Fairies and Folk of Ireland Part 15

"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 pa.s.ses 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 pa.s.s 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 gra.s.s, 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 gra.s.s in that place sloped upward from the path, and the ground was a little hollowed, in a sort of sh.e.l.l shape. All around the place, except where the path was, trees and bushes hung over the gra.s.s. The buds were just opening here, too, and the air was full of the smell of the new spring gra.s.s 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 s.h.i.+p. 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 wis.h.i.+ng 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 gra.s.s 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 sh.e.l.l-shaped gra.s.s-plot and moved along together--Kathleen could scarcely tell even now whether her feet were on the ground or not--over the gra.s.s, 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, s.h.i.+ning 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 gla.s.s. 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 s.h.i.+ning on the walls of the pa.s.sage 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, s.h.i.+ning 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, s.h.i.+ning 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 pa.s.sage, 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.