ellen did, and because of that, too,
+the O'Briens did better. Every day, just as she used to do in Ireland,
+Mrs. O'Brien left something to eat and drink outside the house for the
+Good People. She said that she did not know whether there were any
+Good People here, but if there were they must be well treated. And
+when she found that what she left for them was taken, she said that
+she knew that there were Good People here. Of course she did not know
+that they were the same ones who had lived near them in Ireland. She
+put the milk and the water and the bread, or whatever she had for
+them, on the fire-escape, at the back of the rooms where they lived.
+And first she always laid down a little piece of carpet to put the
+dishes on, so that the fairies could come and get the food without
+touching the iron, for she knew that they could never do that. There
+was only one thing that did not go well with the O'Briens. Kitty's
+health did not come back to her, as they had hoped that it would. She
+did not need to do any work now, though she would do some, and the
+rest was good for her, but she was still pale and still weak.
+
+Though the Sullivans did not find their fortunes so much improved in
+the new country as the O'Briens did, yet they felt that they had
+gained, too, and in one way especially. For the King of the fairies
+had forbidden Naggeneen to trouble them any more. Naggeneen asked what
+for at all he had come over all the sea, if he was not to trouble the
+Sullivans. The King was always ready enough to have Naggeneen's help,
+when he thought that his cleverness would be of use; but there were
+times when he would be obeyed, and this was one of them, so Naggeneen
+had to do as he was told.
+
+The King tried all the things that Naggeneen had told him to do, to
+make his people learn all the wonderful magic that the human people
+knew so well. Naggeneen had told him at first that it would all be of
+no use, and so the King found it. The fairies were sent out to watch
+the men, to see all that they did, and to learn how to do it. It was
+all in vain.
+
+The King often asked Naggeneen what was the one other way that he had
+said they might try. Naggeneen would never tell. When the time came to
+try it, he said, he would tell what it was, but it would be of no more
+use than the rest that they had done. Naggeneen laughed at all the
+others when they came home baffled and out of sorts. "You'll never do
+the things that men do," he said, "any more than they'll ever do the
+things that you do. And their wonders are more and better than yours."
+
+After a time they ceased to try to learn any more. They began to live
+much as they had lived in Ireland. They had found a green place where
+they could dance, near the palace, but it was winter now, and the snow
+was over everything much of the time. They went to the O'Briens every
+day for the food that was left outside the window for them, and, for
+the most part, they spent the rest of the time in the palace. Often
+Naggeneen played the fiddle or the pipes for them. Then they forgot
+that it was his fault that they had ever come here, but when he
+stopped playing they remembered it and hated him again. And Naggeneen
+laughed at them. He had a strange laugh, without a bit of merriment or
+good-humor in it. There was something sad in his laugh and something
+sour, but nothing that it was pleasant to hear.
+
+Then the spring began to come. The grass was looking a bit green and
+the air was warmer. They could dance on the grass now, whenever they
+liked. They had given up trying to learn the ways of men, and they
+were beginning to feel as if they had always lived here. Then
+Naggeneen came one evening and stood before the King and said: "It is
+the time now to try my plan, if you want to try it, but it's no
+good."
+
+"What's the plan, then, at all?" the King asked.
+
+"You know well," said Naggeneen, "that your people can find out
+nothing by going out and watching what men do. Now, what you want is
+to get a human child here, or maybe two of them, and keep them and let
+them grow up with you here, and then send them out to learn everything
+that men do, and come back and teach it to your people. Then you'll
+learn all these things that men do, and you can do the like."
+
+"Ah, Naggeneen," said the King, "it's yourself was always the clever
+boy. We'll do that same."
+
+"You will so," Naggeneen replied, "and no good will it ever do you.
+I've told you before and I tell you again, you'll never do the things
+that men do. But it's crazy you are to try all ways, and I have to be
+telling you the ways to try. Go on and do it, if it divarts you."
+
+"And where'll we get the human child at all?" the Queen asked.
+
+"Sure then," said Naggeneen, "and haven't you heard the news? Why,
+there's a baby at the Sullivans' since this morning, and one at the
+O'Briens' since this afternoon. The one at the Sullivans' is a boy
+and the one at the O'Briens' is a girl. Go and get them and leave two
+of your own people in their places. You know how to do that; it's
+nothing new to you."
+
+"Take a child from the O'Briens!" the Queen cried. "From them that's
+always been so good to us and always given us the bit and sup, when
+they scarcely had it themselves? I'd never do such a thing."
+
+"But you'ld be leaving one of your own people in the place of it,"
+Naggeneen answered, "and they'ld never know the differ. Or if they
+did, it would be no matter. A woman makes a great hullabaloo when her
+child looks sick and she thinks it's dying on her, but she doesn't
+care at all after a little. And then, it doesn't die, and she thinks
+it's her own child all the time, and there's no harm done. And His
+Majesty here thinks it's going to do a power of good for all of you.
+It's not, but he thinks it is."
+
+"We'll never take a child from the O'Briens if I can help it," the
+Queen said. "From the Sullivans I don't care, but not from the
+O'Briens."
+
+"We'll have to do it," said the King. "I don't like to hurt the
+O'Briens myself, but it's for the good of us all, and it's our only
+chance. These mortals are getting ahead of us that far, and they'll be
+doing something next that will exterminate us entirely. We'll send
+and get both the children."
+
+The Queen urged again that the O'Briens had always been good to the
+Good People and must not be harmed, but the King had his mind set on
+Naggeneen's plan and he would hear of nothing else. It was settled and
+it could not be changed. They must have both children. They should
+live among the fairies till they were old enough to be sent out to
+learn the ways of men. And they should always come back and teach the
+fairies the ways of men that they had learned.
+
+"And it's to-night we'd better be doing it, if we're to do it at all,"
+said the King. "Now, who'll be the ones to go and be put in the place
+of the children?"
+
+Nobody seemed to care about going to play the part of a baby with the
+Sullivans, or even with the O'Briens. Everybody was trying to get out
+of the King's sight behind the others. "We'ld have to be lyin' still
+all day," one whispered, "with never a dance to rest ourselves with."
+
+"They might be puttin' holy water on us," said another, and all who
+heard him shivered.
+
+"There'll be all sorts of unpleasantness, anyway," said a third.
+
+"Maybe they'ld find us out," said a fourth, "and then they'ld be
+puttin' all sorts of horrible charms on us to be rid of us."
+
+But the King called one of the women and told her that she must go and
+stay in the place of the baby at the O'Briens. She whimpered a little,
+but she knew that what the King said must be done. Then the King
+looked around him and said, "Where's Naggeneen got to at all now?"
+
+"Here I am to the fore," said Naggeneen.
+
+"You'll go," said the King, "and you'll be put in the place of the boy
+that's at the Sullivans."
+
+"I go!" said Naggeneen. "Never a step. Didn't I tell you of the plan?
+And that's enough. Now do it for yourself. I don't belong to you and
+you know it. Do your own work."
+
+"I'll not be disputin' with you," said the King. "Whether you belong
+to me or no, you're in my palace along with my tribe, and you'll do
+what I tell you. It's tired of you I've been this great while, and now
+I've a chance to be rid of you. You'll go to the Sullivans and you'll
+stay there and you'll grow up like their child. And mind you play your
+part well and don't let them know what you are. If you do, they'll
+work some charm on you and be rid of you, and then we'll have to send
+back the real child, and all your own plan will be lost."
+
+"And how will you carry out my plan without me?" Naggeneen asked.
+"Don't I always tell you what to do? You'll want me a dozen times a
+day."
+
+"We'll not want you at all. You do tell us what to do and we do it
+when we like, and it's small good ever came of it. And then, if we do
+want anything of you, we know where to find you, and we'll easily come
+to you. It's been done before. You was left in the place of a young
+man that was taken away once before, and when the tribe that you was
+with then wanted to talk to you they came to you, and we can do the
+same if we like, but I don't think we shall like."
+
+"That's just it," Naggeneen cried; "did you know about that time? This
+time would be just like it. Do you know how they drove me off? I
+couldn't help it then and I couldn't help it again. There's times when
+it seems like there's a charm on me, and so there is, belike, and I
+have to do a thing that it's bad for me to do. Do you know the whole
+of it, how it was that time?
+
+"It was a man that time, as you say, and not a child. Rickard the Rake
+he was called, I remember, and a fine rake he was. Never a bit of work
+would he do, but he'ld always be at every fair or wake or the like of
+that. And so little good there was in him that the fairies in the rath
+where I was then said: 'It's an easy thing it'll be stealing him away,
+and serve him right, too, and he'll be handy for us, he's so good a
+dancer.'
+
+"I was ordered to be the one to be left in his place, though I knew no
+good would come of it. And so one night, when he was dancing, we
+struck him with a dart in the hip, and he fell down where he was. And
+then, in all the bother and the noise that there was, it was easy to
+get him away and to leave me in the place of him. So they took me up
+and put me in bed and nursed me and did all they could think of for
+me, and me all the time squirming and squealing, like it was dying I
+was.
+
+"They gave me everything I could think of to eat, and that was not so
+bad, for I never lived better in my life; but it was worn out I was
+getting, with lying there all the time and playing sick, and never a
+chance to stir about or get any air or a minute to myself. And the
+thing I was spoiling for was a tune out of the pipes or the fiddle.
+Then they brought a fairy-man to look at me, and he said it was a
+fairy and not Rickard at all that was in it, and I couldn't be telling
+you all the bad names he put on me and the things he said about me.
+And he said: 'Leave a pair of bagpipes near him, and maybe he'll play
+them. You know well Rickard never could play at all, and so if he
+plays them we'll know that it's not Rickard, but a fairy changeling,
+and then we'll know what to do.'"
+
+Just here I must stop Naggeneen in his story for a minute, to tell you
+that when people in Ireland speak of a "fairy-man" they do not mean a
+man fairy. They mean a man who knows all about fairies. The fairy-men
+know all that the fairies can do, and they know the charms against
+them and the ways to cure a sickness that the fairies have brought
+upon anyone, and the ways to keep them from stealing the cream from
+the milk and the milk from the cow. So the people have great respect
+for a fairy-man or a fairy-woman, and they often send to one of them
+for help, when they think that the fairies may have done them a
+mischief.
+
+"They left the pipes beside me," Naggeneen went on, "and then they
+went away. Oh, it was then I had the terrible time all out. Oh, may I
+never long for anything again as I longed to play them pipes! But I
+knew that they'ld be listening and watching, and if they caught me at
+it, I'ld have to pay for it, if they could make me. So I kept my hands
+off them and only groaned and took on as if the dart in my hip was
+killing me entirely.
+
+"Then there was one hot afternoon, and everything was still about the
+house, and it was the harvest time, and they all had a right to be in
+the fields at work. And sure I thought it was there they were. And
+then the wish to play the pipes came on me worse than ever before. And
+it was then that it was like there was a charm on me, as I was telling
+you. I had to do what I did. I could no more help doing it than a girl
+can help dancing with us, when we get her in our ring on May Eve. But
+first I opened the door a crack and looked out into the kitchen, to
+see was there anybody there, and there was nobody. But they were all
+in another room, as I found out after, waiting and listening. There
+was the fairy-man and a fairy-woman and all the people of the house,
+and some of the neighbors.
+
+"But if I'd seen them all I dunno if I could have done other than I
+did, the power, whatever it was, was on me that strong. And I took the
+pipes and played. It was soft I played at first, and then the music
+got the better of me and I went on more and louder, and I played tunes
+and tunes. I could play as well then as I can now, and so the other
+fairies, that had been without me for some time, must have heard me
+playing, for soon I heard the rustle and the whisper and the patter of
+their coming, and then they gathered round me, and I had been left
+there lonely for so long that I kept on playing, to keep them with me.
+
+"It was then the fairy-man and the fairy-woman began talking, and I
+heard every word they said, as no doubt they meant I should. 'What'll
+we do with the little beast at all?' says she.
+
+"'We'll do something that's not too unpleasant at first,' says he.
+'We'll take him and hold his head under the water, and see will that
+drive any of the devilment out of him.'
+
+"'Oh, the thief!' says she. 'That's not the way to treat him at all.
+Let's heat the shovel and put him on it and throw him out the window.'
+
+"'Ah, why will you be that cruel?' says he. 'Just let me heat the
+tongs red hot in the fire and then I'll catch him by the nose with
+them, and we'll find out will that make him go home and send poor
+Rickard back to us.'
+
+"'That's not enough,' says she. 'I'll go and bring some of the juice
+of the lussmore that I have, and we'll make him drink it, and then if
+he's a fairy he'll wish that he was a man, so that he could die, it'll
+make that consternation inside him.'
+
+"'We'll do the both of them things,' says he, and with that they both
+started into the kitchen, and all the rest of the people after them.
+But you may believe that by that time I was not there at all. I'd had
+enough of their kindness and I didn't think it was right to wait for
+any more of it. But I looked in at the window for a last glimpse of
+them, and one of the women saw me, and she screamed, and then the
+fairy-man made after me with the tongs, and I had to vanish
+completely. And you know what would happen then. When they drove me
+off, of course we had to send back Rickard, and there they found him
+the next morning, asleep in his bed, as sound as ever he was in his
+life.
+
+"And that was not all. The lesson that he'd had was enough for him,
+and he left drinking and fighting and swearing, and he helped his old
+father and his brothers on the farm, and he was another man
+altogether. And so it's as I told you. You can never get the better of
+men, if they know anything, and all you do to hurt them only helps
+them. And so it will be if you send me to the Sullivans."
+
+"If you're done talking about it now," said the King, "you'll go to
+the Sullivans and stay in the place of the child that we're to carry
+off. It's not likely they'll be leaving any pipes or any fiddle about
+for you to play on, and you can stay there quite comfortable.
+
+"Off with him now!" the King cried to a dozen of his men, "and mind
+you don't come back without the child. And the same to you," he said
+again to others of his men; "take the woman and leave her in the place
+of the child at the O'Briens'."
+
+The two parties were off, like two little swarms of bees, the one with
+Naggeneen and the other with the woman. The rest of the fairies
+waited. The Queen sat on her throne, with her face turned away from
+the rest and hidden in her hands. The King, with a troubled face, sat
+looking straight before him, not moving an eye or a hand. The others
+stood as far off as they could go. Nobody played; nobody danced;
+nobody laughed or whispered. They waited and watched and listened.
+Then there was a little murmur and buzz of one of the parties coming
+back. It was the one that had been to the Sullivans.
+
+The King looked up and seemed to look through the fairies without
+seeing them. "Have you the child with you?" he asked.
+
+"We have," said the leader.
+
+"And where's Naggeneen?" the King asked.
+
+"Lying in the bed beside Mrs. Sullivan," the leader answered, "and
+squealing like a pig under a gate."
+
+"Give the child something to eat and make him comfortable," said the
+King.
+
+The Queen turned suddenly around. "Don't give him anything to eat
+yet," she said. "We've nothing here but our own food. You couldn't
+give him that. What did you bring him here for? Was it not so that you
+could send him out again, as he grows up, to learn to do the things
+that men do? And if he touched a bit of our food or our drink, you
+know he could never leave us."
+
+"That's the true word," said the King. "Here! Some of you go to the
+O'Briens' and see is there any milk left out of the window. And bring
+back enough so there'll be some for the other child, when we get her."
+
+As the fairies set off on this errand there came a sound like the
+whistling of the wind through the door, and those who had gone to
+bring the O'Briens' child were back. They were back in a whirl and a
+rush and a scramble and a rout. They were all screaming and crying and
+whimpering and gabbling and gibbering together, and they all fell and
+sprawled together in a heap before the King. In the midst of them was
+the woman who had been sent to take the place of the O'Briens' child.
+
+"What for are you here without the child?" the King cried. "And what
+are you all doing there on the floor, like fish tumbled out of a
+basket? Get up and tell me what's wrong with you! Where is the
+child?"
+
+The fairies all choked and gasped and groaned and tried to speak. Then
+the leader of the party staggered up to his feet and stammered out:
+"The child is where it was before we went for it. We could not bring
+it; we could not take it; we could not touch it. You might as well be
+asking us to bring a lily from the fields of heaven."
+
+"And why could you not take it?" the King asked. "Was the mother
+holding it so fast in her arms? Could you not make her look the other
+way while you'ld be taking it? Could you not put some charm on her so
+that she'ld let it go? Or was she praying all the time, so that you
+could do nothing with her? Or was she making those signs over it that
+none of us can stand?"
+
+"No, no," said the leader, so low that they could scarcely hear him;
+"no, it wasn't that; the mother was doing none of them things. The
+mother was dead!"
+
+For a minute everybody was still. The Queen started and looked at the
+leader of the party and leaned toward him. All the others gazed at him
+too. Then the King said, "And why did you not bring the child?"
+
+"I'm after telling you we couldn't touch the child," the leader
+answered. "I went to take it, and all at once I felt burning hot, and
+like I was all dried up into a cinder, and I think they must have
+drawn a circle of fire round the child. And then I had that fearful
+feeling that you have when you're near a horseshoe nail. There must
+have been one somewhere about. You couldn't mistake that feeling--as
+if needles of ice were going all through and through you. And so I was
+driven back and could get no nearer to the child."
+
+The woman who had been sent to take the place of the child was
+standing near the King now, though she could scarcely stand at all,
+and her face was all wet with tears. "But they made me go nearer to
+the child than that," she cried. "These others pushed me close to her,
+so that I'ld take her place and give the child to them. And I felt
+burned up like a cinder, too, and then I felt the icy needles, and
+then worse than that. I felt as if I was all cut across and across and
+through and through with flaming swords, and torn with red-hot saws.
+Not the way it is when you divide yourself, so that you can be in two
+places at once. Anybody can do that, and it hurts no more than cutting
+a lock of hair, but this was--oh! there's only one thing could do
+this. There was a pair of open scissors lying close to the child, and
+I almost touched them!"
+
+She could say no more, and there was no more to be said. "You
+couldn't get the child, then," said the King, "and there's the end of
+it. Nobody could, if they did all them things. I dunno how it is," the
+King went on, half to himself, "a child lies there with a pair of
+scissors open near by, and a horseshoe nail close to it--maybe hung
+around its neck--and a circle drawn around it with a coal of fire, and
+it never minds it at all. It sleeps and wakes and lies there as
+peaceful and happy and quiet as if there was nothing at all out of the
+common about it. I dunno how they can do it. They're queer people,
+these mortals. We can't get the girl. They was too clever for us. But
+we've got the boy, and we'll do the best we can with him."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+VI
+
+LITTLE KATHLEEN AND LITTLE TERENCE
+
+
+The next morning John O'Brien was sitting alone, when there was a
+knock at the door. Then Peter Sullivan opened it, said "God save all
+here!" and came in.
+
+"God save you kindly!" John answered.
+
+"It's distressed we are," said Peter, "to hear of the death of poor
+Kitty. Ellen would be here with me to tell you so, only bein' in bed
+herself and not able to stir, and what'll come to all of us I dunno.
+I'm that disturbed about her I dunno what I'll do at all. I left her
+with one of the neighbors and came to see your mother about her. But
+sure it's you has the great grief on you already, whatever comes to
+us. It's not only you I'm thinkin' of, but it's the child, left with
+no mother. Oh, it's a terrible thing."
+
+"My own mother can bring up any child," John answered. "Have no fear
+of that. It's us that knew Kitty that'll feel the loss of her."
+
+"And how is the child doing, anyway?" Peter asked.
+
+"She looks fine and healthy, glory be to God!" said John.
+
+"It's a girl, they tell me."
+
+"It is."
+
+"Do you know yet what you'll call her?"
+
+"We'll name her Kathleen, after her mother," said John.
+
+"Then you'll be calling her Kitty, like her mother, I suppose."
+
+"No--no," John answered, slowly; "I don't think I'll call her that.
+The child will be always Kathleen. I dunno if I can tell you how I
+feel about that. It was a name for a child, more than a
+woman--Kitty--and yet, now that she's gone from me, I've a feeling
+like it was something more than the name of a woman--like it was
+something holy, like the name of the blessed Mother of God. When I
+think of that name now, I want to think only of her, and I wouldn't
+like to be calling even her own child by it. It's Kathleen I'll call
+her--nothing else."
+
+"You're right about all that, no doubt," said Peter; "but I can't be
+staying here, and Ellen and the child at home the way they are. You
+have your child left, and you say it's healthy--thank God for that
+same!--but it looks like I might have neither wife nor child."
+
+"Don't say that, man alive," said John; "what's the matter at all
+then?"
+
+"I can't stop discoursin' here," Peter answered. "I came to ask would
+your mother, being a knowledgable woman, step over for a bit and see
+can she tell at all what's the matter with Ellen and the child. There
+was a doctor there, but he seemed to do no good, and Ellen said your
+mother would know more than all the doctors, so I came to ask would
+she come. And if you care to come yourself, I'll be telling you how
+they are as we go along, but I can't stay here; it's too long to be
+away from them."
+
+"Mother is with the child," said John; "I'll speak to her."
+
+He went into another room, where the baby was sleeping and his mother
+was sitting beside her. He told her why Peter had come. "Step
+downstairs," said Mrs. O'Brien, "and ask Mrs. Mulvey will she sit by
+the baby till I'm back. Then I'll go with him. And you'd better come,
+too, John; the air will do you good."
+
+John went down to another of the tenements in the house and came back
+with their neighbor, Mrs. Mulvey. "If you'll be so kind," Mrs. O'Brien
+said, "sit here by the baby till I'm back, and I'll not be long. And
+mind you keep everything as it is, unless she wakes, and then you'll
+know what to do as well as I, for you've children of your own. But
+don't disturb the pair of scissors that's there beside her, and don't
+take off the horseshoe nail that's hung round her neck."
+
+"And what's them things for?" Mrs. Mulvey asked, with wonder in her
+eyes.
+
+"Why, to keep the Good People from stealing the child," Mrs. O'Brien
+answered. "Did you never hear of those things? Don't you know the Good
+People can't stand the touch of iron, or even to be near it? And
+especially a horseshoe nail they can't stand. And the scissors, too,
+they couldn't come near, and then leaving them open they make a cross,
+and that keeps the child all the more from the Good People."
+
+John and his mother left Mrs. Mulvey with little Kathleen and went
+with Peter. "And what's wrong with Ellen, then?" Mrs. O'Brien asked.
+
+"I dunno that there's so much wrong with herself, as you might say,"
+Peter answered. "I think it's more than anything else that she's
+worried about the child."
+
+"And what's wrong with the child, then?"
+
+"There's everything wrong with the child," said Peter. "It's not like the
+same child at all. Last night he was as healthy a boy as you'ld wish to
+see--quiet and peaceable and good-tempered and strong-looking, for his
+age. And now this morning he's thin and sick-looking, and there's black
+hair all over his arms, and his face is wrinkled, like he was a little
+old man, and he does nothing but cry and scream till you can't bear it,
+and twist and squirm till you can't hold him. It's like he was
+fairy-struck, only I don't believe in them things at all."
+
+"Did you watch him close last night?" Mrs. O'Brien asked.
+
+"Part of the time," Peter answered, "but I dare say we was both asleep
+other times."
+
+"Was Ellen careful about her prayers last night, and were you so,
+too?"
+
+"I can't say about that," Peter said. "We might be letting some of
+them go, such a time as that, you know, and make it up after."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. O'Brien, "make it up after by losing your child! Was
+there any iron anywhere about him?"
+
+"I don't know that there was."
+
+"And did you make a circle of fire about the place where he was
+lying?"
+
+"I did not."
+
+"The child's not been struck," said Mrs. O'Brien; "not the way you
+mean. It's not your child at all, but one of the Good People
+themselves, that's in it. They've stolen your child and left a
+changeling in the place of it."
+
+"It's the same way you always talked, Mrs. O'Brien," said Peter. "I
+don't believe them things."
+
+They had come to Peter's door by this time. They found Ellen lying in
+bed, looking frightened half to death, and beside her was the baby, or
+the fairy, or whatever it was. It was not crying loudly now, but it
+was keeping up a little whining and whimpering noise that was quite as
+unpleasant to listen to as a good, honest cry. Its face looked thin
+and pinched and old; it had a little thin, wispy hair on its head
+where no baby of the age that this one was supposed to be has a right
+to have any. Its arms and hands were thin and bony. It looked weak and
+sick, but it was rolling and wriggling about in the liveliest way. It
+would give a spring as if it were going straight off the bed upon the
+floor, and when poor Ellen caught at it to save it, it would roll back
+toward her, stop its crying for a second, and seem to be laughing at
+her, and then it would do the same thing again.
+
+"It's plain enough," Mrs. O'Brien said, as soon as she saw it. "It's
+one of the Good People. But it's quick enough we'll be rid of it and
+have back your own child. Bring me some eggs."
+
+"I'll have nothing of the sort now," said Ellen. "It's bad the poor
+child is with some sickness or other, but it's my own child, and I'll
+have nothing done to it that's not to do it good. If you know anything
+that'll help it, Mrs. O'Brien, tell me that, but don't be sayin' it's
+not my child."
+
+"I'll not hurt the child, whatever it is," said Mrs. O'Brien, "but
+there are ways to tell whether it's your own child at all or one of
+the Good People. If you find it's one of them, then it's easy to do
+more, but in the meantime it's not harmed."
+
+"I'll not have you trying any of them things," said Ellen. "I'll not
+have you saying it's not my child, and I'll not be thinking of such a
+thing myself. You see how poor and sick it's looking. If there's
+anything you can do for the child, do it, but don't be talking that
+way any more."
+
+"Ellen," said Mrs. O'Brien, "you don't know what you're talking about
+at all. Wait now till I tell you what was told to me when I lived in
+Dublin, and I think that it was not far from there that it happened.
+It's about a woman that talked as you do. A sailor's wife she was, and
+there was a child born to her while her husband was away at sea. She
+thought he'ld be home soon, and so she wanted to put off the
+christening of the child till he'ld be back. So she waited and waited
+for a long time, and her husband did not come. The neighbors told her
+she was doing wrong to wait so long and she ought to have the child
+christened before anything would happen to it. But she wouldn't listen
+to them.
+
+"So it went on for a year and a half, and still the father didn't come
+home. But the boy was healthy and happy, and the mother never had any
+trouble with him. But the trouble came. One day she'd been working in
+the field, and she came home, and as soon as she was in the house she
+heard crying from the bed where the child used to sleep. She ran to
+look at him, and he lay there, looking sick and thin and weak, the way
+your boy does, and crying that he was hungry. He was like her child
+and he was not like him. He'd grown so pale and bad-looking that she
+thought he'd had a stroke from the Good People. But she went to get
+him some bread and milk, and she asked her other boy, that was about
+seven years old, when it was and how it was that he began to be sick.
+
+"'I left him playing near the fire,' the boy said, 'and I was in the
+other room. And I heard a rushing noise, like a great flock of birds
+flying down the chimney, and then I heard a cry from my brother and
+then again the noise, like the birds were flying out at the chimney
+again. And then I ran in and found him there the way you see him
+now.'
+
+"Well, if the poor woman had never had trouble with the child before,
+she had nothing but trouble now. Crying and squalling it was all the
+time, and it nearly ate her out of house and home, and yet it seemed
+always sick and weak and thin. The neighbors came and they told her it
+was not her child at all, but one of the Good People that had been put
+in the place of it, and it was all her own fault for not having it
+christened in the right time. But not a word of it all would she
+listen to, and she said all the time that, whatever was wrong with it,
+it was her own child and she'ld hear nothing to the contrary.
+
+"It was an out-of-the-way place where they lived, and there was no
+priest near, or she never could have kept it from being christened as
+long as she did. But at last the neighbors themselves said that if she
+didn't see to it, they would. And they said to her: 'It's not your
+child at all that's in it, and if you'll have it christened you'll
+see. And if you won't take the child to the priest with us now, we'll
+go to him ourselves and tell him all about it. It's not right to keep
+it from him longer.'
+
+"So with that she thought it was no use and she'ld have to do as they
+said, and she took the child and tried to dress him, ready to take him
+to the priest to be christened. But the roars and the screams that he
+let out of him were more than anybody could bear, and at the last she
+said: 'Oh, I can't do it; it's too terrible a thing for him; he won't
+bear it, and how can I make him?'
+
+"The next day when she came in from her work the other boy said to
+her: 'Mother, it was uncommon quiet he was while you was away to-day.
+And by and by I went in to see what was ailing him. And there he sat,
+looking so like an old man that I was near afraid of him. And he
+looked at me and he spoke as plain as an old man, and he says: "Pat,"
+says he, "bring me a pipe, till I have a bit of a smoke. It's tired of
+life I am, lying here without it."'
+
+"'"Ah," says I, "wait till my mother gets home and I'll tell her of
+this."'
+
+"'"Tell her," says he, "and she'll not believe a word from you."'
+
+"'And no more do I believe a word from you,' says the woman.
+
+"Well, soon after that there came a letter from the father, saying
+that he'ld be at home now in a few days. With that the woman set off
+to town to buy things to eat and drink to welcome her husband home,
+and she said: 'Now we'll have the christening, as soon as ever he
+comes.'
+
+"Then as soon as she was off, the neighbors said: 'Now is the time
+that we'll be done with that imp. We'll take him and have him
+christened while she's away, and we'll not give her the chance to put
+it off again because he cries.'
+
+"So they went to the house and one of the women came up to the bed and
+clapped a quilt over him and had him wrapped up in it before he knew
+what was happening to him, and away they all went down toward the
+brook, on the way to the priest. Well, he kicked and he struggled to
+get free, but the woman held him so tight it was no use. But when they
+came to the running water, it was then he began bellowing like a herd
+of bulls, and kicking and pulling so that it was all she could do to
+hold him.
+
+"She got her foot on the first of the stepping-stones, and it was then
+he began to get heavy, as if it was a stone that she was carrying. But
+she held hard and reached the second stone, and it seemed to her that
+he was nothing but a lump of lead, only still roaring and struggling;
+and, what with that and the rushing of the water below her, she began
+to get dizzy, but still she held on, and she had her foot on the stone
+in the middle of the stream when plump down he fell through the quilt
+that he was wrapped in, as if it had been nothing but a muslin
+handkerchief.
+
+[Illustration: "PLUMP DOWN HE FELL THROUGH THE QUILT."]
+
+"And there he went floating down the stream, and shouting and laughing
+at them. For, you know, it's not being in running water that can
+hurt one of the Good People, but only crossing it, and if they tried
+to cross it they'ld be in awful pain till they got to the middle, and
+then nothing could keep them from falling in.
+
+"So they were rid of him, and you know when you're rid of a changeling
+the Good People must send your own child back. And so the neighbors
+had not got back to the house when they met the mother running to meet
+them and bringing her own child, that she had found in its bed, when
+she got back from the town, sleeping, as well and as sound as ever it
+was.
+
+"And now, Ellen," said Mrs. O'Brien, "will you let me try, in ways
+that I know, that can do no harm, whether this is your own child or
+not? And if it's not, you'll have your own back, as well as it was
+last night."
+
+"This is my own child," Ellen answered, "and it's not by any silly
+tales like that that you can make me believe it isn't. I'll not have
+you doing anything of the sort. If you know anything that can help a
+baby when it's sick, you may do that, but nothing else."
+
+"I do know one thing that can help a sick baby," Mrs. O'Brien answered
+"and that I'll do, if you like it or not. If that thing there is one
+of the Good People, as I think, it's not sick, and it will live for
+thousands of years after we are dead. We can neither help it nor much
+hurt it. But if that is your child, it doesn't look to me as if it
+would live an hour. I'll not try whether it's yours or not, but if
+it's yours I'll not stand by and see its soul die, that ought to be
+the soul of a Christian. Ellen Sullivan, that child will be christened
+before I leave this house."
+
+"Christened!" poor Ellen cried in amazement. "And who's to christen
+him? We couldn't get a priest here in an hour--maybe not to-day."
+
+"There's no need of a priest," Mrs. O'Brien said; "I'll christen him
+myself. Bring me some water there, Peter."
+
+"But sure you can't do that," Peter protested. "Nobody but a priest
+could christen a child."
+
+"I can christen the child as well as a priest," said Mrs. O'Brien;
+"you take a child to the priest to be christened, when it's easy and
+convenient, but when there's no priest near, and the child is sick and
+seems likely to die before one can come, anybody can christen it; and
+that christening stands, and it never has to be christened after.
+That's the law of the Church. Bring me the water. I never saw a child
+that seemed more likely to die than this one, if it's a child at all."
+
+And Peter brought the water.
+
+"What do you call the child?" Mrs. O'Brien asked.
+
+"I think we'll call him Terence," Peter answered. "That was my
+grandfather's name, on my mother's side, and a decent man he was, and
+uncommon fond of myself when I was a bit of a gossoon, till he died,
+Heaven rest his soul! and I think I'd like to name the boy after him."
+
+Now all that the child had been doing and all the noise that he had
+been making before were simply nothing to what he had been doing ever
+since Mrs. O'Brien first said the word "christen." He was screaming so
+that all this talk could scarcely be heard, and it was almost more
+than Mrs. O'Brien could do to hold him, when she took him in her arms.
+But she did hold him for a moment with one arm, while she dipped up
+some water with her hand and sprinkled it over him. Then the creature
+gave one great jump and was away from her and fell on the floor.
+
+Before anybody else could move, Mrs. O'Brien herself picked him up and
+laid him on the bed. There was no sign that he was hurt. No child that
+was hurt could have screamed as he did. "Come, John," said Mrs.
+O'Brien, "we've done all that we can."
+
+"May I walk back with you a piece?" said Peter. "There was something
+more that I was thinking I would say."
+
+"Come back with us, of course, and welcome," said John.
+
+They left the house and walked along the street.
+
+"I think it was right, what you done, Mrs. O'Brien," said Peter. "I
+can't think about the child the way you think, but it was right what
+you done."
+
+Mrs. O'Brien made no answer. "John," said Peter, "there's something
+that I was thinking of last night and this morning, and it was this:
+You have a girl and I have a boy, that was both born on the one day.
+It's good friends we've always been, and your father and your mother
+and my father and my mother before us. And I was just thinking when
+your girl and my boy grows up, supposing that they like each other
+well enough, it might be pleasant to all of us that they'ld be married
+some time.
+
+"There's no man's son that I'd rather see a daughter of mine married
+to than yours, Peter," said John, "if she herself was pleased. I'ld
+not ask her to take anybody she didn't like, but if she came to love
+him, and he came to love her, I'ld be as pleased as yourself."
+
+"It was that I wanted to say," said Peter, "and I'd better go back to
+Ellen now."
+
+John and his mother said no more till they were at home. They both
+went into the room where little Kathleen was. Mrs. Mulvey sat watching
+the baby. She went out and left them. The child was sleeping as
+peacefully as if there were no such thing in the world as sorrow or
+loss or doubt, or a fairy to help or harm.
+
+"John," said Mrs. O'Brien, "I'd think I might have done harm to that
+child in trying to christen it, only I'm as sure as ever I was of
+anything that it's not a child at all, but one of the Good People, so
+I think there's no harm done. I don't know what would happen any of
+the Good People if he was to be rightly christened. I think he'ld not
+be able to stand it and would be driven out, so that they'ld have to
+send back the real child. Now, if a priest ever sees that creature
+that we've just seen, and asks: 'Has this child been christened?'
+they'll have to answer 'Yes,' and he cannot be christened again. And
+yet, with the jump that he gave out of my arms when I sprinkled the
+water, it's not sure I am that a drop of it touched him."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+VII
+
+A CHAPTER THAT YOU CAN SKIP
+
+
+This is a chapter that you can skip, if you want to. And really I
+should advise you to. Nothing of importance happened in the next
+eighteen years. Of course I am obliged to write a little something to
+fill in all that time, but you are not obliged to read it. That is
+where you have such an advantage. I think it is much better for a book
+to have some parts that can be skipped just as well as not, you get
+through it so much faster. I have often thought what a good thing it
+would be if somebody would write a book that we could skip the whole
+of. I think a good many people would like to have such a book as that.
+I know I should.
+
+Then there is another reason why it will be well for you to skip a
+little about here. When you get farther on, if you happen to come to
+something that you don't understand, you can say: "Oh, this is
+probably all explained by something in that part that I skipped," and
+you can go right on. But if you had not skipped anything and then came
+to something that you did not understand, you would have to say:
+"There, now, I must have been reading carelessly and missed
+something," and you would have to go back and read the book all
+through again.
+
+In these eighteen years Kathleen O'Brien and Terence Sullivan were
+growing up. I don't suppose there ever was another such child as
+Kathleen. And I should hope there never was another such child as
+Terence. Kathleen's grandmother had the most of the care of her, of
+course, but it was really no care at all. It would have been a
+pleasure for anybody to have the care of Kathleen. Even when she was a
+baby she was a perfect delight, and you know what babies are
+sometimes. At any rate, you would know, if you had known Terence. And
+when she got to be a few years older, say seven or eight--
+
+Well, it is perfectly impossible for me to tell you how good and
+lovely Kathleen was. It is all very well to try to describe
+snow-capped mountains at sunrise, or a storm at sea, or moonlight at
+Niagara, or a prairie on fire, or anything of that sort, but nobody
+could tell you how good and lovely Kathleen was, so that you could
+understand it. I suppose she was a good deal the sort of child that
+you would be if you didn't put your elbows on the table, or your spoon
+in your mouth, or slam the doors, or cry when your hair is combed, or
+tease for things that you ought not to have, or whisper in company, or
+talk out loud when there are older persons present, or leave your
+playthings about when you are done with them, or get your clothes
+soiled when you play out of doors, or want to play at all when you
+ought to study your lessons, or ask to be allowed to sit up after
+bed-time, or bite your nails, or cut your bread, or leave your spoon
+in your cup instead of in your saucer, or take the biggest apple.
+
+I don't say that Kathleen never did any of these things. I only say
+that she was so good that you would have to leave off every one of
+them or you would never catch up with her. If Kathleen had a fault, it
+was that she was too good. If I were going to have anything to do with
+her I would rather she should be a little bit worse than a single bit
+better. I am so glad you are skipping this part, because I shouldn't
+want you to try to be a bit worse than you are just for the sake of
+pleasing me. And I don't mean by all this that Kathleen was one of
+those children who are a bother all the time because they are so
+good. She may have done things that she ought not to do sometimes. I
+dare say she did. I know she did once. I will tell you all about that
+in the next chapter. She was just a dear, sweet little girl, as bright
+and merry and healthy as any little girl in the world ever was. And
+you would think so yourself, if you had known her and were not so
+jealous. If I should tell you that she was as pretty as she was good,
+I don't suppose you would believe me. But she was, just as surely as I
+am writing this book and you are reading it. I mean just as surely as
+I am writing it. I am not sure yet whether you are reading it or not.
+
+But Terence! Well, the less said about him the better. Still, I
+suppose, I shall have to say something. He did every one of the things
+that I have just mentioned. And it wasn't because he didn't know any
+better; he seemed to like to do them, just because he knew that they
+were wrong. When he was a baby he was more trouble than twins, and bad
+twins at that. He cried all the time, except when he was eating or
+sleeping, and he slept only a little of the time and ate a great deal
+of it. He always seemed to be just about so sick, but it never hurt
+his appetite and he never got any sicker. After a while Ellen got used
+to his being sick, and she always said that he was delicate, poor
+child, and that was why he was so cross and so much trouble.
+
+"And is that why he eats so much?" Mrs. O'Brien would ask.
+
+"I dunno about that," Ellen would answer; "I think it's the kind of
+sickness that's on him that makes him eat so much."
+
+"More likely it's eating so much that gives him the kind of sickness
+that's on him," Mrs. O'Brien would say. "But I tell you again, it's no
+sickness at all he has. He's just one of the Good People, and you
+could be rid of him and have your own child back any time you would do
+any of the things I would tell you."
+
+But not a word of this would Ellen ever heed. Terence was her own
+child, and he might be a bit troublesome, as any child might, but he
+was not really bad at all, and it was Kathleen, that was always so
+good, the Lord knew why, that made Mrs. O'Brien think that every child
+ought to be that way. But there was one strange thing about Terence,
+and Ellen herself had to admit it. After that very hour, when he was
+one day old, when Mrs. O'Brien came to see him and christened him, or
+tried to--she never felt sure till long afterward whether she had done
+it or not--he was always quiet when she was near. He would drive poor
+Ellen nearly crazy, in spite of all her excuses for him, when he was
+alone with her, but the moment that Mrs. O'Brien came into the house
+he would get as far away from her as he could, and then lie perfectly
+still and watch her, for all the world, as John said once, like a rat
+in a trap watching a cat. Ellen said that it was because he always
+remembered that it was Mrs. O'Brien who had dropped him once. To this
+John replied: "Then maybe he'ld be making you less trouble, Ellen, if
+you was to drop him yourself once or twice." But Mrs. O'Brien said
+that it was just because he knew what she would do to him if she had
+the chance.
+
+And there was another strange thing about Terence. As he grew a little
+older, he never could be got inside a church. Father Duffy had never
+even seen him, except when he came to the house while he was still a
+baby, and then Terence would scream and kick so, when the good priest
+came near him, that he never dared touch him. The first time that he
+came, Ellen told him about Mrs. O'Brien's christening the child, and
+asked him if it was right for her to do it.
+
+"Was the child looking sick, and as if he was likely to die?" Father
+Duffy asked.
+
+"He was, father," Ellen answered; "I couldn't deny that."
+
+"Then it was right for her to christen him," the priest answered,
+"and he'll not need to be christened again. In fact, he can't be
+christened again."
+
+But long after that, when they tried to take him to church, he would
+never go. If Peter and Ellen started for church with him he would run
+away from them. They could not even hold him. He would get away from
+them, and sometimes they could not tell how he did it, only he would
+be gone. And then the only way that they could find him was to go home
+again, and there he was sure to be, as safe as ever, only he had not
+been at church. And so, after a while, they stopped trying to make him
+go.
+
+When the two children were old enough to play together, Terence never
+seemed to be happy except when he was with Kathleen. He did not care
+in the least to play with other boys. He did not seem to care in the
+least to play at all. All he wanted was to be with Kathleen. Kathleen
+never liked him, and she did not like to have him with her so much of
+the time. But she was too kind-hearted to hurt anybody in any way,
+even a boy whom she did not like, so she tried to treat him as nicely
+as she could, and she told nobody but her grandmother, to whom she
+told everything, that she was not as pleased to be with him as he was
+to be with her.
+
+Terence, in his turn, did not always treat Kathleen well, any more
+than he did anybody else. He was ill-natured with her and he played
+tricks on her that were not pleasant at all, and yet he wanted to be
+always with her. Perhaps it was partly because she was more kind to
+him than anybody else, except Ellen. For nobody else liked him. And if
+he was bad-tempered and unkind to other people, it made other people
+unkind and bad-tempered to him, but nothing could make Kathleen unkind
+to anybody.
+
+"It's not fair you all are to Terence," Ellen said once to Mrs.
+O'Brien, "to think bad of him the way you do. There's things about him
+that don't seem right, I know, but those things don't show the way he
+really is. I dunno if I'm making you understand me. I'm his mother and
+I know him better nor anybody else, and I know he's different from the
+way he seems to you, and even the way he seems to me sometimes. And
+I'll tell you how I know that. When I'm asleep I often dream about
+him. And when I dream about him, he looks a little the way he does
+other times, but he's taller and he's better-looking in the face, and
+he looks stronger and brighter and healthier like. And he speaks to
+me, and his voice is lower and pleasanter in the sound of it. And
+that's the way he'ld be, I know, if he had his health, poor child, and
+if everything was right with him. And you'ld all know that and you'ld
+feel more for him, if you knew him the way I do."
+
+This was when Terence was six or seven years old. And Ellen often
+spoke in this way afterward. She saw Terence in her dreams, and he was
+a very different Terence from the one who made her so much trouble
+when she was awake, and yet he was partly the same.
+
+And there was one thing that Terence did that almost everybody liked.
+I might as well say everybody except Kathleen. He played the fiddle.
+Nobody knew how he learned. There was a neighbor of the Sullivans who
+came from the same county in Ireland that they did, and he played a
+fiddle in an orchestra at a cheap theatre. One day Peter had gone to
+see this man and had taken little Terence with him. The fiddle was
+lying on the table. The two men went into another room and left
+Terence by himself. They were talking busily and they forgot about
+him. Then they heard a soft little tune played on the fiddle. "Who's
+that playing my fiddle?" said the owner of it.
+
+"Sure," said Peter, "we left nobody there but Terence."
+
+They went quickly back into the room and found Terence hastily laying
+the fiddle down where he had found it. "Ah, can't I leave you alone a
+minute," said Peter, "but you must be meddling with things that don't
+belong to you? What'll I do now if you've gone and hurt the fiddle?"
+
+"Don't be talking that way to the child," said the musician; "sure he
+did it no harm. But where at all did he learn to play that way? That's
+what I'm thinking. Have you been letting him learn all this time and
+never told me?"
+
+"He never learned at all that I know of," Peter answered. "I never saw
+him have a fiddle in his hand till this minute."
+
+"It's a strange thing, then," the musician said. "Anybody that can
+play a tune like he did that one has a right to play more and better.
+Where did you learn it, my boy?"
+
+"I never learned it at all," Terence answered; "I just saw the fiddle
+there and I thought I'ld see could I play it. But it's little I could
+be doing with it, I'm thinking."
+
+Peter was surprised enough to find that Terence could play a tune on a
+fiddle, and so was Ellen, when she heard about it. But they did not
+wonder at it so much as they would have done if they had known more
+about such things. They had a sort of notion that one person could
+play the fiddle and another could not, much as one person can move his
+ears and another cannot. So they thought little about it. But when
+Terence begged them to buy him a fiddle of his own, they saved up
+money a little at a time, and at last they bought him one.
+
+Then for days Terence did nothing but play. He played simple little
+tunes at first, but soon he began to play harder ones. Then he got
+impatient with himself, as it seemed, and he began to play such music
+as nobody who heard him had ever heard before. Often he would not play
+when he was asked, but he would play for hours by himself, when he
+thought that no one was listening. His father brought his friend the
+musician to hear him, and he said that it was wonderful. He had never
+heard the fiddle played so well. Nobody had ever heard the fiddle
+played so well.
+
+And Kathleen never cared to hear Terence play. She did hear him play,
+many times, of course, and she listened politely, but she told her
+grandmother that she did not care about it at all. She would much
+rather hear the poor fiddler of the little orchestra, who had come
+from their county in Ireland. Their neighbor the fiddler himself was
+as much shocked as anyone to hear Kathleen talk like this. "Did you
+ever hear anybody play the fiddle like Terence plays it?" he asked
+her, when she said something of the sort to him.
+
+"No," Kathleen answered. "I never heard anybody play it like Terence,
+but I have heard some play it better than Terence. You play it
+better."
+
+"Oh, child," he said, "I'ld give all the money I'll be earning in the
+next ten years if I could play like he does. Don't you see I can't do
+half the things he does with it?"
+
+"I know that," Kathleen said; "it isn't the way he plays a bit that
+makes everybody talk so about him; it's just the things he does. When
+he plays a tune it just doesn't mean anything, and when you play a
+tune it does."
+
+And that was as near as Kathleen could ever come to telling why she
+did not care about Terence's playing. Everybody else said that it was
+wonderful, but she said that it didn't mean anything. And when
+Kathleen talked in this way they said that she was too critical. That
+is what people will always tell you when you can see through a fraud
+and they cannot.
+
+You will suppose, without my telling you, that as soon as Kathleen was
+old enough to listen to them, her grandmother began telling her the
+old stories of Ireland. Often Terence would come and listen to them,
+too, for he seemed to be less afraid of Mrs. O'Brien as he grew a
+little older. But it never seemed to be because of the stories that he
+came; he only wanted to be near Kathleen.
+
+Mrs. O'Brien told the children stories about the Good People, and
+about the old heroes and kings of Ireland who had fought to save the
+country from its enemies. Terence never liked the stories about the
+Good People. "Don't be telling us about them fairies all the time," he
+would say. "Tell us about men; that's what I like better."
+
+"Don't call them by that name," Mrs. O'Brien would answer. "They don't
+like it, and if you call them by it they may do you harm."
+
+"I'll call them what I like," Terence would say, "and they'll do me no
+harm. It's a worthless lot they are, and you know that same yourself,
+Mrs. O'Brien, if you'ld only think so. They can do no harm to you, or
+to any woman or man that knows how to deal with them. Why will you
+bother with them all the time?"
+
+And all this made Mrs. O'Brien think the more that Terence was one of
+them.
+
+One day Mrs. O'Brien happened to tell the children a ghost story. I
+don't know whether your mother allows you to read ghost stories. I
+don't see any harm in them myself, any more than Mrs. O'Brien did, but
+some people do, and if your mother does, then it is lucky that you are
+skipping this part. I think that your mother will be very glad that
+you skipped this part with the ghost story in it. That is, of course,
+she won't really be glad, because, since you are skipping it, you
+won't know that there is any ghost story here, and so you won't tell
+your mother that you skipped a ghost story, and so she won't really
+care whether you skipped it or not. What I mean is that if you had
+read it instead of skipping it, so that you could tell your mother
+that there was a ghost story, she would be glad that you had
+skipped--well, what is the use of my trying to tell you what I mean,
+as long as you are skipping it, anyway? I had better go on with the
+story.
+
+"Once a man was coming home from a funeral," said Mrs. O'Brien. "As he
+was walking along the road, near a churchyard, he found the head of a
+man. He took it up and left it in the churchyard. Then he went on his
+way, and soon he met a man who looked like a gentleman.
+
+"'Where have you been?' said the gentleman.
+
+"'I was at a funeral,' said the man, 'and as I came back I found the
+head of a man, and I left it in the churchyard.'
+
+"'It was well for you that you did that,' said the gentleman. 'That
+was my head, and if you had done any wrong by it, it would be the
+worse for you.'
+
+"'And how did you lose your head, then?' the man asked.
+
+"'I did not lose it,' the gentleman answered; 'I left it on the road,
+where you found it, to see what you would do with it.'
+
+"'Then you must be one of the Good People,' said the man, 'and it's
+sorry I am that I met you.'
+
+"'Don't be afraid,' said the gentleman. 'I'll do you no harm, and I
+may do you good.'
+
+"'I'm obliged to you,' said the man; 'will you come home with me to
+dinner?'
+
+"They went to the man's house, and the man told his wife to get dinner
+ready for them. When they had eaten dinner they played cards, and then
+they went to bed and slept till morning. In the morning they had
+breakfast, and after a while the gentleman said: 'Come with me.'
+
+"'Where am I to come with you?' the man asked.
+
+"'I want you to see the place where I live,' the gentleman said.
+
+"They went together till they came to the churchyard. The gentleman
+pointed to a tombstone and said: 'Lift it up.'
+
+"The man lifted it up, and there was a stairway underneath. They went
+down the stairs together till they came to a door, and it led into a
+kitchen. Two women were sitting by the fire. Said the gentleman to one
+of the women: 'Get up and get dinner ready for us.'
+
+"The woman got up and brought some small potatoes. 'Are those all you
+have for us?' the gentleman asked.
+
+"'Those are all I have,' the woman answered.
+
+"'As those are all you have,' said the gentleman, 'keep them.'
+
+"Then he said to the other woman: 'Get up and get dinner ready for
+us.'
+
+"The woman got up and brought some meal and husks. 'Are those all you
+have?' the gentleman asked.
+
+"'Those are all I have,' the woman answered.
+
+"'As those are all you have,' said the gentleman, 'keep them.'
+
+"He led the man up the stairs and knocked at a door. A beautiful woman
+opened it. She was dressed in a gown of silk, and it was all trimmed
+with gold and jewels. He asked her if she could give him and the
+stranger a dinner. Then she placed before them the finest dinner that
+was ever seen. And when they had eaten and drunk as much as they
+liked, the gentleman said: 'Do you know why this woman was able to
+give us such a dinner?'
+
+"'I do not know,' said the man, 'but I should like to know, if you
+care to tell me.'
+
+"'When I was alive,' said the gentleman, 'I had three wives. And the
+first wife I had would never give anything to any poor man but little
+potatoes. And now she has nothing but little potatoes herself, and
+she can give nothing else to anyone, till the Day of Judgment. And my
+second wife would never give anything to the poor but meal and husks,
+and now she has nothing but meal and husks herself, and she can give
+nothing else to anyone, till the Day of Judgment. But my third wife
+always gave to the poor the best that she had, and so she will always
+have the best that there is in the world, and she can always give the
+best in the world to anyone, till the Day of Judgment.'
+
+"Then the gentleman took the man about and showed him his house, and
+it was a palace, more beautiful than anything that he had ever seen.
+And while he was walking about it he heard music. And he thought that
+he had never heard music so beautiful. And while he was listening to
+the music he felt like sleeping, so he lay down and slept. And when he
+woke he was in his own home. He never saw the gentleman again and he
+could never find the place where he had been."
+
+"It's all the time fairies and ghosts with you, Mrs. O'Brien," Terence
+said. "Who cares what they do? It's what men do that counts. I'll tell
+you a story now."
+
+So Mrs. O'Brien and Kathleen listened to Terence's story.
+
+"There was three men," Terence began, "that lived near together, and
+their names was Hudden and Dudden and Donald. Each one of them had an
+ox that he'ld be ploughing with. Donald was a cleverer man than the
+others and he got on better. So the other two put their heads together
+to think what would they do to hurt Donald and to ruin him entirely,
+so that he'ld have to give up his farm and they could get it cheap.
+Well, after a while they thought that if they could kill his ox he
+couldn't plough his land, and then he'ld lose the use of it and he'ld
+have to give it up. So one night they went and killed Donald's ox.
+
+"And to be sure, when Donald found his ox killed, he thought it was
+all over with him. But he wasn't the man to be thinking that way long.
+So he thought he'd better make the best he could of it, and he took
+the skin off the ox and started with it to the town to sell it. And as
+he was going along a magpie perched on the skin and began pecking at
+it, and all the time chattering, for it had been taught to talk. With
+that Donald put round his hand and caught the magpie and held it under
+his coat.
+
+"He went on to the town and sold the skin, and then he went to an inn
+for a drink. He followed the landlady down into the cellar, and while
+she was drawing the liquor he pinched the magpie and it began
+chattering again. 'By the powers,' says the landlady, 'who's that
+talking and what's he saying at all?'
+
+"'It's a bird,' says Donald, 'that I carry around with me, and it
+knows a great deal and tells me many a thing that it's good for me to
+know. And it's after telling me just now that the liquor you're giving
+me is not the best you have.'
+
+"'It's the wonderful bird all out,' says the landlady, and with that
+she went to another cask for the liquor. Then said she: 'Will you sell
+that bird?'
+
+"'I wouldn't like to do that,' says Donald. 'It's a valuable bird, and
+then it's been my friend a long time, and I dunno what it would be
+thinking of me if I'd sell it.'
+
+"'Maybe I'ld make it worth your while.' said the landlady.
+
+"'I'm a poor man,' says Donald.
+
+"'I'll fill your hat with silver,' says the landlady, 'if you'll leave
+me the bird.'
+
+"'I couldn't refuse that,' says Donald; 'you may have the bird.'
+
+"So she filled his hat with silver, and he left her the bird and went
+on his way home.
+
+"It wasn't long after he got home till he met Hudden and Dudden.
+'Aha!' says he to them, 'you thought it was the bad turn you was doing
+me, but you couldn't have done me a better. Look what I got for the
+hide of my ox, that you killed on me.' And he showed them the hatful
+of silver. 'You never saw such a demand for hides in your life,' says
+he, 'as there is in the town this present time.'
+
+"No sooner had he said that than Hudden and Dudden went home and
+killed their own oxen and set off for the town to sell the hides. But
+when they got there they could get no more for them than the common
+price of hides, and they came home again vowing vengeance on Donald.
+
+"This time they were bound there would be no mistake about it, so they
+went to his house and they seized him and put him into a sack and tied
+up the top of it. 'Now,' says one of them, 'you'll not be doing us any
+dirty turn this time, I'm thinking. We're going to take you to the
+river and throw you in and drown you; that's what we're going to do
+and I'm telling you of it now, so that you'll have the pleasure of
+thinking that all your sorrows are nearly over, as you go along.'
+
+"Well, Donald said never a word, but he kept thinking, and those words
+'all your sorrows are nearly over' gave him something particular to
+think about, and it wasn't long till he began to see his way, if he
+could only get a chance to do what he was thinking of.
+
+"They took up the sack and they carried it by turns for a time, but
+both of them soon began to get mighty tired and thirsty. Then they
+came to a tavern, and they left the sack outside, and Donald in it,
+and went in to get a drink. Donald knew that if they once began
+drinking they would stay inside for some time. Then presently he heard
+a great trampling sound, and he knew it must be a herd of cattle
+coming, and he knew there must be somebody driving them. With that he
+began singing, like he was the happiest man in the world.
+
+"The man that was driving the cattle came up to him and he says:
+'Who's inside the sack there, and what are you singing like that for?'
+
+"'I'm singing because I'm the happiest man alive,' says Donald. 'I had
+plenty of troubles in my life, but I'm going to heaven now, and
+they're all over. There's a blessing on this same sack, you must know,
+and whoever's in it goes straight to heaven, and isn't it myself
+that's a right to be singing?'
+
+"'Surely you have,' says the man, 'and it's glad I'ld be to take your
+place. What would you take from me now to let me get in that sack in
+your place?'
+
+"'There's not money enough in the world to make me do it,' says
+Donald, and he began singing again.
+
+[Illustration: "THERE'S A BLESSING ON THIS SAME SACK."]
+
+"'Ah, be reasonable!' says the man. 'I'll pay you well.'
+
+"'I tell you the whole world couldn't do it,' says Donald. 'It's not
+every day a man gets a chance to go to heaven. Think of being over
+with all the sorrows and the troubles of this world, and nothing but
+happiness any more forever. Sure I'ld be a fool if I'ld give it up.'
+
+"'Oh, but think of me,' says the man. 'It's me that has the sorrows on
+me so that I can't bear them. There's my wife died three months ago,
+and all the children was dead before her, and it was she always helped
+me with the farm and knew how to manage better nor myself, so that now
+she's gone I can do nothing with it. And I've lost money on it till I
+can't pay the rent, and now I'll lose the farm itself, and here I am
+driving these cattle to town to sell them to get money to take another
+piece of land and keep the life in me, and yet I don't want to live at
+all. Oh, give me your place in that sack and you'll go to heaven in
+your own time, if it was only for that one good deed. Give me your
+place and I'll give you these twenty fine cattle, and you'll have
+better luck nor me and you'll surely do well with them.'
+
+"'I can't resist you,' says Donald; 'sure it's you needs to go to
+heaven more nor me. It's the truth I hate to do it, but I'll give you
+my place.'
+
+"So with that the man untied the sack and Donald got out of it and he
+got into it, and Donald tied it up again. Then Donald went away home,
+driving the cattle before him.
+
+"It was not long then till Hudden and Dudden came out of the inn, and
+they took up the sack, thinking that Donald was still inside it, and
+they took it to the river and threw it into a deep place. Then they
+went home, and there they found Donald before them, and a herd of the
+finest cattle they ever saw. 'How is this, Donald?' they said. 'We
+drowned you in the river, and here you are back home before us. And
+where are you after getting all these cattle?'
+
+"'Oh, sure,' says Donald, 'it's myself has the bad luck all out. Here
+I've only twenty of these cattle, and if I'd only had help I could
+have had a hundred--aye, or five hundred. Sure in the place where you
+threw me in, down at the bottom of the river, there was hundreds of
+the finest cattle you ever saw, and plenty of gold besides. Oh, it's
+the misfortunate creature that I am, not to have any help while I was
+down there. Just these poor twenty was all I could manage to drive
+away with me, and these not the best that was there.'
+
+"Then they both swore that they would be his friends if he would only
+show them the place in the river where they could get cattle like
+his. So he said he'ld show them the place and they could drive home
+as many of them as they liked. Well, Hudden and Dudden was in such a
+hurry they couldn't get to the river soon enough, and when they were
+there Donald picked up a stone, and said he: 'Watch where I throw this
+stone, and that's where you'll find the most of the cattle.'
+
+"Then he threw the stone into a deep part of the river, and he said:
+'One of you jump in there now, and if you find more of the cattle than
+you can manage, just come to the top and call for help, and the other
+two of us will come in and help you.'
+
+"So Hudden jumped in first and he went straight to the bottom. In a
+minute he came up to the top and shouted: 'Help! help!'
+
+"'He's calling for help,' says Donald; 'wait now till I go in and help
+him.'
+
+"'Stay where you are,' says Dudden; 'haven't you cattle enough
+already? It's my turn to have some of them now.' And in he jumped, and
+Hudden and Dudden was both drowned. And then Donald went home and
+looked after his cattle and his farm, and soon he made money enough to
+take the two farms that Hudden and Dudden had left, besides his own.
+
+"And that's the way," said Terence, "to get on in this world or any
+world. Get the better of them that's trying to get the better of you,
+and don't hope for any help from fairies or ghosts."
+
+"Terence," said Mrs. O'Brien, "there's a little that's right in what
+you say, and there's more that's wrong. Depend on yourself and don't
+look for help from Good People or ghosts. So much of what you say is
+right. But Donald was not honest and he got on by tricks, and I don't
+want you or Kathleen to be that way. You'll not get on that way;
+you'll only come to grief. But I want you to be kind and helpful to
+mortals and Good People because it's right to be so, not to get any
+reward. The reward you may get or you may not in this world, but it's
+not that I want you to work for. And I'll tell you a story now to show
+you what I mean.
+
+"There was a poor little bit of a boy once, and he had a hump on his
+back. He made his living by plaiting rushes and straw into hats and
+baskets and beehives, and he could do it better than anybody else for
+miles around. I don't know what his right name was, but the people
+called him Lusmore, after the flower of that name. The flower, you
+know, is the one that some call fairy-cap--the Lord between us and
+harm!--and others call it foxglove. And they called him after it,
+because he would always be wearing a sprig of it in his cap. And in
+spite of having a crooked back, which often makes a body sulky, he
+was a good-natured little fellow, and never had a bad word or a bad
+thought for anybody.
+
+"One day he had been at a fair to sell some of the things that he made
+out of straw and rushes, and as he was coming home he felt tired with
+the long walk. So he sat down to rest for a little, and he leaned his
+back on a bank of earth, not thinking that it was a place that was
+said to be a rath of the Good People. He sat there for a long time,
+and at last he began to hear music. It was very soft at first, and he
+had to listen hard to catch it at all. Then it sounded clearer, and
+after a little he could tell that there were fiddlers and pipers. Then
+he thought that he could hear the feet of dancers, and finally
+singers, and he could hear the words of the song that they sang. And
+these were the words:
+
+    Da Luan, da Mort,
+    Da Luan, da Mort,
+    Da Luan, da Mort.
+
+"And there were no other words but these, and these the singers sang
+over and over and over again. And all they mean is, 'Monday, Tuesday,
+Monday, Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday.' After the singers had sung these
+words they would make a little pause and then they would go on with
+them. Lusmore knew now that the music came from inside the rath, and
+he knew well enough that it was the Good People he was listening to.
+He kept very quiet and listened, and it seemed a wonderfully sweet
+song to him, only after a while he got tired of hearing no other
+words. And he thought: 'Maybe they'd like the song better themselves
+if there was more of it, and I wonder couldn't I help them with it.'
+
+"But he knew he must not disturb the Good People, so he waited till
+one of the little pauses, and then he sang very softly: 'Augus da
+Cadine.'
+
+"Then he kept on singing all the words, along with the singers inside
+the rath, adding on his own new line every time:
+
+    Da Luan, da Mort,
+    Da Luan, da Mort,
+    Da Luan, da Mort,
+       Augus da Cadine.
+
+"And that means: 'Monday, Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday,
+and Wednesday too.'
+
+"As he went on he sang a little louder and a little louder, till by
+and by the Good People in the rath began to listen to hear who or what
+it was that was singing their song with them, and then they caught the
+line that Lusmore had added. Then they were so pleased that they
+scarcely knew what to do, for they were more tired of the song than he
+was, only they did not know what to do to make it any better. And when
+they found it was somebody outside the rath that was singing it and
+was making more out of it than they ever did, they wanted to have him
+inside as soon as possible.
+
+"So all at once Lusmore saw a door open in the rath, close beside him,
+and a great light streaming out, and then there was the sound of wings
+all around him, and next he saw the forms of the Good People pouring
+out and flying and whirling around him like a swarm of butterflies.
+They caught him up and carried him inside the rath, so lightly that he
+could not tell what was holding him, and he felt as if he was floating
+in the air. He was a little frightened at first, but when they had him
+inside the rath they set him up above all the musicians and thanked
+him for mending their song, and did him all sorts of honor.
+
+"Then he saw some of the Good People talking together in a little
+group, and presently they came up to him, and one of them said:
+'Lusmore, we've been thinking what will we do for you as a reward for
+mending our song, and we've decided to ask yourself what it is that
+you'ld rather we'ld give you. Think, now, what it is that you'ld
+rather have than anything else in the world.'
+
+"'It's obliged to you I am for your kindness, gentlemen,' said
+Lusmore, 'but if you'ld do what would please me most in all the world,
+it's not giving me anything you'ld be, but taking something from me,
+and that's this hump that I have on my back.'
+
+"'That's easy done,' said the one of them that had spoken before;
+'come on now and dance with us.'
+
+"Well, Lusmore, being crooked the way he was, and always weak, had
+never danced before in his life, and he never thought he could; but
+when they took hold of him on both sides and led him out, he found
+that he was dancing with the best of them, and he felt so light and he
+moved so easily that it seemed to him as if he was no more than a
+feather that the wind was blowing about. Then one of the Good People
+said to him, 'Lusmore, where is your hump now?'
+
+"And he felt behind him for it, and it was not on his back at all.
+'Look down on the floor,' said the one that had spoken to him, again.
+And he looked down, and there was his hump, lying on the floor before
+him.
+
+"Then they all began dancing again and Lusmore with them, till he felt
+tired and then dizzy, and then he fell to the ground, and he knew
+nothing more till he awoke in the morning and found himself lying on
+the ground outside the rath, where he had sat down to rest the night
+before. The first thing he thought was that it was a dream that he had
+had, but he never had felt so well and so strong in his life as he did
+that minute. So he put his hand behind him, and there was no hump
+there. And, what was more, he had on a new suit of clothes that the
+Good People had given him. Then he went home and told his neighbors
+what had happened to him, and they could scarcely believe it. But
+everyone knew that there were Good People in that rath, and there was
+himself, too, the same boy as before, only without the hump, and so,
+at long last, they had to believe the whole story.
+
+"Well, the news of Lusmore's wonderful cure was told all through the
+country, and at last it came to a place a long way off, where there
+was another boy lived that had a hump on his back. And a different
+sort of boy he was from Lusmore. His temper was as bad as his body. He
+was ill-natured and spiteful and lazy, and he would always rather be
+making trouble than saving it. So when his mother heard the way
+Lusmore had had the hump taken off him, she thought maybe her boy
+could get rid of his own in the same way.
+
+"With that she set off with the boy and a neighbor of hers, and they
+came to where Lusmore lived, and asked him would he tell them all
+about how it was that he had the hump taken off him. And he went over
+it all with them and told them everything that he did and everything
+that happened to him. And in the end he went with them to show them
+the very spot where he had sat down beside the rath, and there they
+left the little hunchback, and told him to do everything just as
+Lusmore had done it.
+
+"He sat there listening for a long time and heard nothing, and so at
+last he went to sleep, and then all at once he was awakened by hearing
+the Good People singing in the rath. And they were singing much better
+now than when Lusmore heard them first, for they had the song now as
+he had improved it for them, and they were singing:
+
+    Da Luan, da Mort,
+    Da Luan, da Mort,
+    Da Luan, da Mort,
+       Augus da Cadine.
+
+"And as soon as he heard it the little fellow, not waiting for time or
+tune, shouted out: 'Augus da Hena.' And if it was all put together
+right that would make it mean: 'Monday, Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday,
+Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday too, and Thursday too.' Only he didn't
+trouble to put it together right, but just bawled it out any way.
+
+"Then the music stopped all at once, and he heard the people inside
+the rath shouting: 'Who is spoiling our tune? Who is spoiling our
+tune?' and out they all came and caught him up and hurried him inside
+the rath so that the breath nearly went out of his body. And one of
+them shouted: 'What shall we do to him for spoiling our tune?' and
+another said: 'Ask him what he wants us to do for him!' and another
+said: 'What do you want from us, anyway?'
+
+"And he just found breath enough to say: 'I want the same that Lusmore
+had,' meaning by that he wanted them to reward him the same way they
+did Lusmore.
+
+"But one of the Good People shouted: 'You'll get what Lusmore had,
+then; it was a hump on the back that Lusmore had, and we took it off
+him, but we don't want it and it's easy to give it to you. Be lively
+there now, some of you, and hand that hump down here.'
+
+"And then some of the Good People got Lusmore's hump, that was hanging
+up under the roof, and they clapped it on his back, on the top of his
+own, and then they threw him out of the rath. And there his mother
+found him in the morning, more dead than alive and with a hump twice
+as big as before."
+
+"A fine story that is, Mrs. O'Brien," Terence said, when the old woman
+had finished. "And why didn't the one of them get the same reward as
+the other? Sure he did the same as the other in lengthening the song
+for the fairies, didn't he?"
+
+"He did the same in a way," Mrs. O'Brien answered, "but not for the
+same reason. Lusmore helped them with the song because he thought they
+might be the better for his help, and that was all the reason. And he
+did it in a way that wouldn't disturb them. But the other did it only
+to help himself, because he thought that he'ld get a great reward for
+it, and he had no real wish to do them any kindness. Don't you see the
+difference between the two of them?"
+
+"Stuff!" said Terence.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+VIII
+
+THE STARS IN THE WATER
+
+
+This is to be another sort of chapter altogether. I am going to tell
+you now what happened. The eighteen years are gone now and we have
+come to the time when there is something to tell.
+
+When those eighteen years began, you know, Kathleen and Terence were
+not much more than born. So, if you have got as far as addition and
+can add eighteen to nothing and find that it makes eighteen, you will
+see that by this time they were about eighteen years old. John O'Brien
+and his mother and Kathleen did not live on the east side of Central
+Park any more. John had got on better and better with the work that he
+was doing. After a while, instead of having to do work of common kinds
+any more, he had been put in charge of other men who were doing it.
+After another while he learned so much about the work and how it was
+done and how it ought to be done, that he was made one of the partners
+in the company that did it. So he got a good deal more money and he
+was able to take his mother and Kathleen out of the little tenement
+where she was born, and to live in a better place. Then he had a house
+of his own, over on the west side of the Park, and it was there that
+Kathleen lived when she was eighteen years old.
+
+Peter had not got along so well. John himself employed him, but Peter
+knew enough to go only just so far, and there he stuck. He lived in a
+little better place than he did at first, but he could never make his
+way like John. And then Terence, as he grew up, made a good deal of
+trouble. He never would learn anything useful and he never would do
+anything useful. He never helped his father at all, and always his
+father had to help him. If there was any fight or any accident or
+anything troublesome or wrong within a mile, Terence was always in the
+midst of it. He was constantly getting his head and his ribs broken,
+and Peter was always having to pay for other people's things that he
+had broken, from their heads to their windows.
+
+Ellen's excuse for him, that he was never well and had never been
+quite himself since he was born, was pretty well worn out. For,
+people said, he had always been exactly the same ever since he was
+born, and if that same was not himself, who was it? But Ellen kept
+saying it none the less. Many a time Mrs. O'Brien tried to make her
+believe that the boy was a changeling, and not her child at all, and
+many a time she begged Ellen to let her only try a charm to see if he
+was, but Ellen never would hear of it. She always said what she had
+said at first, that nobody knew him but her. She saw him better when
+she dreamed about him, for then she saw him as he really was, without
+all the harm that had been done to him by all the sickness that had
+been on him one time and another.
+
+You might suppose that anybody who could play the fiddle as well as
+Terence need not have any trouble in making his own living. He might
+have found a place in a theatre, like the man whose fiddle he had
+played on first. He might have taught others to play. Or he might have
+played all by himself, and hundreds of people would have paid to hear
+him. But he would play only when he chose, and he would never do
+anything useful with his fiddle. And everybody said he played so
+wonderfully--everybody except Kathleen.
+
+And this brings us back to Kathleen. Terence heard before he was many
+years old something about the plan that Peter and John had made, that
+he and Kathleen should be married when they grew up, if they both
+liked the plan. He seemed to forget all about this last part, "if they
+both liked the plan." He liked the plan himself and he seemed to think
+that that was enough. He had talked about it to Kathleen many times,
+before they were both eighteen years old, and it troubled Kathleen so
+that she tried never to see Terence when she could possibly help it.
+She had always disliked him, though she had always tried not to show
+it; but as they got a little older and she found that there was no
+other way to keep away from him at all, she had to tell him so.
+
+But do you suppose that made any difference with Terence? Well, it did
+make a difference with him, but he did not let anybody see that it
+did. When Kathleen told him for the first time that she did not like
+him at all, he went away by himself. He went straight to the hill that
+is in the north end of the Park, and there he threw himself down on
+his face on the grass. For hours he lay there, trembling and crying,
+and beating the ground with his feet and his fists. And it would take
+another book as large as this to tell all that he was saying to
+himself or to the grass, or to something under the grass--how can I
+tell? And you would not want to read the book. It is not likely that
+you will ever see anybody in such a rage as he was in. But at the end
+of it he stood up and looked just as he usually did, and went straight
+to the O'Briens' and stayed all the evening and kept as near Kathleen
+as he could, and stared at her all the time. And he talked to her then
+and afterward, just as if she had told him that she liked him better
+than anybody else that she knew.
+
+So Kathleen had to go to her grandmother, as she always did when she
+was in any trouble, and tell her all about it. And her grandmother
+told her that she and Terence were both a good deal too young to think
+of anything of the sort, and that she would do all that she could to
+help her. But she could not do much. She told John about it, and he
+said that he should be sorry if the plan that he and Peter had made
+could not be carried out, but he would forbid it himself, as long as
+Terence was so lazy and so worthless and so bad as he was now. When he
+got a little older, he hoped that everything would be better, and
+there was no hurry about anything.
+
+And though Terence made her so much trouble, Kathleen had many other
+things to think about. She went to school and learned a great deal,
+and her grandmother taught her a great deal more. Her grandmother told
+her stories still, and, though she was nearly eighteen and felt that
+she was getting so dreadfully old, she still liked stories. Then she
+had a good many friends, and she spent much of her time with them. She
+visited Ellen often, too, going to see her at times when she thought
+that Terence would not be at home. Ellen and Peter still lived on the
+east side of the Park, and some of her friends lived there, too, so
+that Kathleen often walked through the north end of the Park, near
+that hill that I have told you about so many times before.
+
+Kathleen was fond of this part of the Park, as everybody is who knows
+it. But especially she was fond of one little spot that nobody else
+seemed to notice much. So Kathleen got a feeling that this one place
+belonged to her, and she was all the more fond of it because of that.
+It was a tiny little basin of water, near the path, but up a grassy
+bank. On the side toward the path it was all open, but on the other
+side there were rocks, and out of a little cleft in the rocks ran a
+bit of a stream of water that fed the little basin. Then, around the
+rocks and over them there was more grass, and the hill rose at both
+sides and above. On the edge of the hill, right over the basin, was a
+pine-tree, and around it were other trees. Their branches came
+together over the water and almost shut out the sky from it, but not
+quite.
+
+Every time that Kathleen passed it, she went up the bank and looked
+into the still water. She had a feeling that if she ever went by and
+did not do this the water would miss her and would feel hurt. When she
+did this by daylight and in summer, if she stood up and looked into
+the water, she could see a patch of branches and green leaves and blue
+sky through them, about as big as the basin itself, and that was
+scarcely larger than a fair-sized tub. But if she stooped down close
+to the water and looked into it, she saw that there was a great deal
+of sky under it, below the trees, which grew upside down. There was
+almost as much sky under the water as she could see above it, and she
+believed that there would prove to be quite as much if she could only
+get her head where she could see it.
+
+She used to look in at night sometimes, too, and try to see if there
+were any stars in that sky; but in the summer she never could see any,
+because the leaves on the trees were so thick that they almost hid the
+sky, and they seemed to be thicker and to hide the sky more by night
+than they did by day. In the winter it was different. Then there were
+no leaves, but only branches and twigs, which covered the sky like
+lace work, and through these Kathleen sometimes thought that she could
+see a star or two in the water, but she was seldom quite sure. Yet she
+never passed the place without looking in it, to see the green leaves
+and the blue sky or the black leaves and the almost black sky, or the
+stars, if she could find any.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On a certain day--the last day of April it was--there was a good deal
+of excitement in the fairy palace under the hill. The reason of it was
+that a new fairy had come to live there. Perhaps you never heard of a
+baby fairy. I have read a good many stories about fairies that said
+nothing about any such thing. Now, you needn't try to be so bright
+about it and say that of course there must be baby fairies, or there
+could not be any grown-up fairies. That isn't so at all. Fairies are
+not like men about growing old and dying and other fairies taking
+their places. I have heard of a fairy funeral, but I can't imagine how
+it happened, and I think that the story about it must have been a
+mistake. If you have read this book as far as here, you know that most
+fairies are thousands of years old, and you know, too--for Naggeneen
+has told you--what is likely to become of them in the end. Still,
+there is no sort of doubt that now and then a new fairy is born, and
+there was one born on this day. He was the son of the King and the
+Queen, and you can guess well enough that a fairy prince is a person
+of some consequence.
+
+"What will we do at all for a nurse for the baby?" said the Queen.
+
+"What will we do at all?" said the King.
+
+"It never would do for me to have the care of him at the first," said
+the Queen.
+
+"Never a bit," said the King; "it would ruin him."
+
+"How would it ruin him?" said the Queen.
+
+"Never a know I know, no more nor you," said the King, "but you know
+as well as I it would ruin him."
+
+"Why can't I care for my own child?" said the Queen, "the same as a
+human mother does?"
+
+"I dunno," said the King, "only we know you can't. We've never dared
+try, to see what would happen. He must have a human nurse. Maybe it's
+something to do with them things Naggeneen was always talking about
+our having no souls--"
+
+"Don't be talking about Naggeneen," said the Queen, "and me not well
+at all." Then she was silent for a little while and then she went on
+talking about Naggeneen herself. "Are you sorry he left us?"
+
+"Who?" said the King.
+
+"Naggeneen," said the Queen.
+
+"I'm not sorry," said the King. "We've more peace without him. Though
+he was clever and he often told us the right thing to do and he might
+tell us the right thing to do now."
+
+"Did he tell us the right thing to do when he told us to bring Terence
+here to learn the ways of men and to teach them to us?"
+
+"Sure Terence is a good boy," said the King, "and he plays the fiddle
+as well as Naggeneen himself, so we don't miss Naggeneen for the only
+thing that he was good for. And Terence is easier to have about other
+ways."
+
+"But has he ever learned the ways of men and taught them to us?" the
+Queen asked.
+
+The King was getting annoyed. "He has learned them, I think," he said,
+"but he has never taught them to us. And you know Naggeneen himself
+said the plan would be no use."
+
+"He did," said the Queen; "only you would try it. And just so all this
+talk is no use. What will we do for a nurse for the baby?"
+
+"We'll find one some way," the King answered. "Was you thinking of
+anyone in particular?"
+
+"I was not thinking of anyone in particular."
+
+"How would Kathleen O'Brien do, do you think?" the King asked.
+
+"I don't want to be troubling the O'Briens," the Queen said, "and they
+always so kind to us."
+
+"It would not be troubling them much; we'ld only keep her a little
+while and they'ld hardly miss her."
+
+"If she was once here," said the Queen, "some one of your men would
+want to keep her, and it would break the heart of her grandmother. So
+it would her father's, too, but I'm not thinking so much of him."
+
+"We'll not keep her," said the King, "only as long as the child needs
+her."
+
+"You say that now," said the Queen; "it would be different if she was
+once here--I'ld like to have her as well as anyone I know."
+
+"We could find no one else so good," said the King. "It's May Eve, you
+mind. There's no time when we have more power, and few when we have so
+much. We'll all be dancing to-night, and Kathleen often passes along
+just about dark. It's likely we could get her to dance with us, and
+then we'ld be sure enough of her. If that fails, there's other ways.
+Our power lasts till sunrise."
+
+"And you think we'ld not be keeping her long?" said the Queen.
+
+"We'ld have her home almost before she was missed," the King answered.
+
+"I wouldn't mind if you tried," said the Queen.
+
+Kathleen had been to visit Ellen. She was on her way home through the
+Park, and she had meant to get there before dark, but it was a little
+later than she had thought, and she saw the red in the sky before her
+getting darker and duller every minute. As she walked along she saw
+two other girls of about her own age, whom she knew, in front of her.
+She overtook them and the three walked on together, though the others
+could scarcely keep up, Kathleen hurried so.
+
+When they were nearly through the Park they came to the little basin
+where the water ran down out of the rock. Though she wanted to get
+home so quickly, she could not pass this place without going up the
+bank and looking into the water, because she felt so sure that if she
+did not the water would miss her and feel hurt. She ran up the bank
+and looked into the still little pool. The other girls went on, and
+she heard one of them call after her: "Thought you were in a hurry!"
+
+Kathleen did not mind them, but only looked into the water, which was
+almost black, it was getting so dark all around. She had not seen the
+water look so dark in a long time. She looked up over her head and she
+saw that it was because the little new leaves had begun to come out on
+the trees and were beginning to hide the sky. She saw one or two of
+the brightest stars, that had already come out in the sky, and she
+looked back into the water and tried to see them there, but she could
+not find them. There was nothing but the little, still, black pool.
+
+She went back to the path and ran on after the other girls. She saw
+them walking on slowly, only a little way ahead of her. Just as she
+had nearly come up with them she stood still to look at a wonderful
+sight. She just thought dimly that it was strange that the other girls
+were not watching it, too, but the sight itself excited her so that
+she had not much time to think of that. On the grass, close beside the
+path, there were ever so many boys and girls--at least she thought at
+first that they were boys and girls--dancing. The grass in that place
+sloped upward from the path, and the ground was a little hollowed, in
+a sort of shell shape. All around the place, except where the path
+was, trees and bushes hung over the grass. The buds were just opening
+here, too, and the air was full of the smell of the new spring grass
+and leaves, which always grows stronger in the evening.
+
+Kathleen stood gazing at the boys and girls dancing. There were so
+many of them that she could not count them. She thought that they
+seemed to be a little younger and smaller than herself. The boys all
+wore green jackets and red caps. When she looked at them more closely
+she could not tell whether they were boys at all or not. They looked
+more like old men. And she could scarcely believe that either, because
+they danced so fast and seemed so lively. Her father could not dance
+like that, she was sure, and he was not an old man.
+
+But she had no doubt that the girls were girls. Usually she could not
+tell a pretty girl from an ugly one, any more than any other girl can,
+but she knew that these were pretty. Anybody would. They had long,
+golden hair that hung all loose and free and came down to their knees,
+when the little wind did not blow it away in some other direction.
+They had deep, soft eyes. They were dressed in long, white gowns, so
+white that they shone, now like a sheet of pale light and now with a
+hundred little sparkles, as the water of the sea does sometimes, when
+it is broken into foam by the prow of a ship. All the men carried
+lanterns and all the girls had something that looked like long
+flower-stems, only there were tiny lights on the ends of them, instead
+of flowers. These and the lanterns did not seem to trouble them at all
+in dancing, and if Kathleen had seen the lights and had not seen the
+dancers, she would have thought that they were a swarm of fireflies.
+
+She had scarcely stood there for a minute before one of the men came
+up to her and asked her to dance with him. Kathleen's first thought
+was that she ought to be afraid, and her second thought was that she
+was not afraid a bit. She liked dancing and she had just been wishing
+that she could dance with these boys and girls. Then she wondered if
+it was quite right. Then she could not see what there could be wrong
+about it. Then she let the little man take her hand and she stepped
+off the path upon the grass and began to dance. She heard the other
+girls calling to her again, farther up the path. She called back to
+them: "I am coming in a minute! Wait for me!" And then she went on
+dancing.
+
+When she had been only looking on, the dancing had seemed to Kathleen
+to be quite wonderful, but now she found that she could do it all
+nearly as well as the little boys and girls. She thought that it might
+be because the little old man was a better partner for dancing than
+she had ever had before. They danced around by themselves, moving in
+and out among the others, no matter how close together they were, and
+always finding their way, now in the midst of the whole company and
+now out beyond the very edge of it, and then suddenly all the dancers
+would join hands and whirl about in a great circle, so fast that
+Kathleen could not tell whether her feet were touching the ground at
+all.
+
+It seemed to her that she had never done anything so delightful
+before. She did not think of going on with the other girls any more.
+She did not think of getting home early, or of anything but the
+dancing. She could not tell at all how long she had been dancing, but
+it was all dark, except for the little lanterns and the little lights
+on the flower-stems, and the stars were all out in the sky. And then
+somebody said: "It is time to go."
+
+The man who had been dancing with Kathleen whispered to her: "You are
+to go with us."
+
+And Kathleen thought of nothing but of going with the queer little old
+men and the beautiful little girls. They all left the shell-shaped
+grass-plot and moved along together--Kathleen could scarcely tell even
+now whether her feet were on the ground or not--over the grass, till
+they came to a little pool of water--Kathleen's own little pool.
+
+She looked down into it, and there was no doubt about the stars now.
+There were hundreds of them down under the water, shining up through
+it from as far below, it seemed, as the stars in the sky were up
+above. The dancers who came to it first stepped on the surface of the
+pool, and it bore them up as if it had been a floor of glass. Then
+Kathleen saw that the rocks behind the pool were not as she had ever
+seen them before. There was an opening straight into the hill, and
+when she came nearer still she saw that the water was no longer a
+little pool. It was more like a long, narrow lake, and it covered the
+bottom of the opening that led into the hill. All the people were
+going in, walking along the path of water as easily as if it had been
+a path of ice.
+
+Again it seemed to Kathleen that she ought to be afraid, and again it
+seemed to her, still more clearly, that she was not afraid. When she
+came to the water she put her foot upon it and walked along it as
+easily as the others were doing. She thought that she would remember
+that this water could be walked on, and would try it the next day. She
+had never thought of trying it before.
+
+But now she and the others were moving along the path into the hill.
+It was still dark, except for the lights that they carried and the
+stars that shone up through the water. And these were not the
+reflection of any stars in the sky, for there was no sky to be seen
+over them now--only rocks. Then there was a pale violet light shining
+on the walls of the passage ahead of them. Then, as Kathleen looked
+down at the water again, to see if she were really walking on it, she
+saw that there were no more stars, but the water was of a faint,
+shining yellow, and in a moment she was not walking on water any more,
+but on a floor, that seemed to her to be all of gold.
+
+She could do nothing now but stand still and look around at the
+wonderful sight. All around her were walls of silver, so bright that
+they reflected everything in the great hall, and she could not tell at
+all how large it was. But she made out that in the middle was a great
+dome, held up by the most wonderful gleaming columns of gold and
+silver, first a column of gold and then a column of silver, and these
+she saw again and again in the walls all about. She could not see the
+top of the dome from where she stood, it was so high, but all around
+the sides of it she saw great diamonds and rubies and emeralds, some
+of them as big as her head, that poured down soft white and red and
+green lights, and these she saw, too, shining up, a little dimmer,
+from the gold of the floor, which was almost as good a mirror as the
+walls.
+
+The sides of the dome, in which the jewels were set, were all of bands
+and lines and ribbons of gold and silver, wonderfully woven together
+into shapes and patterns which she could not follow or trace out with
+her eyes, because they seemed to be always slowly moving--turning and
+twisting and winding and wreathing about, never for a moment the same,
+but always new and always beautiful. And when this was reflected in
+the golden floor it was like the wavering shapes in water that is
+almost still, but yet has little waves that dance and break up every
+reflection that is seen in it.
+
+And still, although she saw no lamps except the great white and red
+and green gems, there came from somewhere--perhaps from the top of the
+dome, she thought--that violet light that she had seen first on the
+walls of the passage, and it filled the whole hall, like the glow of a
+glorious sunset that never faded. And all this was inside a hill that
+Kathleen had known all the years of her life, and she had never seen
+anything wonderful about it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While Kathleen is wondering at the fairy palace I will explain to you
+the subject which you have been wondering about. If you only knew more
+we could get on with the story so much faster. It is most annoying.
+And you have been brought up so well too! I don't see that it is
+anybody's fault but your own. You have been wondering all along how it
+was that the fairies seemed to Kathleen to be, as I said, only a
+little smaller than herself, when you have always heard that fairies
+were so very little.
+
+Well, to think of your not understanding that! I am bound to say that
+when I was of your age I was just as ignorant about it as you are now,
+but then, children now have a good many more advantages than they had
+in my day. Considering how few advantages we had, it is a great credit
+to people of my age that we know anything at all, and, considering how
+many of them you have, it is a disgrace to you that you do not know
+everything.
+
+When I was a child I used to read about fairies, and the book would
+say that they were six inches tall, or that they were about as big as
+a man's thumb, or it would tell about their sitting in flowers. And
+then I would look at the pictures and they would appear to be as high
+as a man's knees, or even higher. And I could not understand it. But I
+made up my mind to find out about it. That is what you must do, when
+there is anything that you don't understand. There are very few things
+that you can't do, if you make up your mind to them, except things
+that are too hard for you. I hate to have morals getting into a story
+as much as you do, but that is such a good one that it might as well
+go in.
+
+Now I will tell you. Fairies can be of any size they like, and you
+never can tell what size they are going to be, from one minute to
+another. They can be giants, if they like. And as soon as they had
+Kathleen with them they could make her of any size they liked too. So
+as long as she was among them they could keep her and themselves just
+the same size, or as near to it as they liked.
+
+But when fairies are not taking the trouble to be of any particular
+size--when they are letting themselves alone, as you might say--then
+they are about six inches tall. And I think that is a very good size
+to be. It would be better if you were of that size. You wouldn't eat
+so much and you wouldn't be so much in the way, and you would be much
+better-looking. Just think: if your face were only three-quarters of
+an inch long, all those features of it that are so disagreeable
+wouldn't show so plainly. You might even look rather pretty. You
+wouldn't need to be so, but you might look so.
+
+And it would be so much easier to know where you were, if you were of
+that size, that it would save your mother a good deal of trouble. All
+she would have to do would be to put you on the mantelpiece, and then
+you could not get off without breaking your necks--and that would be
+such an advantage. I don't mean that it would be an advantage to break
+your necks, because then who would read this book, and why should I
+take all this trouble to write it? I mean, it would be an advantage
+that you could not get off. Well, now you see how much better off you
+would be if you were only six inches tall, and now you understand
+about the fairies.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While Kathleen was still wondering at the place that she was in, a man
+whom she had not seen before came up to her. He wore a crown, and she
+guessed at once that he was some sort of king. It did not surprise her
+to see a man with a crown. A man with a church steeple on his head
+would not have surprised her, by this time. "Come with me," he said;
+"you're wanted at once."
+
+Kathleen followed him to the opposite side of the hall and through a
+door, into another room. It was much smaller than the hall, but it was
+just as beautiful, in its own way. There was a woman in this
+room--another of the beautiful girls, Kathleen would have said--lying
+on a gold couch. Her hair was hanging down over the pillow on which
+her head lay, so that Kathleen could scarcely tell which was the hair
+and which was the gold of the couch. There was a crown lying on a
+little table beside her, and so Kathleen guessed that she was the
+Queen. "Kathleen," said the Queen, "do you know why they have brought
+you here?"
+
+"No, Your Majesty," said Kathleen. She was not a bit frightened, any
+more than she had been all along, and she knew that that was the way
+to speak to a queen, just as well as if she had never spoken to
+anybody else in her life.
+
+"They brought you here, then," said the Queen, "to take care of my
+baby; but he'll not need you long, and then you can be going back
+home."
+
+"I'm afraid," Kathleen said, "that I don't know how to take care of a
+baby very well. I might do something wrong with it. You see my mother
+died when I was born, and so I was the only baby that there ever was
+at our house, and I have hardly ever had anything to do with a real
+live baby."
+
+"You've had something to do with them that was not alive, haven't
+you?" the Queen asked.
+
+Kathleen smiled a little at that. "There were fifteen of them, I
+think," she said.
+
+"Well, you'll be having no more trouble with this one," the Queen
+said, "than with any of those fifteen. Only do as you're told. I can't
+take care of it myself, because it's the law that it must have a nurse
+that's a mort--I mean it must have a nurse from outside this place.
+There's the baby in the cradle there. Try can you make him go to
+sleep."
+
+Kathleen went to the cradle and looked at the baby. It was wide awake
+and it stared at her like a little owl. Except for that, it looked
+like any other baby. The way that the baby stared at her came nearer
+to making Kathleen afraid than anything that she had seen yet. But she
+took him out of the cradle, sat down on a low seat that she found,
+began to rock him gently, and sang an old song that her grandmother
+used to sing to her and that she had sung to her own fifteen babies
+many a time.
+
+It was scarcely an instant before the baby was asleep. She put him
+back into the cradle and then turned to the Queen and said: "Shall I
+do anything more?"
+
+"Not now," said the King; "come now and have something to eat and
+drink with us."
+
+The Queen started at this and cried: "No, no!" but Kathleen did not
+know what she meant. She knew that she was very hungry, and she
+followed the King out of the room, back into the hall. Tables had been
+brought into the hall now, and they were all covered with things to
+eat that looked very good, and the men and women were sitting at the
+tables, eating and drinking and talking and laughing. They all stood
+up as the King came in, and waited till he had taken his place at the
+head of the table, and then they all sat down again, and the eating
+and drinking and talking and laughing went on.
+
+One of the men led Kathleen to a seat and put something to eat and
+drink before her. She did not know what it was, but it looked good.
+She was just going to taste it, when somebody touched her on the
+shoulder and somebody said: "Don't eat that; don't taste a bit of it."
+
+She looked around and saw a boy--perhaps she would have said a young
+man--standing behind her. He was very different from all the other
+men. He did not look old, as they did. She thought that he was of
+about her own age, and he was taller than she, while all the others
+were shorter. "Don't eat anything or drink anything that they give
+you," he said again. "I will give you something to eat."
+
+He sat down beside her and put a little package on the table before
+them. He opened it and took out some bread and meat, some
+strawberries, a little flask full of cream, and a larger one full of
+water. He gave Kathleen a part of all these and kept a part for
+himself. "I am not sure," Kathleen said, "that I ought to let you talk
+to me, because, you see, I don't know who you are."
+
+She had let several people talk to her that evening, without knowing
+who they were, but this boy seemed to be somehow altogether different.
+
+"My name is Terence," he said. "Now I know you are going to ask
+'Terence what?' It's Terence nothing; I have no name at all except
+Terence."
+
+"I know a boy named Terence," Kathleen said, "and I don't like him a
+bit."
+
+"I hope that won't make any difference about your liking me," said the
+boy.
+
+"Oh, not at all," said Kathleen. "It isn't his name that I don't like;
+it's himself. He is only just as old as I am, and he looks--" Kathleen
+stopped, surprised at herself, for she had not thought of it before.
+"He looks a little like these men here, who all seem to be so old;
+and, besides, he isn't nice at all."
+
+"Then let's not talk about him," said the boy. "Will you tell me what
+your name is?"
+
+"Oh, yes; didn't I tell you? My name is Kathleen O'Brien."
+
+"And must I call you Kathleen or Miss O'Brien? You see you will have
+to call me by my first name, because it is the only one I have, and so
+I think you ought to let me call you by your first name."
+
+"But if you have only one name," Kathleen said, "it is your last name
+just as much as it is your first, so perhaps you ought to call me by
+my last one."
+
+"Oh, no," Terence answered; "you see my name ought to be a first name,
+only I haven't any last one, so I think I ought to call you by your
+first one."
+
+Kathleen did not say that he might, but he afterward did. She thought
+that it would be better to change the subject. "It's just as if we
+were at a picnic and had brought our own luncheon, isn't it?" she
+said. "And all these other people are eating just as if they were at
+home. Why don't we do the same way they do?"
+
+"Because," Terence said, "we are not like them. We mustn't talk about
+it aloud. You see they are the Good People, and we are not. I don't
+know what I am at all, but you are like the people outside. I knew
+that as soon as I saw you, and I saw that they were going to let you
+eat their food. I almost wish I had let you do it now--no, I don't
+wish so, either. It would be mean to let you, and I don't want you to,
+anyway. You did come from outside, didn't you? Well, then, you must
+not eat or drink the least bit of anything while you are here, except
+what I bring you. All that I bring you is from outside. If you eat a
+crumb or drink a drop of anything that they have here, you can never
+get out again."
+
+"But they all get out," said Kathleen. "They were all outside when I
+saw them first."
+
+"Oh, yes," Terence answered, "they are different. They can go out and
+come in whenever they like; but if anybody from outside eats anything
+here, he can never go out again. It is that way with me, too, for I am
+different from the Good People, though I don't know whether I came
+from outside or not."
+
+"You don't know whether you came from outside or not?"
+
+"No. I came here when I was a little baby. I have often asked them how
+I came here, but they never would tell me. I have lived here ever
+since I can remember. Have you a father and a mother?"
+
+"My mother is dead," Kathleen answered; "I have a father."
+
+"Yes," said Terence, as if he were trying to work out a puzzle.
+"Nearly all the people outside seem to have fathers and mothers. I
+never had either. I have always lived here, but nobody here is my
+father or my mother, and I don't know how I came here. I have been
+here so long, and yet it seems so strange to me. This is my only home,
+and yet I never feel at home in it. I always feel as if I belonged
+somewhere else. I see the people outside and I feel as if I belonged
+with them more than here, yet I have never been outside this place one
+single night."
+
+"You go out often in the daytime, then?" Kathleen asked.
+
+"Oh, yes; I go out every day, almost, and I go to school. Have you
+been to school?"
+
+"Why, of course," Kathleen answered; "doesn't everybody have to go to
+school?"
+
+"These people here never go to school," Terence said. "I am the only
+one who goes, and then I have to try to teach them what I have
+learned. Do you go home from school and try to teach your father what
+you have learned?"
+
+"Why, no, indeed," said Kathleen; "what a funny idea!"
+
+"Sometimes it seems funny to me too," Terence said, "but you see I
+can't tell whether it is funny or not, because I know so little about
+the people outside. I don't like to ask them, because they would think
+it was so strange that I didn't know; but it is different with you.
+You have come in here, and I can ask you things that I wouldn't ask of
+people outside."
+
+"If they want to know things," said Kathleen, "why don't they go to
+school themselves?"
+
+"I don't know that, either," said Terence, "but they seem to expect me
+to go to school for all of them. I think that is what I am here for.
+Before I was old enough to go to school at all they used to bring me
+things to eat from outside, because, you know, if I ate anything of
+theirs I never could go out. Then as soon as I was old enough to go to
+school, they sent me, and I came back every night, and they gave me
+money to buy all my own food outside, and I have done that ever since,
+and I have never eaten a bit of the Good People's food."
+
+"And don't you like to stay here?" Kathleen asked. "It seems to me a
+very beautiful place."
+
+"No," said Terence; "they are very kind to me, but I think that I
+should like to live outside better, and I hope that I shall some time.
+And then, you see, if I ate anything here I could not go out to go to
+school, and so I could not teach them. And it is all so strange. It
+almost makes me cry, it is such a bother sometimes, and then they are
+so sorry about it themselves and I am so sorry for them, and it almost
+makes me laugh sometimes, because they can never learn anything. You
+will see. I think it is time now."
+
+Some of the men were taking away the tables. "It is time for the
+lesson," the King called out. Some of the other men brought in a big
+blackboard and set it up. Everybody stopped talking and laughing and
+stood near the blackboard. Terence made some lines and some letters on
+the board, with a piece of chalk.
+
+"I shall have to try again," said Terence, "to prove to you the same
+thing that I tried to prove to you last night. But I'll try a
+different way, and maybe you'll see it better. Now mind, what I am to
+prove is this: if any triangle has two sides equal, the angles
+opposite those sides are also equal."
+
+"And what difference does it make if they're equal or not?" said one
+of the men who stood near Kathleen.
+
+"Be still there," the King said; "do we want to make telephones or do
+we not? And sure we can't make telephones without geometry. Hasn't
+Terence told you that?"
+
+Terence went on: "Let ABC be any triangle in which the sides AB and AC
+are equal."
+
+"How can it be any triangle, when it's only one triangle?" said
+another of the men.
+
+"Keep your silly head shut," said the King. "Terence didn't say it was
+any triangle; he said let it be. Now will you let that triangle be, or
+will I come over there and make you let it be?"
+
+The man said nothing more and Terence went on: "Now, consider this
+triangle as two triangles, BAC and CAB."
+
+"How can it be two triangles," another of the men said, "when it's
+only one triangle?"
+
+"Will you be still there?" the King said. "Terence doesn't say it's
+two triangles; he says you're to consider it. Will you consider that
+triangle two triangles, or will I come over there and make you
+consider it two triangles?"
+
+"I'll consider it seven triangles, if you like, Your Majesty," the
+man answered, "but I dunno what good it'll do me."
+
+"Then consider it," said the King, "and don't talk about it. Go on,
+Terence."
+
+"Now, you see that since the sides AB and AC in each triangle are
+equal, AB and AC in the first are respectively equal to AC and AB in
+the second, and the angles between these sides are equal. So the two
+triangles are equal, by previous proposition. And so the angles of one
+are equal to the angles of the other, where they are opposite the
+equal sides; that is, the angle ABC is equal to the angle ACB, being
+opposite the equal sides AC and AB, by the same previous proposition,
+and that is what I was to prove."
+
+The King looked at the men with triumph in his eye. "There, you
+blackguards," he said, "do you understand it at all, now that Terence
+has made it clear to you?"
+
+One by one the men and women began slowly to shake their heads. Not
+one of them understood it. "Well, Terence," said the King, shaking his
+own head, "I dunno how it is; nobody could be asking you to make it
+any clearer than you have, and yet I'm obliged to say there's never a
+bit of it I understand myself. Maybe to-morrow night you'll be able to
+make us see it clearer."
+
+Terence had come back to where Kathleen was. "Isn't it funny," he
+said, "and yet isn't it a pity? I try to teach them as well as I can,
+but they never can understand at all."
+
+"And do you mean to say," said Kathleen, "that you haven't got any
+farther in geometry than that? Why, that's only the fifth proposition
+of the first book."
+
+"Of course I've got farther than that," Terence answered, "but they
+haven't, and they never will. I have been trying to teach them that
+proposition--oh, I don't know how long--and they never will learn it
+in the world. They want to learn to build railways and bridges and all
+sorts of things, but how can anybody even get ready to build a railway
+or a bridge till he's got over this bridge and the rest of the
+geometry? I don't know whether I can ever learn it all myself, but I'm
+going to the School of Engineering up at the University, next spring,
+to learn chemistry, and qualitative analysis, and calculus, and
+analytical mechanics, and graphical statics, and metallurgy, and
+thermodynamics, and hydraulics, and a lot of other things. But these
+people here will still be at work on this same triangle years after I
+am dead, if they have anybody to teach them."
+
+"Now, Terence, my boy," said the King, "there's one thing you can do
+for us we can understand. Give us a tune out of the fiddle."
+
+Kathleen was startled to hear this boy named Terence asked to play on
+the fiddle, just as if he had been the other Terence whom she knew.
+She wondered if he played like the other Terence. She scarcely dared
+wait to hear, and she felt as if she should like to run away, only she
+did not know where to run.
+
+But she did not think any more about running after Terence began to
+play. This was different. And yet in one way it was the same. For the
+music that Terence was playing was just the music that the other
+Terence often played and just what most people liked to hear him play
+best, though Kathleen had always liked it as little as anything else
+that he did. She had never heard anyone else play it till now. And now
+it was so different. She could scarcely tell the difference, and yet
+she could feel it in every clear note that Terence drew out with his
+bow.
+
+When she was a little girl, almost as long ago as she could remember,
+she used to say, when the other Terence played this very music, that
+it did not mean anything. But now it meant something. Meant something!
+It meant--everything, Kathleen thought, and yet she could not tell at
+all what it meant. It was not happiness that it meant, and it was not
+sorrow; it was not merry, and it was not grave. Sometimes it was light
+and gentle and sweet, and flowed along as if it were a little
+fountain of music, bubbling and bubbling out of a hidden place; then
+it would be slower, but fine and firm, and full and free and true. It
+seemed to Kathleen to mean so much, and yet she could not tell what,
+except that there was something like a deep longing that went all
+through it.
+
+And that made her think of the other Terence's music again, for she
+remembered now, though she had never thought of it before, that there
+was a longing in his music too. Perhaps she had done wrong, she
+thought, to say that it did not mean anything. Still, this was so
+different. If the other Terence's fiddle had ever seemed to be longing
+for anything, it had seemed to be hopeless, and the fiddle always
+seemed to be bitterly laughing at those who were listening to it and
+thinking that it was so fine. She had never thought of anything like
+this before, but it seemed clear to her now, listening to the same
+music played so differently. For now, below all the longing and
+sounding through it, there were strength and hope and life and faith
+in something good.
+
+I do not say that Kathleen thought all this out while she was
+listening. She only felt the most of it. But she felt it so much that
+she scarcely knew what she was doing, and she moved by little and
+little toward Terence, till she was nearer to him than anybody else,
+and looked at him as if he were something more wonderful than she had
+ever seen before, till she found that she could not look at him,
+because her eyes were wet. And then the music stopped.
+
+Then said the King: "I said that was something that we could
+understand, Terence, but I dunno if it is. It's the wonderful player
+you are all out, but I never heard you play like that before, and I
+think there's something in it that's more than I can find out. That's
+enough of it for to-night."
+
+Terence had already come back to Kathleen. She could scarcely speak to
+him even yet. "Who taught you to play like that?" she said.
+
+"I don't quite know," he answered, "whether anybody taught me. They
+taught me to play here, and the music that I just played is their
+music, but I don't play it the way they do. I don't know why that is.
+Just as soon as they had taught me so that I could play at all, I
+began to play in my own way. Their music is sweet and bright and merry
+and sparkling, and sometimes it seems to be sad, but it never means
+anything."
+
+Kathleen was startled again to hear Terence say the very words that
+she had said so many times about the other Terence's music. "But I
+never played before in my life," Terence went on, "the way I have
+been playing just now. I think it was because you were here. You
+understood, and so I thought of nothing but you all the time that I
+was playing, and I think it made me play better. They never
+understand. They love music and they hate geometry, but they
+understand one just as well as the other."
+
+The King came up to Kathleen and said: "It is time for you to come and
+be looking after the child again."
+
+Kathleen went with him and he led her back into the room where the
+Queen was. "Where is the box of ointment?" the King said to the Queen.
+
+"I have it here under my pillow," the Queen answered; "come here and
+get it, Kathleen."
+
+The Queen took something from under her pillow and held it so that
+Kathleen had to come close to her to get it. "Did you eat anything?"
+the Queen asked, as Kathleen bent over her.
+
+Kathleen did not quite know whether she ought to answer or not, but
+the Queen looked at her so kindly that she thought that there could be
+no harm, and she said: "Only what Terence gave me."
+
+"That was right," said the Queen, and then she went on, speaking
+louder, so that the King could hear: "Take this box of ointment. In
+the morning, as soon as the baby is awake, take him out of the cradle
+and wash him, and then just touch his eyes with this ointment; but be
+careful that you do not touch your own eyes with it."
+
+Kathleen took the box, which seemed to be of solid gold, and looked at
+it. What was in it looked like a soft, green salve. She slipped it
+into the pocket of her gown. "How shall I know when it is morning?"
+she asked. It seemed to her that here under the hill there would not
+be much difference between night and day.
+
+"You'll know it's morning when the child wakes up," the Queen said;
+"or when you wake up yourself, for that matter. You can go to bed now.
+There's your bed, next to the cradle."
+
+The King left them, and Kathleen, who was really very tired, lay down
+on another gold couch, almost like the Queen's, that had been placed
+near the cradle, and in a minute she was asleep.
+
+It seemed scarcely another minute before she was awake again. She
+remembered that the Queen had said that when she awoke it would be
+morning, and she looked to see if the baby was awake too. He was, and
+she took him out of the cradle. Then she saw a large gold basin full
+of water. She washed the baby in it, and he stared at her all the
+time, with big, owlish eyes. Then she took the box of ointment out of
+her pocket. She touched it with her finger and then touched each of
+the baby's eyes with it. Instantly his eyes looked brighter and
+deeper, and instead of staring at her stupidly, as they had done
+before, they seemed to look straight through her. Nothing had
+frightened her at all, and now she was getting so that nothing
+startled her. So she only laid the baby back in his cradle and put the
+box of ointment into her pocket.
+
+In a moment the King came in and said it was time for breakfast. He
+and the Queen went out into the hall together and Kathleen followed
+them. As soon as she was in the hall she saw Terence. He was looking
+for her and they sat down and ate breakfast together. Then Terence
+went away.
+
+All day, except when it was time for meals, Kathleen sat with the
+Queen or looked after the baby, though there was really nothing to do
+for him. Whenever it was time for a meal they went out into the hall,
+and there Kathleen always found Terence, and she always ate with him,
+and ate only what he brought her.
+
+In the evening the King came to her and said, "Kathleen, it is time
+for us to go and dance again; come with us."
+
+Then Terence took her by both hands and said, "Don't go with them;
+don't go; if you do, I am afraid that you will never come back."
+
+"Of course I shall come back," she said; "you have been very kind to
+me, and I would come back to see you again, if it was for nothing
+else. And then I don't know whether I must do anything more for the
+baby. And then--" Kathleen stopped short as she thought. "I ought not
+to come back--not to-night! I ought to go home! Oh, how anxious my
+father and my grandmother must be about me! I have been here all night
+and all day, and they must think that I am dead. And I have not
+thought of them the whole time. I am wicked to have stayed here so
+long."
+
+"Then you will not come back," Terence said. "You know why I brought
+you all that you have had to eat and to drink. It was so that you
+might leave this place. I might have let you eat their food, and then
+you could never leave it, unless to go out with them and dance on
+their green and then come back again. I made it so that you could go,
+and now you will go and you will not come back."
+
+"I will come back," Kathleen answered, "but I must see my father and
+my grandmother and tell them that I am safe. Perhaps I will come back
+to-morrow, if I can, but I will come back. I would come back just
+because you wanted to see me, you have been so good to me. It was very
+good of you, if you wanted me to stay, to bring me the things to eat
+and drink, so that I could go if I liked."
+
+"No, it was not good of me at all," Terence answered; "I had no right
+to let them keep you here always, even if I wanted you to be here. But
+I hoped and I always hope that I shall leave this place some time
+myself, and I did not want to have to leave you here. I would not have
+left you here. Promise that you will come back."
+
+"I will come back," Kathleen answered.
+
+"Come along now," said the King, hurrying up to Kathleen again. "It's
+time we were dancing this minute."
+
+All the little men and women were moving out of the hall and Kathleen
+went with them. In an instant they were again in the passage that
+Kathleen remembered. The floor was of gold, like the floor of the
+hall, and then she saw that she was walking on the water once more.
+The yellow glow was under it still, but fainter than in the hall. The
+violet light on the walls of the passage grew dimmer; she saw the
+lights that the men and women carried, shining ahead of her and all
+around her. Then she looked down at the water and saw the stars
+shining up through it, as if there were another sky far down under her
+feet. And then--she felt the cool, fresh breath of the outside air,
+and it was delicious to her, and she was standing on her own little
+pool, and deep down under it there were thousands of stars. She and
+all the others walked--or drifted, as it seemed to Kathleen--up the
+bank of sweet-smelling new grass, to the little hollowed place, with
+the trees and the bushes growing around it and hanging over it, where
+Kathleen had first seen the Good People. And then they began the
+dance.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+IX
+
+A YEAR AND A DAY
+
+
+When Kathleen did not come home at the time she was expected, her
+father and her grandmother were not much surprised at first. She was
+in the habit of going where she pleased and of coming back when she
+pleased. If she chose to be an hour or two late her father or her
+grandmother might ask her why, or they might not think of it. So, on
+that May Eve when she danced with the Good People, as it began to get
+late and still she did not come, they had no doubt that she had
+decided to make her visit at the Sullivans' a little longer than she
+had intended. When it got later and still she did not come, her father
+said that he would walk over to the Sullivans' and come back with her.
+He never thought of not finding her there. Even when he got there and
+Ellen told him that Kathleen had gone away hours ago and had said that
+she was going home, he did not think that any harm could have come to
+her.
+
+"She met some of the girls that she knew and went with them, maybe,"
+he said, "and she'll be home before me."
+
+But when he got home again and found that she was not there, and when
+he told his mother that she was not at the Sullivans', they both began
+to be a little worried. They told each other over and over that
+Kathleen knew how to take care of herself and that no harm was likely
+to come to her, but they both doubted their own words. Late at night
+John went to the Sullivans' again, taking the way that he thought
+Kathleen would be likely to take, and looking everywhere for her,
+though he knew that to search for her in such a way as that was
+nonsense.
+
+The Sullivans had all gone to bed when he got there, but Peter got up
+and walked back with him, by another way. They went to a police
+station and asked if there had been any accident--if any girl had been
+hurt and taken to a hospital. There had been no accident that night.
+They went home and waited again. At last John could wait no longer. He
+and Peter started out again and went different ways. They went to
+other police stations and asked if there had been accidents. There had
+been one or two, but nobody at all like Kathleen had had anything to
+do with them. They went to hospitals and asked about all the new
+patients. There was not one of them that was at all like Kathleen.
+
+It does not belong to the story to tell how they went on searching.
+All the next day they searched. They tried every way that they knew,
+and every way that the police knew, and every way that anybody could
+think of, to find her, and there was no trace. Late that day one of
+the girls who had walked through the Park with Kathleen came to see
+her, not knowing that she was lost. Then she told where she had seen
+Kathleen last. She told how Kathleen had dropped behind the others,
+though she had said that she wanted to get home early, how they had
+called to her, how she had answered, and how they had gone on,
+thinking that she would soon follow.
+
+Then Mrs. O'Brien said to John: "You do not need to search for her any
+longer. She is with the Good People. I have seen that place often, and
+it always looked to me like a place where the Good People might be.
+Last night was May Eve. There is no time in the whole year when the
+Good People have more power, and especially to carry off young girls.
+They have taken her with them. Some time she may come back, or some
+time we may get her back, but it is of no use for you to search for
+her any more."
+
+But John went on searching still. The next day and for many days he
+looked for her and tried every means to find her, but she could not be
+found. Again and again his mother told him that it was of no use, but
+still he said: "It might be some use, and I wouldn't be easy if I
+didn't try."
+
+By and by there came a time when even John did not think that there
+was any use in trying longer. He read many papers, from many different
+cities, hoping always to find something about some unknown girl who
+had been found, sick or hurt or helpless, somewhere, but he said
+little about her. He went on with his old work, and he and his mother
+were alone and lonely in the house. Then John came to believe that
+Kathleen was dead. He told his mother this and she answered: "Kathleen
+is not dead."
+
+"And how do you know that, mother?" John said. "You always say that
+the Good People took her away, but that might be true, and still she
+might be dead by now. And the Good People might not have taken her at
+all. How do you know?"
+
+"I don't know that the Good People took her," she answered, "though I
+think they did; but I am sure she is not dead."
+
+"And how are you sure, mother?"
+
+"Kathleen could never die," Mrs. O'Brien said, "without I'ld hear the
+banshee."
+
+"The banshee?" said John. "There's no banshee here. There's banshees
+only in Ireland."
+
+"Our banshee is here," his mother answered. "I know she is here.
+You've heard me tell of her. She's the sad, mourning woman of the Good
+People that weeps and wails about the house when anybody of the family
+is to die, anywhere in the world. It's true, as you say, that the
+banshees mostly stay in Ireland, though they are heard to cry and moan
+for those of the family who are to die in any part of the world. But
+sometimes the banshee leaves Ireland with the family that she belongs
+to, and so did ours. Wouldn't I know her voice? Didn't I hear her wail
+and scream before your father died, so many, many years ago? Oh, I'ld
+never forget it. I'ld know her voice."
+
+"Then why didn't you hear her," John asked "before Kitty died, and why
+didn't you know before that she was to die?"
+
+"I did hear the banshee that time," his mother answered, "but I
+couldn't tell that it was Kitty that was to die. It was the night
+before she died. I heard a little moan, that was more like the wind
+than anything else, and then it grew louder, and it was a sob and a
+soft wail. It did not grow very loud. Then I could hear that it was
+like the keen that the women cry over the dead at home. I knew that it
+was the banshee. No, I could not be wrong about her; I had heard her
+before. But I never thought of Kitty then. I thought: 'I'm an old
+woman--an old woman--though I would never let them say so; and now my
+time has come. I shall soon be with him again. If I could only see a
+child of John's and Kitty's before I go, I'ld go gladly. If I could
+only say to him: "Before I came to you I held John's and Kitty's child
+in my arms," then I'ld go gladly.' That was what I said to myself that
+time. But it was Kitty that the banshee meant. And now, though I felt
+then the first time that I was an old woman, here I am still, and
+Kitty is gone and the child is grown up to be a woman and she is lost.
+But she is not dead, John; she is not dead. Kathleen couldn't die
+without I'ld hear the banshee."
+
+It was not once only that John and his mother talked together in some
+such way as this. It was a dozen times at least, perhaps two dozen
+times, that she told him that, whatever had come to Kathleen, she was
+not dead--that she could not be dead, because the banshee had not
+moaned and cried about the house, as she was sure to do before any one
+of the O'Briens could die. And so John, seeing his mother careworn
+and anxious, but never so full of sorrow as himself, came to think
+that he ought to bear it better, and not let her see him always so
+troubled and so sad. Yet he could not believe all that his mother said
+quite as she believed it, and she had to tell him all of it again and
+again, and she told him, too, that when the time came she meant to try
+to get Kathleen back from the Good People. And after a while John did
+not think every time that he heard anybody at the door that it was
+Kathleen at last, and all in the house went on as it had gone before,
+only that Kathleen was not there. But that "only" was enough, and it
+was a different house.
+
+The dreadful spring was past; the horrible, dull, anxious summer was
+gone; the cruel, chilly autumn went by; the cold, dead, heartless
+winter dragged through; another spring came, cheerless, hopeless,
+helpless, like the last.
+
+"Shaun," said Mrs. O'Brien, "do you know when it was that Kathleen
+went away?"
+
+"Could I ever forget?" said John.
+
+"When was it?"
+
+"It was May Eve."
+
+"And what is to-day, John?"
+
+"It's the last day of April," John answered; "it's a year this night
+she's been away. Could I forget it? Don't I think of it all the
+time?"
+
+"There's no time in the year," Mrs. O'Brien said, "when the Good
+People have more power than on May Eve."
+
+"Oh, mother," said John, "don't talk to me of the Good People; I've
+heard too much of them. I don't care if there are any Good People or
+not. I only know that Kathleen has been from us a year. When her
+mother died I could bear it, because I had Kathleen left, but now
+she's gone, and how can I bear it?"
+
+"Listen to me, John," his mother went on. "It's on May Eve, as I told
+you, that the Good People have great power. It's then that they dance,
+and then they make young girls or young men that they want come and
+dance with them, and then they carry them off. But it's on May Eve,
+too, sometimes, that they can be got back by those who know what to
+do. And so it's to-night that we must try to get Kathleen back. I
+wouldn't tell you till the time came, for fear you might hope too
+much. We may not find her, and then we may, and you must come with us,
+for we don't know how much help we'll need."
+
+"Who is it that I must come with?" John asked.
+
+"With me and with the girls that were with Kathleen that night and saw
+her last."
+
+"How do we know that they can come?" said John. "It's late in the day
+now and they may be away from home."
+
+"I've taken care of all that," Mrs. O'Brien said; "they'll be here in
+a little while to go with us."
+
+In a little while the girls came. Then they and Mrs. O'Brien and John
+went together to the place where Kathleen had met the girls, on her
+way home from the Sullivans', a year ago. "Was it about this time of
+the day," Mrs. O'Brien asked, "that you met Kathleen here a year ago
+to-night?"
+
+"It was," one of the girls said, "about this time."
+
+"Then you must take us," Mrs. O'Brien went on, "just the way that you
+went, and show us the very place where Kathleen stood, the last
+instant that you saw her."
+
+They all walked along through the Park, the girls leading the way.
+"How can they find the very place again?" said John. "It's been a year
+since then. It's likely they have forgot the spot. How could they
+remember it so long?"
+
+"John," said his mother, "will you never trust me? Do you think that
+I've been waiting for them to forget all this time? The very evening
+after Kathleen was lost they brought me here and then took me to the
+very spot where they saw her last. They talked of it between
+themselves and decided just where it was, and many a time since
+they've been with me here, so that they could not forget it."
+
+In a few minutes the girls stopped. "This is the place where we saw
+her last," they said; "just here. She stood here and seemed to be
+looking at something there on the grass."
+
+Mrs. O'Brien whispered: "Stand still here, all of you, and do not
+speak or stir unless I call to you; then do whatever I tell you, and
+do it quickly."
+
+Mrs. O'Brien drew out something which was hung about her neck, by a
+chain, under her gown. She held it before her in her hand. She stepped
+upon the grass and looked all around her. She went a few steps forward
+and looked around again. She went a little to the left, then a little
+more to the right. And then, to those who were watching, it seemed as
+if she saw something, though they could see nothing but her. For she
+made a few hurried steps and then put out her left hand, as if to take
+hold of something. Then they saw her raise her right hand, as if to
+touch the something that she had taken hold of, with what she held in
+it. Still they could see nothing except her, but now she hurried
+toward them, and suddenly they saw that she was leading Kathleen, with
+her left arm around her and holding her right hand against her
+forehead.
+
+"Take her and go home with her," she said to John, "as quickly as you
+can. The rest of us will follow."
+
+"Oh, father," said Kathleen, "I am so glad that you came to meet me!
+Have you and grandmother been worried about me all day? I was afraid
+you would be, but the baby needed me, and I couldn't send any word to
+you. And I promised Terence that I would come back--not Terence
+Sullivan, but the Terence that lives in there. Please ask some of the
+Good People to tell him that I will come back to-morrow. Then I will
+go home with you."
+
+"Take her home! Take her home!" her grandmother cried. And John led
+her away as fast as he could, while the rest followed.
+
+No one said anything more till they were at home, for it was only a
+little way. Kathleen scarcely looked at her father till they came into
+the house, where it was light. "Why, father," she said, "what makes
+you look so queer? You look so much older than you did yesterday, and
+you--oh, I am afraid you were dreadfully worried about me. I didn't
+think you would be--such a little while. I forgot that you would be
+worried. There was so much to see there, and then I had to take care
+of the baby--and so I forgot. It was very wrong for me to forget, and
+I am so sorry you were anxious about me. But I thought of you and
+grandmother just as we were coming out to dance to-night, and as soon
+as we were done dancing I was coming home. And why were you all there
+where we were dancing? Did you think that I would be there? You ought
+not to have been afraid, father. It was just such a little while."
+
+John did not seem to think anything about its being wrong for Kathleen
+to forget. He did not seem to think of anything but that she had come
+back. "Just a little while, do you call it?" he said. "Do you call a
+year a little while for you to be away from me, Kathleen? And from
+your grandmother? Don't you see how she has worried about you, too,
+all this long year? And what could I think but that you was dead? Your
+grandmother never thought so, but I could think nothing else."
+
+"A year!" Kathleen cried. "What do you mean, father? What do you mean?
+Oh, grandmother, is there anything wrong? Has he been sick? What is
+it?"
+
+"Be quiet, John," said Mrs. O'Brien, "and let me talk with Kathleen.
+Come here, Kathleen. No, there is nothing wrong, dear. Now listen, and
+answer what I ask you. When did you see your father and me last before
+to-night?"
+
+"Why, you know that, grandmother," Kathleen answered. "I saw father
+yesterday morning, and I saw you yesterday afternoon, when I left you
+to go to the Sullivans'."
+
+"And where have you been since then?" Mrs. O'Brien asked.
+
+Kathleen closed her eyes and clasped her hands, as she thought of it.
+"Oh, it was so wonderful!" she said. "I was inside the hill in the
+Park. I walked right in there on the water with the Good People. And
+it was so beautiful there--all gold and silver and jewels--and the
+music--the music that Terence played! And I must go back. I promised
+him I would."
+
+"And how long were you there?" Mrs. O'Brien asked.
+
+"All the time," Kathleen said; "all night and all day; I didn't go
+anywhere else. And when it was time for them all to come out to dance
+to-night--they were dancing, you know, when I first saw them, and they
+asked me to dance with them, and then I went into the hill with them.
+And to-night we came out to dance again, and it was only a little
+while when you came, and then I saw father, and he brought me home.
+But I was coming home myself as soon as the dancing was over."
+
+"Kathleen," said Mrs. O'Brien, "listen to me now. Don't be frightened,
+but listen. You've been away from us for a whole year. It was a year
+ago this night that you danced with the Good People that first time.
+All this year you have been with them there in the hill. If we had not
+gone after you to-night, and if I had not known how to bring you back,
+they would have taken you into the hill for another year, and you
+might have stayed there, perhaps, as long as you lived."
+
+"But, grandmother! A year! Why, you know it was yesterday!"
+
+"Yesterday was a year ago," her grandmother said. "You can't
+understand it now. Don't try. You must eat something now, and then you
+must go to bed. To-morrow I can tell you about it better, and then
+perhaps you can understand."
+
+But Kathleen could not eat. Her going away had been so strange, her
+coming back had been so wonderful, and what her grandmother had told
+her had been so marvelous, that she could think of nothing else. By
+and by she went to her room. While she was undressing she felt
+something hard in her pocket. She took it out, and it was the little
+box of ointment that the Queen had given her to put on the baby's
+eyes. Now that she was at home again she felt as if she had dreamed
+all that she had seen and heard while she was away. But she had not
+dreamed it. Here was this little gold box to prove it. Yet she could
+not believe it. And they told her that she had been away for a year!
+What they said must be a dream too. But here was the little gold box,
+just as the Queen had given it to her. It was a green salve that was
+in it. She would open it and see if there really was a green salve. If
+there was, then it was not a dream.
+
+She opened it. There was the green salve. Yes, it was exactly as she
+remembered it. And she could remember it all so well. She remembered
+how the Queen had given it to her, and surely that was last night. She
+remembered how she had touched the baby's eyes with the salve, and how
+much brighter they had looked after she had done it. Surely it was
+only this morning that she did that. It seemed to her all so plain.
+And they said that it had been a year. She could not understand it at
+all. She laid the little gold box on her bureau, under her glass, and
+went to bed.
+
+The next morning Kathleen could think about things a little more
+clearly. She could not remember what she had seen and heard in the
+hill quite so distinctly. She had not forgotten anything, but it all
+seemed dimmer in her mind than it had been, as if it were long ago.
+And still it seemed as if it had all happened yesterday. Everybody
+whom she knew had heard that she was at home again, and everybody came
+to see her. And they all told her that she had been away for a year.
+She could not doubt it any longer, and yet she could not understand
+it. What had she been doing all that time? She could remember just
+enough to fill up one night and one day, and that was all. Could it be
+that she had slept for three hundred and sixty-four days and been
+awake for only one? No, she could not believe that. And so, at last,
+she came to her grandmother to ask if she could explain it to her.
+
+"No," the old woman said, "I can't do that. It's too wonderful for any
+of us to understand. But it's no more wonderful than many things that
+are true, and I've heard tales of it before. Often one stays in the
+land of the Good People, and in other places, too, and thinks that the
+time has been short, when it has been long. Shall I tell you what
+happened once to a monk--a holy man--much more wonderful than what
+happened to you?
+
+"One day this monk was in the garden of the monastery where he lived,
+reading in his book. He was reading in the Psalms, where it says, 'For
+a thousand years in thy sight are as yesterday, which is past. And as
+a watch in the night, things that are counted nothing, shall their
+years be.'
+
+"And he found it hard to believe that even to God Himself a thousand
+years could seem no more than a day. As he was thinking of this, a
+bird in a tree near him began to sing, and the song was so beautiful
+that he forgot the psalm that he had been reading and his thoughts
+about it, and only listened to the bird. It seemed to him that in all
+his life he had never heard any music so beautiful.
+
+"But soon the bird flew to another tree, farther from the monastery,
+and the monk followed, to listen to its song again. Then the bird flew
+to a tree farther off, and still the monk followed. Once more the bird
+flew to another tree, and once more the monk followed it, for it
+seemed to him that as long as that bird sang he could listen to
+nothing else and could think of nothing else. But he saw that the sun
+had gone down and he knew that it was time for him to go back to the
+monastery. As he went back he looked at the colors that the sun had
+left behind it in the sky, and he thought that they were as beautiful
+to see as the voice of the bird was to hear.
+
+"They were all faded and the darkness had come on when he reached the
+monastery and went in. And if he had wondered at the song of the bird
+and at the colors in the sky, he wondered yet more when he found
+himself again in the place where he had lived for many years. For
+many things about the place were changed, and the men in it were all
+changed. There was not one face among them that he knew. One of the
+brothers saw him and came toward him, and he said: 'Brother, why have
+all these changes been made here since this morning? And who are all
+these whom I do not know? I scarcely know my own monastery.'
+
+"And the other answered: 'Who are you that ask this, and why do you
+come here? For you wear the dress of our order, but you are a
+stranger. You speak as if you knew the place, yet I myself have lived
+here for fifty years and I have never seen you before.'
+
+"Then the monk told his name and told how he had been at mass in the
+chapel in the morning and had then gone into the garden to read. And
+he told how he had read in the Psalms, 'A thousand years in thy sight
+are as yesterday, which is past,' and how, while he was thinking of
+these words, he had heard the bird singing. He told how he had
+followed the bird, till he saw that night was coming, and then had
+come back to the monastery.
+
+"And the other said: 'I remember now that when I first came into this
+place they told me of a legend that a monk of your name had gone out
+of this monastery a hundred and fifty years before, and had never come
+back and had never been heard of again. And now, counting my own
+fifty years here, that must have been two hundred years ago.'
+
+"Then the monk said: 'God has given me such happiness as He gives to
+few until they are with Him in Heaven, for these two hundred years
+have seemed to me to be only a part of a day. Now hear my confession,
+for I know that I soon shall die.'
+
+"So the other monk heard his confession, and before midnight he died.
+And this was the way that God had chosen to show him the meaning of
+His word."
+
+It was a pretty story, but Kathleen understood no more than before.
+"No," said her grandmother, "you cannot understand, and I cannot. We
+live here such a little while and we are so shut in by time, that we
+cannot understand how it is with those who live always. But we shall
+understand when the right time comes, and then we shall wonder how we
+could ever wonder. And I will tell you another story about it, not to
+make you understand, but to show you how it is.
+
+"Long ago Finn McCool was the great champion of Ireland. He had many
+warriors, who were called Fenians. He had a son, Oisin, who was a
+great warrior, too, and besides that a poet and a minstrel. Some of
+his poems are left to us yet. One day the Fenians were hunting, when
+they met a beautiful girl riding on a white horse. She called to
+Oisin, and he went apart from the others to speak with her.
+
+"She told him that she was the Princess of Tir-na-n-Oge, and that she
+had come to take him there, where she was to be married to him.
+'Tir-na-n-Oge' means 'Land of the Young,' and they say that nobody
+ever grows old there. The Princess was as beautiful as moonlight, and
+her voice was as sweet as the wind blowing on a harp, and Oisin was in
+love with her and eager to go before she had done speaking.
+
+"He went back to his father and his companions and bade them farewell.
+It was with tears that Finn said good-by to Oisin, for I think he knew
+that he should never see him again. But Oisin did not know. Then Oisin
+mounted the white horse and set the Princess in front of him, and the
+horse galloped away toward the west. In a little while they came to
+the sea, and the horse kept straight on, galloping over the water as
+if it had been a smooth road. Then some say that the water rose around
+them and covered them and that they were in a beautiful place under
+the sea. I am not sure of that. Lands there are under the sea, they
+say, and no doubt there are, but I am not so sure that the real
+Tir-na-n-Oge is there.
+
+"For others say that the tops of blue hills rose before them, and
+changed to green as they came nearer, and then Oisin saw that soft
+grass sloped down to the very water here and there, and in other
+places there were tall cliffs, and trailing vines hung down from the
+tops of them, covered with bright flowers, and they swung to and fro
+in the light breeze. Beyond there were more hills, covered with rich
+woods. Little veils of mist hid them partly and made them more
+beautiful, and streams poured down from high places and looked like
+thin, silky tassels hung upon the hills, and they waved in the air,
+like the waving vines, and some of them seemed never to reach the
+ground at all, but to blow away into fine silver spray and to mix with
+the mists of the hills. And golden sunlight poured down over it all,
+and there was a warm shimmer in the air that made it all look like
+something seen in a dream. And this was Tir-na-n-Oge.
+
+"The horse came to the shore and galloped over soft turf till it
+seemed to Oisin that they were in the very middle of the island, and
+there they came to a palace, and Oisin thought that it was more
+beautiful than anything else that he had seen. It may be that the
+palace was built of marble, but to Oisin it seemed like blocks of pure
+snow. It was so long that one might well mount his horse to go the
+length of it, instead of walking. It had gilded domes that looked
+like suns, with the light shining on them, and the whole palace was
+dazzling to look at. All around it were gardens, with trees and plants
+in full bloom, of all the colors of the rainbow, and colors that are
+not in the rainbow, and other trees with only deep green leaves, and
+pathways among them which led down into cool, shady hollows, with
+clear brooks running through them between banks of soft, dark-green
+moss, sinking their quiet little song.
+
+"Oisin got down off his horse and then lifted the Princess down, and
+they went into the palace. There the Princess's father, the King of
+Tir-na-n-Oge, made Oisin welcome and led both of them to the banquet
+hall, where a great feast was spread in honor of the Princess and the
+new Prince. And Oisin thought that if the palace was beautiful
+outside, it was much more beautiful inside, and as for the table that
+was before him, he could not think of any of the best things in the
+world to eat and to drink that were not on it.
+
+"The next day the Princess was married to Oisin. For a long time Oisin
+and the Princess lived in the palace and Oisin thought that he never
+could be more happy than he was now. The old warriors cared much for
+what they ate and drank, and Oisin ate and drank better things than he
+had ever tasted before. He walked with the Princess down through the
+shady ways among the trees and across the brooks and up the hill-sides
+among the flowers. They sat together in the garden or in the palace
+and she sang to him and told him wonderful tales of heroes and of
+princesses of olden times. Sometimes they rode hunting together, and
+everywhere they found game, the finest that Oisin had ever seen.
+
+"But at last Oisin began to feel that he cared less for all these
+things than he had done at first. The grass and the flowers and the
+woods did not seem so fair to him as they had seemed; the sunshine was
+not such pure gold; he wished that the silver streams would not blow
+away in spray and mix with the mists; he wanted to see them come down
+yellow with the earth of the mountains and plunge into caverns with
+great rushing and roaring; he felt that the warm air was taking his
+strength from him; he no longer liked the rich feasts that were spread
+before him every day; he longed to follow the deer through the woods,
+with his old friends, to kill it and to cook it and eat it in the
+woods, and then to sleep there, under the trees and the stars; these
+trees and these gardens were beautiful, it was true, but they were too
+beautiful; a hard way through a rough forest would have pleased him
+better now; he did not love the Princess less, but he longed to see
+his father and his men again; her singing was no less sweet to him
+than it had ever been before, but he wished that he could be again
+where the Fenians, after a hard day's hunt or a hard day's fight, sat
+about the fire in their stronghold, and listened to one of
+them--perhaps himself, for he was the best singer of them all--while
+he sang songs of great heroes and of great fights.
+
+"And one day, when the Princess had been singing to him, he took her
+harp from her and sang a song of one of his father's battles, a battle
+which he had seen himself, where Diarmuid had slain hundreds, and
+Orcur had slain hundreds, and Erin had been kept from her enemies.
+Then he said to the Princess: 'Do not think that I am ungrateful for
+all the happiness that I have had here, but I am longing to see Erin
+again and to see my father and his men. It is not so beautiful a land
+as this, but it is my own land, and I am longing to see it. The air
+here is sweet and the sunshine is warm, but I should like to breathe
+the mists and to feel the chill again, if I could only see Erin once
+more!"
+
+Mrs. O'Brien stopped a moment, with the way that she had of seeming to
+look at things far off. Kathleen said nothing when she paused in this
+way, and in a minute the old woman went on:
+
+"'You would not be so happy in Erin as you think,' the Princess
+answered him. 'This is the best place for you to stay, and it would
+break my heart for you to go.'
+
+"So Oisin said no more then, but the great longing grew upon him, and
+every day the delights of Tir-na-n-Oge pleased him less. And at last
+he spoke of it again, and asked the Princess to let him go for a
+little while. 'You would find Erin changed,' she said, 'and the
+Fenians are all gone. How long have you been here with me?'
+
+"'I cannot tell you to a day,' Oisin answered, 'but I know that it is
+weeks since I saw my country and my people.'
+
+"'You have been here,' said the Princess, 'for three hundred years.'
+
+"Oisin could not understand it, but he thought that if he could live
+so long and not know that the time had passed, the Fenians, too, might
+be living still, and he begged again to be allowed to go. At last the
+Princess saw that he would never be happy unless he went, so she
+brought him the same white horse that had brought them both to
+Tir-na-n-Oge. 'The horse,' she said, 'will take you to Erin. But you
+must sit upon his back and never loose his bridle or get down upon the
+ground. If you touch the ground of Erin you will be at once a weak,
+old man, you can never come back to Tir-na-n-Oge, you will never see
+me, and I shall never see you again. Will you promise me, if I will
+let you go, that you will not get off the horse's back or let go his
+bridle?'
+
+"Oisin promised and she let him go. Away over the water the horse
+galloped again. Tir-na-n-Oge, with its warm sun and its sweet air, was
+left behind. A damp sea-wind came up, and it blew the salt spray
+harshly into Oisin's face as the horse dashed along. It was a joy to
+him. No more of the soft comforts of that weary island. This was
+something for a man to face. Yet he did not forget the Princess, and
+he meant to go back to her when he had seen his land and his people
+once more. Then the clouds and the fog drifted away and the sun shone
+out, but still the salt spray covered him, and he felt stronger as he
+made his way against it and felt the great, free breeze from the east.
+And now he saw something like a little cloud on the horizon, and it
+rose higher and grew wider, and then its misty brown faded away and he
+saw the beautiful green shores of Erin."
+
+The old woman paused again and said over softly to herself: "The
+beautiful--beautiful green shores of Erin."
+
+"The horse and the rider soon reached the land now. Oisin rode first
+to the spot where he had first met the Princess of Tir-na-n-Oge and
+where he had last seen his father and his companions. He did not think
+to find them there, but he felt that it was the first place to which
+he should go. The forest had been cleared away a little, and a strange
+building stood there. It was a small house, built of stone, and there
+was a cross on the top of it. Inside he heard a sound of singing. He
+rode to the door and looked in. There were people kneeling before a
+man who stood in a higher place than the rest and held up a golden
+cup.
+
+"This was something that Oisin did not understand, and he rode away,
+remembering what the Princess had told him, that he would find Ireland
+changed. He wondered if he had been wise to come at all. But he went
+on, and now he rode fast, in this direction and in that, to try to
+find the Fenians. Sometimes he asked people whom he met if they could
+tell him of his father. Some of them shook their heads and said that
+they knew no such person as Finn McCool. Others laughed at him. One or
+two old men told him that the Fenians had all died long ago and that
+the man of greatest power in Ireland now was Patrick. It was hard for
+him to believe. He would have thought himself in a dream, but a dream
+seems right and true while it lasts, and this seemed all wrong and
+false. Yet, when he found a place that he knew and looked for some
+familiar stronghold of the Fenians, he found only a low mound of
+earth, grown all over with grass, or perhaps with weeds and bushes.
+And everywhere he saw these houses of stone, with crosses on their
+tops.
+
+"Then it came into his mind to find this Patrick of whom he heard so
+much, and to see what sort of man was now the greatest in Ireland.
+This was an easier matter than searching for the Fenians. Everyone
+knew where the holy Patrick was, and soon Oisin came near the place
+and found that the saint was building another of the stone houses. As
+Oisin came near he saw some men trying to lift a heavy stone upon a
+car, to take it to the new building. It almost made him laugh to see
+how small and weak the men were. He knew well that he could put the
+stone on the car alone. It was no larger than the stones that the
+Fenians used to throw for sport.
+
+"He came near and leaned down from his saddle to lift the stone for
+the men. He took hold of it and began to raise it, but with the weight
+the girth of his saddle broke, the saddle slipped around on the horse,
+Oisin fell, and the horse ran away. Oisin lay there on the ground of
+Erin, which the Princess had forbidden him to touch, an old man, weak,
+helpless, blind, hollow-cheeked, wrinkled, white-haired.
+
+"The men took him up and carried him to St. Patrick, who welcomed him
+kindly and kept him for a while in his own house. Many times the saint
+talked with him and tried to make him a Christian, but Oisin could
+think of nothing but the grand days of the Fenians. When St. Patrick
+talked with him he would begin to tell of these, and he would make the
+poems about them that have been kept till now and give us what we know
+of Finn McCool and his heroes. And these poems Patrick would have
+written down. And always Oisin was mourning for the brave old days of
+Finn McCool or for the days of Tir-na-n-Oge, which seemed to him now
+still farther off.
+
+"Old as he was now, with the heavy weight of more than three hundred
+years upon him, blind and weak, there was one thing in which Oisin
+felt himself a better man that St. Patrick or any of his band. St.
+Patrick and all those who were with him fasted much, and when they ate
+it was frugally, of bread and the herbs of the field, and but little
+meat. But this was not enough for Oisin. He remembered how he and his
+fellow-huntsmen used to follow the deer and kill it, and dress it, and
+cook it on the moor in the fresh, cool evening, and feast till it was
+time to sleep, and then wake and follow the deer again. And so the
+food which was given to him in St. Patrick's house seemed poor and
+scanty to him.
+
+"He said this to the cook and others in the house, and they made sport
+of him, because so old a man as he should wish to eat so much. Then he
+told them tales of the days of his father, how great and strong the
+men of Erin were then, how much more fertile the land was, and of the
+great beasts and the great trees and plants and vines that it brought
+forth. In those days, he said, the leg of a lark was as large as a leg
+of mutton now, a berry of the wild ash was as large as a sheep, and an
+ivy leaf as broad as a shield.
+
+"They all laughed at him the more when he said these things, and they
+did not believe a word of it all. 'Alas!' he said, 'how can I show you
+that what I say is true? The dear heroes whom I knew are all gone. I
+am left alone to mourn for them, among men who do not even believe how
+great they were. Everything that I have found is changed, but there
+may be something that is not changed. Will one of you go with me in a
+war chariot and drive where I shall tell him, and let me see if I can
+find anything as I knew it once?'
+
+"Then one of them said that he would go with him. The next morning
+they set out. Oisin told the man where to drive, till they came to a
+place where Oisin said: 'Look around you and tell me what you can see
+on the plain.'
+
+"'I see a stone pillar,' the man answered.
+
+"'Drive the chariot to it,' said Oisin, 'and dig at the foot of the
+pillar, on the south side of it.'
+
+"The man did as Oisin told him, and when he had dug for a while Oisin
+asked him if he had found anything. 'There is something long and hard
+here,' said the man, 'like a wooden pole.'
+
+"'Dig it out,' said Oisin.
+
+"The man dug more. 'I have it out now,' he said; 'it is like a great
+spear, for it has a huge head of rusty iron. I can scarcely lift it.'
+
+"'It is a spear such as the Fenians used,' said Oisin. 'Dig still
+deeper.'
+
+"The man dug again. 'Do you find anything more?' said Oisin.
+
+"'I have found a great horn,' the man answered, 'many times as large
+as any horn that I ever saw.'
+
+"'It is the great war-horn of my father, Finn McCool,' said Oisin.
+'Dig deeper.'
+
+"The man dug again and said, 'I have found a lump of bog butter.'
+
+"'Now blow the horn,' said Oisin.
+
+"The man was scarcely able to blow the horn, but he did blow it, and
+it gave forth a harsh, terrible note, which sounded over the plain
+and was echoed back from the woods and the rocks with a hoarse,
+dreadful sound.
+
+"'Look about you,' said Oisin, 'and tell me what you see.'
+
+"'Oh, I see,' said the man, 'a great flock of birds coming toward us,
+and every one of them is many times as large as the largest eagle that
+I have ever seen. I fear that we cannot escape them and that they will
+kill us. The dog is nearly dead with terror and he is trying to break
+his chain.'
+
+"'Give him a piece of the bog butter,' said Oisin, 'and let him go.
+Then tell me what he does.'
+
+"'He is running straight toward the birds,' the man answered, 'and
+they are coming straight toward him and toward us, along the ground.
+Ah! he has caught one of them, and all the rest have flown away! He
+has killed the bird! He is rushing back to us, with madness in his
+eyes and his mouth covered with blood and foam! I fear that he will be
+worse for us than the birds would have been.'
+
+"'Hold the spear straight in front of you as he comes,' said Oisin,
+'and let him run upon the point of it and kill him.'
+
+[Illustration: "HOLD THE SPEAR STRAIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU."]
+
+"The man held the spear as Oisin told him, and when the dog came on he
+was caught upon the point of it, and it went through his heart and
+he fell dead.
+
+"Then the man went and cut off one of the legs of the bird which had
+been killed, and they took it with them and started back. As they went
+they passed a mountain ash which had berries of enormous size, and the
+man put one of them into the chariot. Then the man saw huge ivy
+leaves, and he took one of them too. So they went back to St.
+Patrick's house and showed all the men there what they had brought.
+The leg of the bird and the berry and the ivy leaf were even larger
+than Oisin had said. And after that they all believed the stories that
+Oisin told them, and all of them agreed that a man who had lived in
+the days when there were such trees and such beasts and such men in
+Erin should be his own judge as to how much he needed to eat. And so
+after that all of St. Patrick's men treated him as well as did St.
+Patrick himself.
+
+"But Oisin died only a little while after that, the last of the great
+heroes of Erin. He had lived for more than three hundred years, and it
+seemed to him no more than the life of a young man."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+X
+
+THE IRON CRUCIFIX
+
+
+Kathleen had not been at home long, of course, before Peter and Ellen
+came to see her, and Terence came with them. It seemed to Kathleen
+that she had never seen him look as he did then. She had never seen
+him look so evil or so crafty or so sad. She felt afraid of him,
+because he looked so evil and so crafty, and she felt sorry for him,
+because he looked so sad. She sat in the corner of the room that was
+farthest from him, and it was also the farthest from all the others,
+as they were all sitting near together. Then, when all the others were
+busy talking among themselves, Terence suddenly came and sat close to
+her, and between her and the others, so that she could not get away
+from him.
+
+"What did you do all the year that you was inside the hill?" he said.
+
+"I don't know," Kathleen answered; "it seemed only a day to me, and I
+can't remember and I can't think what it was that I did to fill all
+that time."
+
+"And how did you like the fairies?" said Terence.
+
+"The Good People? They were very kind to me and I liked them very
+much, but I wouldn't have let them keep me--I wouldn't have stayed--so
+long, if I had known."
+
+"You wouldn't have let them? You wouldn't have stayed? And what would
+you have done?"
+
+"I don't know," said Kathleen.
+
+"And who was there besides the fairies?" Terence asked.
+
+"Why, there was--oh, I don't want to talk to you about it, and I don't
+think you ought to make me."
+
+"You don't need," said Terence. "I know who was there. I know who he
+is and what he is, and I know the kind of talk that he talked to you.
+He made love to you. I know that well enough. That's what he would do.
+But do you mind the promise that your father made to my father the day
+after we was born? I want you should remember that promise."
+
+"It was no promise at all," Kathleen said, "and I won't let you talk
+to me that way, and I don't see that it matters to you what he--what
+anybody said to me anywhere, and I won't tell you any more."
+
+"Ah!" said Terence; "he did make love to you. And you think you can
+talk any way you like to me and you won't let me talk any way I like
+to you. Do you know that his staying in that hill with the fairies
+depends on me? Do you know that--"
+
+Terence turned to see if anybody else was listening and saw Mrs.
+O'Brien looking straight at him. He stopped short in what he was
+saying, and then, speaking lower, he went on: "Don't dare to tell
+anybody what I was saying to you; you don't know what I can do, but I
+might show you if I took the notion."
+
+For the rest of the time that he stayed Terence said not a word, but
+he sat and stared at Kathleen. And now she thought that there was
+something more terrible in his look than there had been before. It
+seemed to have a kind of spell about it. Kathleen had a feeling that
+she could not move while he looked at her, although when she tried it
+she found that she could.
+
+The most natural thing in the world for Kathleen to do would have been
+to tell her grandmother about this and about all that Terence had said
+to her, but, whether it was because of the way that Terence had looked
+at her or for some other reason, she did not tell her. Sometimes
+after that, when she and Terence met, he reminded her again of what he
+called the promise, but oftener he said nothing, or next to nothing,
+and only looked at her in that same way, and then she felt as if she
+could do nothing of herself, and that if he told her to do anything,
+she would have to do it.
+
+Kathleen did not forget the promise which she had made to the other
+Terence in the hill, that she would come back. She had said that she
+would come back to-morrow if she could. But when to-morrow came, so
+many people who had heard that she was at home again came to see her,
+that she was not left alone for a moment. It was several days before
+she could get away from the house to go where she pleased alone. Then
+she went straight to the little pool in the Park.
+
+If you live in New York, perhaps you would like to know just where
+this pool was--and still is. Well, then--go to the northwest corner of
+Central Park and go in by the little gate at the right of the
+carriage-drive. Then you will have to go down a flight of steps. Keep
+to the right, along the west side of the Park, and you will have to go
+only a few steps till you come to the pool, which is a little way up
+the bank, on the left, with the rocks behind it and the trees around
+it, as I have described it to you before. Then go back to the path and
+keep on the way that you were going, till you have gone up two short
+flights of steps. Then, only a few feet farther on, you will see, on
+the left, the little, shell-shaped, grassy slope where Kathleen danced
+with the Good People. Seeing these places will prove to you that this
+whole story is true.
+
+Kathleen went straight to the pool, as I said, never thinking but
+that, when she got there, she could walk into the hill as easily as
+she had done before. But there was no opening at all in the rocks.
+They were just as they had always looked before she went through them
+with the Good People. Then she tried to step on the water, and instead
+of stepping on it she stepped into it and wet her foot. She almost
+concluded that everything had been a dream after all. She felt
+frightened about it, and she hurried home to look at the little box of
+green ointment. If she found it where she had left it, it would prove
+that she had really been inside the hill and that it was not a dream.
+She ran to her room to look for it, and there it was just as she had
+left it. It was not a dream.
+
+But how was she to keep her promise to Terence?--the Hill Terence, she
+called him now, when she thought of him, so as not to confuse him with
+Terence Sullivan. She went to the pool again and again and tried to
+find the door in the rocks open and the water so that she could walk
+on it, but she never found them so. Yet she could not think of any
+other way to get into the hill again. After a while it seemed so
+hopeless that she gave up going to the pool so often.
+
+Then one day a thought came to her which made it all seem so simple
+that she was quite surprised at herself for not thinking of it before.
+Terence had told her that he came out every day to go to school. He
+had said that the next year he was to go to the School of Engineering
+at the University. It was when she first came into the hill that he
+told her that, and so it was next year now. Now the University was not
+very far away, up on the hill, beyond the north end of the Park. She
+did not know whether there was any other way to get into the hill than
+this way through the rocks behind the pool, but if anybody were at the
+University and wanted to get into the hill, this would surely be the
+nearest way. Then she felt sure that if she went to the pool at the
+right time of the day she should meet Terence when he came out or when
+he went in.
+
+When she thought again she decided that she would not do anything of
+the kind. If Terence wanted to see her, it was his business to find
+her, not hers to find him. After that she thought still more. Terence
+had no way of finding her. She had never told him where she lived,
+and he might spend the rest of his life searching for her and never
+find her. And then she had promised him that she would come back. She
+had tried so hard to keep that promise already that most people would
+have said it was right for her to give it up now, but she had a
+feeling that a promise which she had made to Terence must be kept. She
+said to herself that it was because he had been so kind to her when
+she was in the hill.
+
+So she spent all the time she could near the pool, in the hope of
+seeing Terence. And what do you think happened? She did see him. One
+afternoon as she was walking along the same old path toward the gate
+at the corner of the Park, she saw Terence come through that gate and
+down the steps. And now you will never in the world guess what she
+did. I suppose you have believed this whole story till now, but I am
+afraid you will not believe this. I should not believe it myself, if I
+did not know that it was so. But there is no doubt about it. She
+turned and walked straight back along the path, and tried to get away
+without letting Terence see her. Don't expect me to explain it. I
+don't blame you for being surprised. It was the most wonderful thing I
+ever heard of. A sensible girl like Kathleen too!
+
+But Terence had seen her and he walked swiftly along the path and
+overtook her. "What makes you try to get away from me?" he said.
+
+"I don't know," said Kathleen.
+
+"Didn't you want to see me?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," said Kathleen, "I wanted--I don't know--oh, yes, I did want to
+see you! How is the little Prince?"
+
+"The little Prince is very well," said Terence. "You promised that you
+would come back, you know."
+
+"Yes," said Kathleen, "and didn't I try? But how could I get through
+those hard rocks? I don't suppose it was your fault about the rocks,
+though. How are they getting on with their triangles?"
+
+"They are not getting on at all," Terence answered. "You promised that
+you would come back, and then, when you saw me you tried to run away.
+What made you do that?"
+
+"Oh, but I tried so hard to find you!" Kathleen said. "You don't know
+how hard I tried."
+
+"But what made--?"
+
+"I don't know; I just couldn't help it."
+
+You notice how uninteresting Terence and Kathleen's conversation was
+getting. They kept on with it, however, dull as it was. They turned
+and went up over the hill to the blockhouse, and then down the steep
+path on the other side and back along the north end of the Park. "Do
+you come here often?" Terence asked.
+
+"I have been here very often," Kathleen said, "trying to keep my
+promise to you."
+
+"I am here," he said, "nearly every day, at about this time; will you
+come again?"
+
+"Yes," Kathleen said, "if you would like me to."
+
+They were close to the pool again now. "See that bright star up there
+in the west?" said Terence.
+
+Kathleen turned to look at it. "It is Venus," she said. Then she
+turned back toward where Terence had stood. He was gone. She looked up
+and down the path and all around, but she could not find him. She went
+up to the pool. The rocks were just as usual--just as close, just as
+hard. She tried the water again to see if she could stand on it. She
+could not. Terence was gone and she went home to think about it.
+
+She thought about it and she thought more about it, but she could not
+understand it at all. So she very sensibly gave up understanding it.
+She kept her promise and met Terence again near the pool. And then she
+met him again and a few times more. Every time he would make her look
+away from him for a moment, or wait till she did look away, and when
+she looked back he would be gone. It did not take her long to find
+out that he did not want her to see him go, of course, and so one day,
+when she turned her head away she turned it back again quickly, and
+saw him standing close to the pool with his face toward the rocks. She
+watched him for a moment while he stood there, and neither of them
+moved. Then he said, without looking around: "Let me go, Kathleen; I
+can't go while you're looking."
+
+So she turned away for another instant, and when she looked again he
+was gone.
+
+I don't know how many times Terence and Kathleen strolled about the
+Park in this way, or what they talked about, or just how long a time
+went by, and I suppose that all these things interest you as little as
+they do me. But there is no doubt that one day, as they were walking
+together and talking together of whatever they found to talk about,
+they came face to face with Terence Sullivan. He passed them as if he
+had not seen them, but his face was black.
+
+The next day he came to see Kathleen, and he said to her: "Do you
+think I don't know who that was with you in the Park yesterday? And
+does your father know? He will, if I tell him, and what will he say,
+do you think, when he knows that you're meeting that fine boy without
+his knowledge? If I see the two of you there again I'll tell him, and
+I'll be watching for you too. What do you say to that now?"
+
+"I say nothing to it," Kathleen answered; "what did you think I would
+say?"
+
+"What did I think you would say? What did I think you could say?
+Nothing, of course. And is that all you say?"
+
+"That is all," said Kathleen.
+
+And that was all. He tried his best to get her to say more, but she
+would not. But it did not take her a minute to think what to do. And
+it was so simple that she wondered why she had never thought of it
+before. It was a wonder, too, that Terence Sullivan did not think of
+it himself and know that she would do it. But he was not clever in
+some ways, though he was so clever in others.
+
+The next day Kathleen met Terence in the Park, and she said to him:
+"Terence, we must not stay here for a single minute. You must come
+straight home with me. I want you to see my father and my
+grandmother."
+
+And Terence went straight home with her and she told her grandmother
+who he was--and indeed she had told her of him before--and that she
+had met him in the Park. Her father came soon and Terence was
+introduced to him too.
+
+After that Terence came often and Kathleen seldom met him in the Park,
+though they still walked there sometimes. Mrs. O'Brien and John were
+immensely pleased with him. It was the strangest thing to see how much
+he liked to be in a house, just because it was a house, and how
+wonderful the ways of people who lived in a house seemed to him. When
+he and Kathleen sat together in a corner of the room and John sat
+reading a paper and Mrs. O'Brien knitting and reading a book at the
+same time, it was as astonishing a sight to him as it would be to you
+to see a dozen mermaids playing at the bottom of the sea.
+
+"Isn't it beautiful?" he whispered to Kathleen.
+
+"Isn't what beautiful?" Kathleen asked.
+
+"The way you live here," Terence answered. "All these years, you know,
+I have just come out of the hill to go to school, and then I have gone
+back again. I have seen the people outside, but I never was in one of
+their houses before. And don't you ever dance?"
+
+"Why, of course we do," Kathleen said; "we go to balls sometimes, and
+to parties where there is dancing, and then--"
+
+"But do you never dance here, where you live?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sometimes we do, but the rooms are not large enough to do it
+very well, you know."
+
+"I never thought before," said Terence, "of people's not dancing all
+the time that they were not at work or eating or sleeping. You know
+there in the hill they dance a good deal of the time, and I get so
+tired of it that it seems to me as if they danced all the time. I
+think it is delightful not to dance. And what is your grandmother
+doing? Is she studying?"
+
+"Why, no, she is only reading."
+
+"But what does she read, if she is not studying?"
+
+"Why, I don't know; a story, maybe, or history, or poetry, or a
+sermon, or--it might be anything."
+
+"Will you tell me about all those things some time?" Terence asked. "I
+have heard people tell stories, but I never read a story, and I never
+read anything except books to help me learn to make railways and
+telegraphs, so as to teach it to the people in the hill. That is all
+they think of when they are not dancing."
+
+And Terence wondered like this at everything that he saw, and he often
+told Kathleen how tired he was of living in the hill and how much he
+wished that he could live outside among the real people, as he called
+them, instead of with the Good People. Once Kathleen tried to take
+Terence to see Peter and Ellen, and then a strange thing was
+discovered. Terence could not go there. When he came to the corner of
+the street where Peter and Ellen lived, he turned straight around and
+walked the other way. "This is the way," Kathleen called, and she
+hurried back after him.
+
+When she came up with him he turned again and walked with her as they
+had been going at first. "I don't know why I did that," he said. "I
+didn't mean to. It was as if my feet turned me around and brought me
+back."
+
+By this time they were at the corner again, and Terence did just the
+same thing over. He turned square around and walked back. He could not
+help it. He tried it again and again and he could not turn that
+corner. If you had been there and had seen him trying it, you would
+have thought that it was the funniest sight that you ever saw, though
+it may not sound so funny to tell about it. Kathleen was vexed that
+Terence could not go where she wanted him to, but she laughed till she
+had to sit down on a doorstep and rest.
+
+Terence did not understand it any more than Kathleen did, and
+afterward he tried it again, but it was of no use. He begged her not
+to tell her father or her grandmother, because, he said, it would make
+him look so ridiculous. But one day, when he and Kathleen were on
+their way together to the O'Briens' house, as he came to the last
+corner, Terence turned around and walked away. "I can't go home with
+you to-day," he said. "I don't know why it is. I can't walk that way.
+It is just the same as when I try to go to the Sullivans'."
+
+He went back to the Park and Kathleen went home alone and found that
+Peter and Ellen were there. Then she simply could not keep herself
+from telling her grandmother all about it. Afterward she wished that
+she had not told her, for her grandmother laughed a little and nodded
+and looked as if she knew everything, and she would tell nothing.
+
+So the Hill Terence came to the O'Briens' so often that he felt quite
+at home, and everyone there was glad to have him come, and if he
+stayed away for as long as three or four days, they wondered what had
+become of him. And all this, you may suppose, did not improve Terence
+Sullivan's temper. He and the Hill Terence never met except that one
+time in the Park, but he knew all about it. And he talked with
+Kathleen about it sometimes, too, and it made her very uncomfortable.
+He talked in the same way that he did the day after Kathleen came back
+from the hill, of his having something to do with the Hill Terence and
+of the harm that he could do if he chose. He never said anything that
+Kathleen could understand, but he always made her afraid. She told the
+Hill Terence about it, and she told her grandmother about it. Her
+grandmother seemed to understand it perfectly, and she told her not to
+be afraid. Terence did not seem to understand it at all, and he told
+her not to be afraid.
+
+Then one day, when Terence Sullivan had been talking to her in the
+same way and had been looking at her in a more terrible way than ever
+before, she told her grandmother that she could not bear it any
+longer. If something could not be done to make Terence stop talking to
+her so, and looking at her so, she should ask her father to let her go
+away somewhere.
+
+"There's nothing for you to be afraid of," her grandmother said, "but
+if you are afraid and if it troubles you so much, we will see what we
+can do."
+
+Then Mrs. O'Brien went to her own room and came back with something
+which she gave to Kathleen. It was a little crucifix, made of iron.
+"It was this," she said, "that I touched you with to bring you out of
+the circle when you were dancing with the Good People. Hang it around
+your neck, and if Terence troubles you, hold it up before you and
+before him. I have always said that Terence was one of the Good
+People, and I never believed it more than this minute. If he is one of
+them, he cannot come near the cross, and the iron will be a terror to
+him too. If he tries to come too near to you, touch him with it, and
+then we'll see."
+
+"Why can he not come near the cross?" Kathleen asked.
+
+"Because," Mrs. O'Brien said, "the Good People are a kind of spirits,
+and no spirits can do you any harm if you hold the cross before you,
+or if you make the sign of the cross. Did I never tell you what the
+Good People were? They were angels and lived in Heaven once. When
+Satan and his angels rebelled against God and were driven out of
+Heaven, the angels that are the Good People were driven out too. They
+were not good enough to stay in Heaven, and they were not bad enough
+to fall as Satan and his angels fell, so some of them stayed on the
+land and some of them stayed in the sea. And so they will live till
+the Day of Judgment, and then, some say, they will vanish like dew
+when it dries away; and some say that they will be saved like the
+souls of Christians. But we do not know."
+
+"You do not know," Kathleen repeated, "if the Good People will be
+saved or not? They were very good to me, though they kept me away from
+home so long, and I should like to believe--"
+
+"I have read of one of them," Mrs. O'Brien went on, "who looked in at
+the gate of Heaven, and an angel told him that he could come in, if
+he could bring with him the thing which was counted in Heaven the most
+precious in all the world. And he found it and brought it and went
+into Heaven. But for the most of them--the Good People themselves do
+not know whether they are to be saved, and we common people do not
+know, but they say that priests know. And sometimes the Good People
+themselves have tried to find out from them.
+
+"There was a troupe of fairies dancing one night on a green near a
+river, and they were all having the merry kind of time that you know
+better than I do, Kathleen. But they stopped all at once and ran to
+hide themselves among the grass and behind leaves and weeds. For they
+knew, in the way that they have of knowing, that a priest was coming,
+and the Good People cannot bear to be near a priest.
+
+"The priest who was coming had been on some errand at a long distance
+from home, and he was a long way from home still. Indeed, he was just
+making up his mind that, as it was so late, he would not try to go
+home at all that night, but would ask for a supper and a bed at the
+first cabin he should come to. And well he knew he would find it and
+welcome.
+
+"And true for him, close by where the Good People had been dancing, he
+came to a cabin and knocked at the door. The man and his wife who
+lived there were proud enough to see the priest in their house and to
+give him all that he asked, and the trouble that was on them was that
+they had no more to give. For there was nothing to offer him but
+potatoes, though they were as good potatoes as there were in Ireland.
+
+"It was only a little while ago that the man of the house had set a
+net in the river, and he thought that there would hardly be a fish in
+it so soon. But then he thought that there could be no harm in
+looking, so down to the river he went to try could he find something
+for the priest's supper more than the potatoes. And true enough, there
+in the net was the finest salmon he ever saw. He was about to take him
+out, when the net was pulled away from him by something that he could
+not see, and away went the salmon swimming down the river.
+
+"It may be that he said things to the fish that I wouldn't like to be
+saying after him, and at the same time he looked around to see what it
+was that was pulling his net. And then he saw the Good People.
+
+"'Give yourself no trouble about the fish,' one of them said to him.
+'If you'll only go back to your house and ask the priest one question
+from us we'll see that he and you have the finest supper that was ever
+seen.'
+
+"Now the man thought that it was not safe to be talking and making
+bargains with the Good People, so he said: 'I'll not have anything to
+do with you at all.' And then he thought neither was it safe to make
+them angry with him, and so he said again: 'I've no wish to offend you
+and I thank you for your offer, but I can't take it from you, and I
+don't think his Reverence would like me to do that same.'
+
+"Then the one that had spoken first said: 'We'll not ask you to take
+anything you don't want, but will you ask the priest one question for
+us?"
+
+"'I see no harm in that,' said he, 'for sure he needn't answer it if
+he doesn't like; but I'll not take your supper.'
+
+"'Then,' said the little man, 'ask him if we are to be saved at the
+Day of Judgment, like the souls of Christians, and bring us back word
+what he says, and we'll be grateful to you forever.'
+
+"He went back to his cabin and found his wife and the priest sitting
+down to supper. 'Your Reverence,' said he, 'might I ask you one
+question?'
+
+"'And what might that be?' said the priest.
+
+"'Will you tell me,' said he 'will the Good People be saved at the Day
+of Judgment, the same as Christians?'
+
+"'You never thought of asking that yourself,' the priest said; 'who
+told you to ask it?'
+
+"'It was the Good People themselves,' said the man, 'and they are down
+there by the river, waiting for me to tell them what you answer to
+it.'
+
+"'Go and tell them, then,' said the priest, 'that if they will come
+here and ask me that or any other question themselves, I will answer
+them.'
+
+"So he went back and told them what the priest said, and the instant
+they heard it they all flew away over the grass and up into the air
+and vanished. Then he went back to eat his potatoes with the priest,
+still feeling sorry that he had lost the salmon."
+
+"But still I don't see," Kathleen said. "You say that the cross will
+help me against Terence if he is one of the Good People, because they
+are a kind of spirits. But why wouldn't it help me against him just as
+much if he wasn't one of the Good People--if he was just a bad man?"
+
+"No, no," said the old woman; "that little bit of iron will keep you
+against any evil spirit, and never one of them dare come near it; but
+no poor human creature with a soul to save, no matter how wicked, was
+ever turned away from the blessed cross, or ever will be. The cross
+was made for them. And now, dear, you have been crying and your eyes
+are all red. Go to your room and try to make them look better. There
+might be someone to see you before long, and you wouldn't like your
+eyes to look that way."
+
+Someone did come to see Kathleen before long, but, as it happened,
+neither she nor her grandmother stayed to see him.
+
+Kathleen scarcely knew that she had been crying till her grandmother
+told her, but she had. She went to her room and looked in the glass
+and was surprised to see how red her eyes were. And just at the same
+instant she saw the little gold box of green ointment, just under the
+glass, where she had left it, and where it had been ever since that
+night when she came back from the hill. Then she remembered how the
+Fairy Queen had given it to her to put on the little Prince's eyes,
+and how she had done it, and how bright his eyes looked when she
+touched them with the ointment. She wondered if it would make her eyes
+look bright, too, and take the marks of the tears away from them. She
+took a tiny bit of the ointment on her finger and just touched each
+eye with it. It did make them look brighter; there was no doubt about
+it.
+
+The next instant Kathleen started away from the mirror and across the
+room with a little frightened gasp. For, looking in the glass, she
+had seen a dark form pass behind her, as if it had just come in at the
+door of the room. She knew who it was without turning around. It was
+Terence Sullivan. He was still close to the door now, and she was
+across the room. She had the little iron crucifix in her hand and she
+turned and faced him.
+
+"What are you doing here?" she said.
+
+Terence only stared at her, for an instant, more surprised than she
+was herself. Then he stammered: "What--what am I--"
+
+"What are you here for?" said Kathleen. "Why do you follow me like
+this? I won't let you. Go away."
+
+Terence was a little more himself now. "Which eye do you see me with?"
+he cried.
+
+"With both eyes, of course," said Kathleen.
+
+"This for both of them, then!" Terence cried, and he struck at
+Kathleen's eyes with his fist.
+
+She raised her hand quickly to ward off the blow, and Terence's hand
+touched the iron crucifix. The blow did not reach her eyes. Terence
+started back from her and fell upon the floor. Only for an instant
+Kathleen saw his face. His eyes blazed, but the rest of it was as if
+he had been dead. Somehow he found his way out of the room, Kathleen
+could scarcely see how. He did not rise, but he seemed to run like a
+beast running for its life. Kathleen followed him out of the room and
+to the stairs. She saw him just leaving the house by the door. And yet
+she could not see how he went, for the door was shut.
+
+Kathleen ran downstairs to find her grandmother and to tell her what
+had happened. Mrs. O'Brien listened and then she said: "Kathleen, you
+have been thinking too much about Terence and you have got too
+nervous. Nobody has come into the house since you left me, only a few
+minutes ago."
+
+"But I saw him, grandmother," Kathleen answered, "and it was all just
+as I told you. How could I see him if he did not come?"
+
+Mrs. O'Brien sat and thought for a few minutes. "What did you do
+before you saw Terence?" she asked.
+
+Kathleen thought for a minute, too, for she was so much excited that
+she could scarcely remember. "I had been crying," she said, "as you
+told me, and I put some of the ointment in the little gold box on my
+eyes to see if it would make them look better."
+
+"It was that," said Mrs. O'Brien. "I've heard the like of it before.
+When you have touched your eyes with that ointment you can always see
+the Good People, whether they want you to or not. That was why he
+tried to strike your eyes, and if he had struck them he would have put
+them out. You will always see the Good People now wherever you meet
+them. They don't like to be seen except when they choose, and so they
+may try to do you harm, and you must be careful. Keep the little cross
+always by you.
+
+"And now come with me," the old woman went on. "I have had enough of
+this, and I will have no more."
+
+"Come with you where, grandmother?" Kathleen asked.
+
+"To the Sullivans," the old woman answered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was only a little while after they had gone when the Hill Terence
+came to the door. "Mrs. O'Brien and Miss Kathleen have gone to the
+Sullivans'," the servant told him.
+
+"Will they be back soon?" he asked.
+
+"I don't think so," the servant said; "it was only a few minutes ago
+that they went away."
+
+"I will go to the Sullivans' and find them," Terence said.
+
+Now that, you know, was about the most remarkable thing that Terence
+could say. He had tried to go to the Sullivans' so many times and had
+found so many times that his feet simply would not take him there,
+that he had given up trying long ago. But now he resolved that he
+would go, and, more than that, he had a feeling such as he had never
+had before that he must go.
+
+He knew the street and the number, though he had never been there. He
+started off as if there could not be the slightest doubt of his going
+wherever he wished to go. He walked quickly through the Park and past
+the little pool as if he had never seen the place. He came out of the
+Park at the other side and went on till he came to the corner which he
+could never turn before. He turned it as if it had been any other
+corner. It did not even surprise him to find that he could. He thought
+that he was doing all this just because he was so determined to go
+just where he chose, but he had never felt anything like the force or
+the determination or whatever it was which was drawing him straight
+on.
+
+He reached the house and went up the steps. The door was open, and,
+instead of ringing, he went straight in. But what he did next was the
+strangest of all. He could not have told you why he did it any more
+than he could have told you why he did anything else. Instead of
+knocking at the door or going into any room that he passed, he went
+downstairs to the door of the kitchen. There, just for one instant,
+he stopped--the first instant that he had stopped since he left the
+O'Briens' house. Then, still without knocking, he pushed the door open
+and went in.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+XI
+
+THE OLD KING COMES BACK
+
+
+When Mrs. O'Brien and Kathleen left home they walked through the Park
+and to the Sullivans'. Peter was away. Terence half sat and half lay
+on the floor in a corner. He held his right hand behind him and
+covered his face with his left arm. His whole body shook as if he were
+riding in a cart over a rough road. Ellen sat close to him, trying to
+soothe him and trying to get him to tell her what was the matter.
+
+When Mrs. O'Brien and Kathleen came in Terence seemed to try to make
+himself smaller, but he did nothing else. "Ellen," said Mrs. O'Brien,
+"come outside the room here for a moment; I have something to tell
+you."
+
+"Look at Terence there," Ellen answered; "how can I leave him when
+he's that way?"
+
+"Leave him," said Mrs. O'Brien, "and come out here with me."
+
+She took Ellen by the hand and led her, and Ellen followed. There was
+something in Mrs. O'Brien's look now that told her she would have to
+come. "Now look at me," said Mrs. O'Brien, when they were out of the
+room; "do I look as if I would mean every word I said, or do I not?"
+
+Ellen did not answer, and Mrs. O'Brien said: "Ellen, when it was only
+your own affair I told you what you ought to do, but I let you take
+your own way. But now it is Kathleen's affair and John's and mine, and
+it is time that I had my way. Look at me, Ellen, and tell me, do I
+look as if I meant to have it?"
+
+Again Ellen looked in the old woman's face and said nothing for an
+instant. Then she looked down again in a confused way, and said: "I
+must go back to Terence."
+
+"Ellen," said the old woman, "go down to the kitchen. We'll follow
+you, and Terence can come, too, if he likes, and I think he will."
+
+Without a word Ellen went down the stairs. Mrs. O'Brien called to
+Terence: "We are going to the kitchen; you can come if you like."
+
+Mrs. O'Brien and Kathleen followed Ellen, and Terence followed them.
+He slipped down the stairs like a bundle of rags. He stole into the
+kitchen after the others and half sat and half lay in the corner, as
+he had done in the room above, only he did not cover his face with his
+arm, but kept his eyes on Mrs. O'Brien to see what she was going to
+do.
+
+"Now, Ellen," Mrs. O'Brien whispered, "put your largest pot on the
+fire, put water in it, and let it boil."
+
+Ellen looked at the old woman as if she were begging her not to do
+this. The old woman looked back at her, and then she did it. She put
+the pot on the fire and the water in the pot. "Now bring all the eggs
+you have in the house," Mrs. O'Brien said.
+
+Ellen was past asking questions now, and she brought the eggs. It
+always takes a long time for water to boil, and it seemed to all of
+them as if it took hours for this water to boil. While they were
+waiting not one of them spoke and they scarcely moved. Terence was all
+but holding his breath, and his eyes, red and staring, were now upon
+Mrs. O'Brien and now upon Ellen, and never at rest. Kathleen looked at
+Terence and clutched the little crucifix in her hand. But she need not
+have been afraid of Terence; he knew the crucifix as well as he cared
+to know it.
+
+After a long time the water boiled. Mrs. O'Brien waited till it was
+boiling as hard as ever it could, and then she whispered to Ellen:
+"Break the eggs now; keep the shells and throw away the rest."
+
+Poor Ellen could not guess what it all meant, but she broke the eggs,
+laid the shells carefully aside, and threw away the rest.
+
+"Now," said Mrs. O'Brien, "put the shells in the pot."
+
+Ellen did as she was told.
+
+"What are you doing, mother?" Terence called from his corner.
+
+"Tell him you are brewing," Mrs. O'Brien whispered.
+
+"I'm brewing, Terence," said Ellen, scarcely loud enough to be heard.
+
+"And what are you brewing?" Terence asked again.
+
+"Say egg-shells," Mrs. O'Brien whispered.
+
+"Egg-shells, Terence," Ellen said.
+
+Terence sprang to his feet. "Egg-shells!" he cried. "For near six
+thousand years I have lived on this earth, and never till this minute
+did I see anybody brew egg-shells!"
+
+Mrs. O'Brien had turned upon him before he had done speaking. "Six
+thousand years, is it, that you've been on this earth?" she cried.
+"Then go and spend the rest of the years where you spent the six
+thousand! You've been long enough here! And send back the child that
+was stolen when you came here!"
+
+Terence sprang toward a window. Ellen stood in his way; he struck her
+in the face with his open hand and threw her on the floor. After that
+nobody saw him but Kathleen. She saw him go toward the window. It was
+open just a little crack. Before her very eyes he grew smaller and
+smaller, till he scrambled and rolled and slipped through the crack
+and was gone.
+
+That very instant the door opened and the Hill Terence came in. He saw
+Ellen lying on the floor, and, without noticing anyone else, he went
+to her and lifted her up. Ellen looked in his face, started back from
+him for an instant, still gazing in his face, and then caught him in
+her arms and cried, with her voice all full of tears, "It's my own
+boy--my own boy--the one I always saw in my dreams! Don't come near
+me, any of you, or you'll wake me and it'll be another dream! Oh, let
+me keep this dream while I can!"
+
+"You'll keep this dream always, Ellen, dear," the old woman said.
+"Have no more fear. This is the dream that's for all your life and
+forever."
+
+It was about that time, or it may have been a little later, that Peter
+came in. They told him all about it as well as they could. "It's glad
+I am that it all came out so," Peter said, after they had completely
+bewildered him by trying to make him understand the story; "it's glad
+I am. And yet I did like to hear Terence play the fiddle."
+
+"I can play the fiddle a little too," the new Terence said.
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed he can!" said Kathleen. "Bring the fiddle and he will
+show you."
+
+Peter brought the fiddle and Terence played, and the fiddle sang a
+great song of gladness--the song of a soul born to find itself a full
+man all at once.
+
+"Ah! don't you see now? Don't you see now?" Kathleen cried. "That
+means something!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The fairies in the hill were dancing their endless dance, when
+Naggeneen, as if he had been lifted up in the air and dropped, was
+suddenly among them. They stopped the dance and gathered around him.
+"What for are you back here?" the King asked.
+
+"They drove me out!" Naggeneen cried. "I knew they would! I told you
+they would! I told you you could do nothing and I could do nothing!
+It's the only wonder that they didn't drive me out long ago."
+
+"What do you keep your hand behind you for?" the King asked.
+
+"I couldn't tell you that," said Naggeneen; "I couldn't say the words
+that I'ld have to say to tell you."
+
+"And how did they drive you out?"
+
+"By brewing egg-shells."
+
+"And do you mean," the King cried, "that you let them catch you with
+that old trick? I thought you was clever."
+
+"Let them catch me! I couldn't help what they did! I tried to help it,
+but it's a spell that's too strong for me or for any of us. If I was
+to get a soul by it, I couldn't help saying: 'What are you doing,
+mother?' and then I couldn't help saying how long I had been on the
+earth. Ah, didn't I always tell you mortals was more powerful than us,
+if they only knew how? What are our spells and our charms to theirs?"
+
+"And where is Terence, then?" the King asked.
+
+"He's not come in yet," somebody answered.
+
+"You know where he must be by this time," said Naggeneen. "He's back
+with his father and his mother by now. Where else could he be?"
+
+"There'll be no geometry to-night," the King said. "It's all done;
+we've failed in that. We'll always be as we are, as you told us,
+Naggeneen. So now be as you were yourself and give us a tune to dance
+by. We was dancing when you came in, but it was no good music we had."
+
+"I'll not play any more," Naggeneen said; "that's all done too. But I
+have something more to tell you. Kathleen O'Brien can see us, whether
+we like it or not. Some fool of you must have given her the ointment
+when she was here, and now she has used it on her eyes. She saw me
+when I meant to be invisible, and by the same token she can see any of
+you any time, whether you want to be seen or not. Now you know it's
+the rule that she must be blinded in some way. Any of you can do it
+that likes. I've had enough and I warn you. She carries something that
+none of you can face, if she uses it. But you can watch your chance
+and do it when she's asleep or in some way off her guard."
+
+An angry murmur ran around when Naggeneen said this. The King was
+about to speak, but the Queen spoke first. "Never a one of you shall
+harm her," she said. "Look what she did for me and the little Prince,
+at that time when we can do nothing for ourselves. And how good her
+grandmother has always been to us; and her mother, when she was alive.
+I don't care if she sees everything we do; no one of us shall ever
+harm her or anyone that belongs to her."
+
+"You are right," the King said, "and it's ordered as you say."
+
+"And she's not to be blinded, then?" said Naggeneen.
+
+"She's not to be harmed," the King answered. "I forbid you ever to
+touch her, Naggeneen, and none of us ever will."
+
+"Don't fear for me," said Naggeneen. "I'll never go near her. I've had
+enough."
+
+"And we've all had enough," said the King; "so now, Naggeneen, play
+for us."
+
+"Leave me be," said Naggeneen; "I'll never play for you again. King,
+did you ever lose what you cared for more than all the world? When you
+do, you'll know more than you know now, with all your age and with all
+your power. I told you once how I carried off the Princess of France
+and how Guleesh na Guss Dhu stole her from me. I cared nothing for
+her. It was only the soul that I'ld get from her that I wanted. And
+this time it was only the soul that I wanted, too, at first, but I
+loved this one in the end. But a soul will always find out another
+soul, and there's nothing for one like us, that has no soul. Oh, I
+couldn't even tell her like a man. All I could do was to be always
+frightening her and threatening her, and I knew all the time that it
+would drive her away from me at last, or me away from her. And I'll be
+like the rest of you till the Last Day, and then it's not even a
+little smoke that there'll be left of us. Dance and play and do what
+you like, but leave me be."
+
+Naggeneen turned away from the King, pushed his way through the crowd,
+and threw himself down in a corner of the hall, with his face against
+the wall. The rest did not dance any more that night. Naggeneen had
+frightened them, as he always frightened them when he chose.
+
+After that for a time everything went with the fairies as it had gone
+at first, except that Naggeneen was not among them. Sometimes he was
+in the hall by himself and sometimes he was out of it by himself, but
+he never danced with the others, he never talked with them, and he
+never played for them.
+
+One day the King came to him as he sat in his corner alone and said,
+"Naggeneen, we are all going to the wedding. Will you come with us?"
+
+"Leave me be," said Naggeneen. "Why would I want to see it? I don't
+know if I'll ever go with you or do anything with you again, or with
+anyone, but I know I'll not now."
+
+All the people who were passing St. Patrick's Cathedral could tell by
+the looks of things that if they waited long enough they would see
+somebody come out. So a good many waited. After a while they saw
+Terence and Kathleen come out and get into a carriage.
+
+"Look," said Kathleen: "do you see them? They are the Good People!
+Don't you see them all around us, in the street and in the air, and
+everywhere? I remember every one of them--the funny little men and the
+pretty little girls. Oh, you goose, you have lived with them all your
+life, and still you can't see them except when they want you to. But
+my eyes are different, and I can see them always. Here is one of them
+coming close to the carriage. It is the King. Yes, Your Majesty. What
+do you think he says, Terence? He says that they are never going to
+try to put my eyes out and are never going to do me any harm at all,
+and that I am never to be afraid of them."
+
+Presently the people who were waiting outside the Cathedral saw John
+O'Brien and his mother come out and get into another carriage.
+"Shaun," said the old woman, "I'm wishing that poor Kitty--Heaven rest
+her soul!--could be here to-day."
+
+"I was thinking that same, mother," said John.
+
+"I think she sees it all," said his mother.
+
+"I think so," said John.
+
+"Shaun," said the old woman again, "isn't it all as well as it could
+be? Isn't my old King back with us, and isn't it the luck of
+O'Donoghue that we've found again?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FAIRIES AND FOLK OF IRELAND. $1.50
+
+THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE. $1.50.
+
+THE COURT OF KING ARTHUR. $1.50.
+
+THE WAGNER STORY BOOK. $1.50.
+
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+
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+
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+With over 50 illustrations by C.R. Knight and J.H. Gleeson. Square
+12mo, $2.00.
+
+     Undoubtedly the masterpiece of the well known explorer, in
+     which his young friends may read how his companions of the
+     great African Forest describe in their own language their
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+     with the gift of speech and had made him their confidant.
+
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+
+OR, THE LAST CRUISE OF THE "ESSEX." A Tale of 1812. Illustrated. 12mo,
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+
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+       *       *       *       *       *
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+
+A NEW BOOK BY W.H. FROST
+
+Fairies and Folk of Ireland
+
+Illustrated by S.R. Burleigh. 12mo, $1.50.
+
+     Mr. Frost here applies his attractive methods to re-telling
+     for young and old the fascinating myths and legends of Irish
+     folk-lore. As in his previous books, these fresh and
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+     hardly less interesting than themselves.
+
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+
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+
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+
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+
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+End of Project Gutenberg's Fairies and Folk of Ireland, by William Henry Frost
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