Fairies and Folk of Ireland Part 22

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 astonis.h.i.+ng 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 b.a.l.l.s 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 G.o.d 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s, 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 gla.s.s, she had seen a dark form pa.s.s 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.