Kisington Town Part 10

As soon as the Old Gnome spied this stump he cried,--"Ha! This is the spot for me! Here will I make my hermitage. And when the time comes for my long sleep, here will I rest forever." For you must know that the Gnomes do not die, being immortal like the Fays; but unlike them growing older and dryer and drowsier until they are fit only for eternal sleep.

The Old Gnome was soon at home in his cell; and very peaceful and cozy he found it. For several days he lay and swung in his hammock, growing comfortably drowsier and drowsier, too lazy even to gather berries for his food. He would soon sleep without waking; and by and by the moss and lichens would grow over him, too, and he would become a silent part of the Ancient Wood,--a little green mound such as you yourself may have seen many a time.

But one day while he was snoring, with his wrinkled hands folded peacefully on his little chest, he heard a sound which made him open his eyes with a snap. It was the noise of an axe chopping. The Old Gnome sat up nervously and peered through his knot-hole window. A woodcutter was at work at the very next tree.

"h.e.l.lo!" said the Old Gnome, staring open-eyed; "That must be a _man_!"

For this was the first mortal he had ever seen.

Forgetting his drowsiness, he climbed up his staircase and peered closely at the creature from behind a curtain of fern.

It was a strong young man, who wielded the axe heartily against the giant oak. The Old Gnome watched him curiously, admiring the lithe sweep of his arm and the rhythmic bend of his body.

"They are goodly folk, these men!" he sighed, looking down on his own misshapen frame. "How can those evil brothers of mine care so much to vex and trouble them?" And he turned over and tried to go to sleep; but the sound of the axe kept knocking at something within him.

Suddenly, the man made a mis-stroke. The axe slipped and came down upon his sandaled foot. With a cry he dropped the axe and fell to the ground, lying very still and white.

"Ha!" frowned the Old Gnome, "the work of my brothers! Some one of them must have charmed that axe. But how strange he looks! Doubtless it is pain, which I do not know. Ah, pain must be something very sore!" And he felt a throb of pity.

He hobbled to the spot where the woodman lay. Across his leg was a deep gash and on the moss were drops of crimson. The Old Gnome looked at them wonderingly, for the Gnomes are bloodless. "How beautiful the color!" he cried, and he touched his finger to one of the drops. Immediately a thrill went through his cold body, and he seemed to feel a fresh draught of life. New impulses came to him.

"These men!" cried he, "how weak they are, after all! How greatly they need aid. I can help him now,--even I!" And his ugly little face wrinkled into the first grin it had known for centuries.

He called to mind his long-forgotten skill in herbs, and hunted in the Ancient Wood for certain plants of healing. One he crushed and laid upon the wound to stanch the blood. Others he set out in the ground close under the young man's nose, so that they seemed to be growing naturally there.

Presently the woodman opened his eyes and stared about him dazedly, but the Old Gnome had hidden himself. As he gained strength, the woodman tore a strip of linen and bound it upon his leg. Then, sniffing the aromatic herbs which grew conveniently at hand, he plucked a bunch with which to make a lotion, and with it limped painfully from the wood.

The Old Gnome watched him go with curious eyes. "I wonder if he will return," he said to himself. And he decided not to sleep until he should know how it fared with the young man.

It was not many days thereafter before the woodman returned to the forest. The lotion had been wondrous helpful, and had healed him more quickly than he had dared to hope; for he was eager to be at work again.

Limping slightly, for the wound had been a sore one, David began work anew.

Day by day the Old Gnome watched him, half jealously at first. But the more he watched the more he liked the ways of the intruder. The woodman sang at his work; his eyes sparkled and his lips smiled as if with pleasant thoughts.

The Old Gnome found himself smiling too, unseen behind the fern. "I will not sleep yet awhile," he said, "for there is work to do."

In the night when the Ancient Wood was silent he toiled long and heartily at the crafts wherein he was wise. And the woodman tasted the result. For the Old Gnome made the berries to ripen more quickly in that glade. He caused delicious mushrooms to spring up all about. He coaxed a spring of fair water from the bed where it slumbered underground and made it gush into a little basin where David came upon it gladly. He caused medicinal herbs to grow, and certain fragrant plants that drove away the mischievous insects sent by his brother Gnomes. All this the Old One did while David was away; and the young man did not know. But he was very happy and busy. Now, one day the young man finished his woodcutting, and lo! he had made a clearing in the Ancient Wood large enough for a tiny house; but the Gnome did not know this. David looked about him at the spring and the flowers and the berries of the pleasant place which the Old Gnome had prepared, and said, "It is good!"

Forthwith of the logs which he had felled he began to build the house itself.

When the Old Gnome saw what David was about to do, indeed he was angry!

For he said,--

"Oho! I did not bargain for this. This is my wood! I want no neighbor,--though a merry visitor was not unwelcome. What is to become of my solitude, of my hermitage? And how am I to sleep, with another restless creature living close by forever and ever?"

For several days he sulked in his cell and would not work. But finally the merry sound of the young man's whistle keeping time to the wheeze of saw and the knock of hammer made the Old Gnome smile again, and he said to himself,--

"Well, what of it? True, I shall have a neighbor for good and all. But he will be alone and speechless, since there is no one with whom to chatter; and he will never trouble me. Let him build here if he will."

David builded his house; and a pretty little place it was, for he was a careful workman and his heart was in it. When all was done he laid the axe aside, hid the hammer and saw, put on fine new clothes and went away across the meadow, whistling happily as a bird. It was the Gnome's first chance to see the inside of a man's dwelling, and he lost no time in going there, you may be sure. He found many things to wonder at, for naturally it was very different from a Gnome's hermitage. But nothing surprised him more than the wreaths of flowers which David had hung over door and window and fireplace, over bed and chairs and table, so that the place was like a fragrant bower prepared for a beloved guest.

The Old Gnome shook his head. "Strange folk, these men!" said he. "Why, and why, and why?" But he brushed up the sawdust, which David had forgotten in a corner; and he re-piled the kindlings on the hearth, which David had hastily put together for a fire. He neatly spread the bed, which David had clumsily prepared; and he made tidy the kitchen which, in his eagerness to don his new clothes, David had quite overlooked. Then the Old One went back to his cell and lay down in his hammock, chuckling. "How surprised the fellow will be!" he said.

At night the Old Gnome heard voices in the wood, and sprang up from his hammock angrily. "More of them?" he cried. "Am I to hear human prattle around me, after all?" And he peered from the balcony of his cell with eyes almost as fierce as those of his brother Gnomes in the Great Fear.

He stared and stared at what he saw. For the young woodcutter was returning in his fine clothes, and with him was a fair maiden, also in holiday gear. Both looked very happy and smiling.

They entered the open door, and the Old Gnome watched to see David's surprise when he should discover how matters had improved in his absence. But the woodman was thinking so much about his pretty new wife that he had eyes for nothing else. However, she looked about her with surprise and pleasure, and the Old Gnome heard her say to her husband,--

"Ah, David! What a tidy housekeeper you are! Or is it some Fairy who has made the house so neat and ready for me? Surely, no one but a beautiful, kind Fairy would sweep the floor so spotless and make so smooth the bed.

Oh, I am glad we have a Fairy friend!"

What David replied the Old Gnome did not hear. He was filled with wondering delight. A Fairy! The sweet little thing had thought it must be a beautiful Fairy who had done this work! The Old Gnome looked whimsically down at his bandy legs and ugly body, and sighed and smiled.

"Ah, if I were but a Fairy!" he said. "Fairies are beautiful and good; they live forever young and gay, and there is no end to the kindness they may do. But I!"--he sighed again,--"a Fairy, indeed!" And he hobbled away to his cell, thinking kindly of the little wife who of all the world had spoken the first word of praise for him; and of the strong young man who loved her.

Now happy days followed in the little house in the Ancient Wood; happy days, too, for the Old Gnome in his hermit's cell. For he was busy all the time doing kind deeds for his new neighbors; without their knowing it. Sometimes he set the table for the morning meal. Sometimes he helped in the churning and made the b.u.t.ter come quickly. Sometimes he blew the fire like a little bellows; a hundred and one things he found to do about the cottage. And it was his reward to hear the young wife say,--"Oh! David, the good Fairy has been here again. What a dear, good, beautiful Fairy it must be!"

The Old Gnome was very careful to keep his ugly face out of sight, you may be sure.

Days went by, and the Old Gnome was ever more and more busy in the hut of the young people, so that really I do not know how they would have done without him. He was scarcely ever in the hermitage nowadays, except for a few hours' sleep by daylight; and he scarcely found time to look after his own affairs, such as they were, so little of a hermit was he become! But every night the young wife set out a bowl of curds and cream for the beautiful Fairy who helped her; and sometimes David left half his luncheon of bread and cheese in the woods, for his unknown friend.

The Old Gnome was growing fat and merry because of this good fare; but he seemed as little like a Fairy as ever.

The months went by; and one day a surprising thing happened. The Old Gnome, sleeping in his hammock, was wakened by a strange, shrill little cry. He sat up and listened wonderingly. It was broad daylight, but at the risk of being seen he ran as fast as he could, and climbing up the vine of eglantine peered in at the chamber window whence came the cry.

And there lying on the young wife's bed was a wee pink baby! The Old Gnome looked at it long and earnestly; and the more he peered the more he liked the look of this newest little neighbor.

"It is as beautiful as a Fairy!" he thought. "I must be good to it, and perhaps it will grow to love me."

From that time the Old Gnome had no rest at all. Unseen--wrapped in a cloak of shadows--he sat for hours while the baby was asleep, fanning the flies away from its little face. When it was restless, he kept the clothes over its tiny feet, drawing them up as fast as the baby kicked them away. And when the young wife came, she would say,

"See, David! Our Fairy has been watching over our baby, just as it watched over us. Oh, now I feel quite safe from those wicked Gnomes who live in the Great Fear!" At this the Old Gnome would chuckle from the corner where he lurked, and where only the baby's bright eyes could pierce the cloak of shadows. It was a great day for the Old Gnome when first the baby smiled at him. It was a still greater day when she held out her little arms to him, and the Old One knew that they were friends.

Soon she was lisping words in her shrill voice; and one of the first things she tried to say was "Fairy friend." She looked straight at the Old Gnome when she did it, and a thrill went through him at the words.

She saw him; yet she thought he was a Fairy! Poor little mite! He dreaded the day when she should know the difference. But the baby seemed to love him more and more every day, and the Old Gnome's cell became her favorite playhouse.

When she grew old enough to talk, she and her mother spoke often of the Fairy friend; and the little girl told strange tales of his doings when no one but herself was about, for still he shyly crept into his cloak of shadows when the grown-up folk were near. When the mother asked what like the Fairy was, she shook her head. "I cannot tell!" she would answer. "Not like you, Mother dear; but beautiful also, and good and merry."

Now, the woodcutter's wife was a very good woman, but she was curious.

The more she heard about the friendly, mysterious Fairy whom her child alone had seen, the more she longed to see him for herself. This was not kind; for she knew he did not wish to be seen. But she was sorely tempted. One day she heard the little one out in the Ancient Wood laughing and talking merrily with some one. "It is the Fairy!" said the mother, and she picked up her toes and crept noiselessly to spy upon them.

There was the baby sitting on a bed of moss; and there, plainly seen without his shadow-cloak, was the Old Gnome, turning somersaults for her and dancing on his crooked legs to make her laugh.

But the mother did not laugh at what she saw! She burst out of the bushes with a cry and seized the baby in her arms. "My child!" she screamed. "Oh, the wicked Gnome! Help, David, help!"

Her cry summoned the woodcutter, who came running up, very pale, with his axe in his hand. "What is this?" he asked. "Who is injuring my child?"

Sobbing, his wife pointed to where the Old Gnome cowered, blinking, caught at last in the sunlight outside his cell.

"A Gnome!" cried David in horror. "One of the pests from the Great Fear!

What are you doing here, Monster? How shall we pay you to go away and leave us in peace?"

"I will go away," said the Old Gnome humbly, "though I belong not to the Great Fear, and I came here before you. My wish is not evil you-ward. It is I who am a friend. But I will go." With a kind look at the baby he turned away.