Текст книги "The Classic Tales. Volume VI"

Автор книги: Beatrix Potter

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 12 страниц)

CHAPTER XXI

The Veterinary Retriever

Now while the mice were merry-making in the caravan, all sorts of things were happening in the stable. Paddy Pig continued to be feverish and restless; he kicked off the blanket as fast as the cats replaced it. “His strength is well maintained,” said Cheesebox after a renewed struggle, “we must keep him on a low diet.”  “What! what! what? I’m hungry,” squealed the patient; “fetch me a bucketful of pig-wash, I say! I’m hungry!”  “Possibly he might be granted a teeny weeny bit of fish; the fisher-cart comes round from Flookborough on Wednesdays,” purred Mary Ellen. “I won’t eat it! flukes are full of pricky bones. Fetch me pig-wash and potatoes!”  “I could pick it for you if you fancied a little fish—”  “I don’t want fish, I tell you. I want potatoes!” grumbled Paddy Pig. He closed his eyes and pretended to snore. “He sleeps,” purred Mary Ellen. “Which of us shall sit up first? We might as well take turns,”said Cheesebox, who was growing a trifle tired of Mary Ellen’s purring. “I will watch first, dear Cheesebox, while you take forty winky peepies.”

Mary Ellen composed herself beside Paddy Pig with her paws tucked under her. Paddy Pig sulked. Maggret, the mare, dozed in the stall nearest to the window. There was some reflected moonlight through the small dusty panes, but the stable was very dark.

Cheesebox jumped nimbly onto the manger, and thence into the hay-rack, wherein was some foisty [14] hay, long undisturbed, to judge by three doubtful eggs in a forgotten hen nest. Cheesebox curled herself up in the hay. Over head cobwebs hung from the broken plaster of the ceiling; there were cracks between the laths, and holes in the floor of the loft above.

The stable had been well appointed in old days. The tailposts of the stalls were handsomely carved, and on each were nailed the antlers of deer. The points served as pegs for hanging up the harness. But all had become neglected, broken, and dark; the corn-bin was patched with tin, and the third backmost stall was full of lumber. A slight noise amongst the lumber drew the attention of Cheesebox; a climbing, scratching noise, followed by the pattering of rat’s feet over the loft above. Mary Ellen, in the stall below, stopped purring. Cheesebox listened intently. There were many pattering footsteps. More and more rats were assembling. “There must be a committee meeting; a congress of rats,” thought Cheesebox, very wide awake. The noise and squeaking increased, until there was a sound of rapping on a box for silence. “I move that the soapbox-chair be taken by Alder-rat Squeaker. Seconded and carried unanimously.”  “First business?” said old Chair Squeaker, in a rich suetty voice. “First business, please?” But there seemed to be neither first nor last; all the rats squeaked at once, and the Chair-rat thumped in vain upon the soapbox. “One at a time, please! You squeak first! No, not you. Now be quiet, you other rats! I call upon Brother Chigbacon to address the assembly. Now, Brother Chigbacon, squeak up!”  “Mr. Chair-rat and Brother Rat-men, I rise from a sense of cheese – I should say duty, so to squeak. I represent the stable rats, so to squeak, what is left of us, so to squeak, being only me and Brother Scatter-meal. Mr. Chair-rat, we being decimated. A horrid squinting, hideous old cat named Cheesebox—” (Mary Ellen looked up at the hay-rack and grinned from ear to ear; Cheesebox’s tail twitched) “—a mangy, skinny-tailed, scraggy, dirty old grimalkin, is decimating us. What is to be done, Mr. Chair-rat and Brother Rat-men? We refer ourselves to the guidance of your united wisdom and cunning!”

The loud, noisy squeaking recommenced; all the rats squeaked different advice, and old Chair Squeaker thumped upon the soapbox. At length amongst the jumble of squeaks, a resolution was put before the meeting by Ratson Nailer, a pert young rat from the village shop. He proposed that a bell be stolen and hung by a ribbon round the neck of that wicked green-eyed monster, the ugliest, greediest, slyest cat in the whole village; “But with a bell round her neck we would always hear her coming, in spite of her velvet slippers.”

Every rat voted for this proposal except old Chair Squeaker. He was a rat of many winters, renowned for extracting cheese from every known make of rat-trap without setting off the spring. “Why don’t you vote? What’s your objection, old Chair Squeaker?” inquired Ratson Nailer, pertly. “No objection,” replied old Chair Squeaker, “none whatever! But tell me – who is going to bell the cat?” No one answered.

Cheesebox reached up, standing on her hind legs in the hay-rack; she applied her green eyes to a crack between the boards of the loft floor.Instantly there was a rush, a scurry, and the assembly of rats dispersed.

Cheesebox jumped down into the stall; her tail was thick, her fur stood on end. Mary Ellen very unwisely was still shaking with laughter. Cheesebox walked up to Mary Ellen. She boxed Mary Ellen’s ears with her claws out. Mary Ellen, with a howl, jumped into the hay-rack; Cheesebox followed her. They sat in the hay, making horrible cat noises and cuffing each other, to the intense annoyance of the mare in the stall below.

As for Paddy Pig – who had really been enjoying a good sleep at last – Paddy Pig screamed with rage and yelled for Sandy.

While the uproar was at its height, the stable door opened, and Sandy came in carrying a lantern, and followed by the veterinary retriever and Pony Billy. The retriever was a large, important dog with a hurrying, professional manner, copied from his master. He came rapidly into the stall, wearing a long blue overcoat, and examined the patient through a pair of large horn spectacles. The cats glared down at him from the hayrack.

POOR PADDY PIG!

“Put your tongue out and say R.”  “What, what, what? It’s bad manners?” objected Paddy Pig. “Put your tongue out, or I’ll bite you!”  “What, what, what?”

“The patient does not appear to be amenable to treatment; but I can perceive no rash; nothing which would justify me in diagnosing measles”(dognosing, he pronounced it). “I am inclined to dog-nose iracundia, arising from tormenta ventris, complicated by feline incompatibility. But, in order to make certain, I will proceed to feel the patient’s pulse. Where is the likeliest spot to find the pulse of a pig, I wonder?”  “Try feeling his tail,” suggested Pony William. “I have no watch,” said the retriever, “but the thermometer will do just as well. Hold it to the lantern, Sandy, while I count.”  “It does not seem to go up,” said Sandy, much mystified. “That settles it,” said the retriever,“I felt sure I was not justified in dog-nosing measles. We will now proceed to administer an emetic – I mean to say an aperient. Has anybody got a medicine glass?”  “There is a drenching horn in that little wall cupboard behind the door,” said Maggret, who was watching the proceedings with much interest over the side of her stall. “Capital!”said the retriever, “hold the bottle please, Sandy, while I dust the horn. It’s chock-full of cobwebs.” Sandy shook the bottle; “I partly seem to know the smell,” said he. He held it beside the lantern and spelled out the label – “Appodyldock. What may that be?”

The retriever displayed some anxiety to get the bottle away from him. “Be careful; the remedy is extremely powerful.”

“Excuse me,” purred a cat’s voice from the hay-rack overhead, “excuse me – appodyldock is not for insides. My poor dear Granny-ma, Puss Cat Mew, had appodyldock rubbed on her back where she got burnt by a hot cinder while she was sitting in the fender. Appodyldock is poison.”  “In spite of our differing I agree with you,” said another cat’s voice in the hay-rack, “appodyldock is for outward application only.”  “Stuff and nonsense!” said the veterinary retriever, drawing the cork out of the bottle with his teeth. “Stuff and nonsense! Here goes—”  “What! what! what! if you poison me again, I’ll scream!” remonstrated the patient. “I seem to remember the smell,” said Sandy. “Quite likely,” said the retriever; “since there is going to be all this fuss I may as well tell you it’s castor oil that I have in the bottle.”  “What, what? Castor – ugh! ugh! ugh!” choked Paddy Pig, as they poked the drenching horn into the corner of his mouth and dosed him.

“A good, safe, old-fashioned remedy, Paddy Pig,” said Pony William. “Now go to sleep, and you will wake up quite well in the morning. As a matter of fact, I don’t think there is much wrong with you now.”  “I think one dose will cure me. But, Pony Billy, come here, I want to whisper. For goodness sake – send away those cats!” Pony Billy took the hint, and acted with tact; “Mary Ellen, we are extremely obliged to you for your invaluable attention to the invalid. I shall be pleased to trot you home to Stott Farm, provided you can go at once, before the moon sets. Cheesebox, we are equally indebted to you for your self-sacrificing devotion. I may tell you there are four rats quarreling in the granary, and one of them sounds like Ratson Nailer.” Cheesebox jumped out of the stable window without another word.

Mary Ellen – after making sure that the veterinary retriever had left – Mary Ellen climbed down into the stall and tucked up the patient for the last time. “Was it a poor leetle sick piggy then—”  “What, what, what! Here, I say! Sandy, Sandy!”  “Lie still then. I’m only seeking my fur-lined boots, they are somewhere in poor piggy’s beddee beddee.”  “Come, Mary Ellen; the moon is setting. Good-night, Paddy Pig, and pleasant dreams.”

“Now we shall have some peace! Those two are worse than the rats,” said Maggret, lying down heavily in her stall. Paddy Pig was already snoring.

The sun rose next day upon a glorious May morning. Paddy Pig, a little thinner than usual, sat by the camp fire, displaying a hearty appetite for breakfast.

“No more toadstool tartlets for me! Give me another plateful of porridge, Jenny Ferret!”

CHAPTER XXII

Cuckoo Brow Lane

It is never quite dark during spring nights in the north. All through the twilight night Charles kept crowing. He was calling the circus company to breakfast, strike camp, and away, before the sun came up. Jenny Ferret’s fire still smouldered; she heaped on sticks to boil the kettle. There was hustling, and packing up, and clucking of hens, and barking of dogs. “Is all taken back that we borrowed?” asked Sandy, “I am answerable to honest old Bobs. What about that meal-bagful of mice, Xarifa?”  “Please, Sandy, the Codlin Croft mice are tied up ready.”  “Why only the mice of Codlin Croft? where are the other nine?”  “Please, please, Sandy, might they ride to the top of Cuckoo Brow? Then they could run home all the way inside the fence. They were afraid of owls. And besides, I did so want them to meet Belinda Woodmouse, we are sure to see her.”  “In short, they have remained; and they must be pulled,”said Pony Billy, good-humouredly. “Here’s a worse difficulty! Who is going to pull the tilt-cart? Paddy Pig is not fit for it,” said Jenny Ferret, hurrying up with an armful of circus trappings. “That’s all arranged,” said Pony Billy, “come along, Cuddy Simpson!”

The gypsies’ donkey walked into the orchard, on Mettle’s four new shoes. “Here come I, fit and ready to pull a dozen pigs! Good friends, I’ll go with you to the hills for a summer’s run on the grass. Fetch me a straw rope, Sandy; I’m too big for Paddy Pig’s breast-straps.”

“Sandy! Sandy!” cried Jenny Ferret, “the tent-pole has been forgotten, and our little bucket at the well. Bother that crowing cock! Where is Iky Shepster?” The starling laughed and whistled; but he refused to leave the chimney stack.

PADDY PIG WAS INSTALLED IN THE CART.

Paddy Pig was installed in the cart, to ride in state; he was wrapped in a shawl and treated like an invalid; but he was in the highest possible spirits. He played the fiddle, and squealed and joked. Sandy marched in front of the procession with his tail tightly curled. The cavalcade set off up the lane amidst the acclamations of the poultry and dogs.

Cuckoo Brow Lane is a bonny spot in spring, garlanded with hawthorn and wild cherry blossom. It skirts the lower slopes of the hill that rises behind Codlin Croft. The meadows on their left were bathed in pearly dew; the lane still lay in the shadow of dawn; the sun had not yet topped the Brow. As it rose, its beams touched the golden tops of the oak trees in Pringle Wood; and a faint smell of bluebells floated over the wall. Paddy Pig fiddled furiously, “I’ll play them ‘Scotch Cap’! I’ll pop the weasel at them! Never again will I cross plank bridges into that abominable wood. Gee up, gee up! get along, Cuddy Simpson!” The gypsies’ donkey trundled the cart through the dead leaves in the lane; steadily pulling in the wake of the caravan.

Tuppenny, Xarifa, and the visitor mice were all peeping through the muslin curtains. “Is the wood full of fairies, Xarifa?”  “Hush, till we get across the water; then I will tell you!”  “Here, you mice, let me brush up the crumbs. I want to open all the windows.” (Jenny Ferret was so accustomed to travel that no amount of jolts upset her housekeeping.)“I might as well take down the curtains, as we are going up to Goosey Foot.”  “Where is that, Jenny Ferret?”  “Spring cleaning,” replied Jenny Ferret briefly.

Xarifa commenced to explain about the washerwomen up at the tarn; but Jenny Ferret bundled everybody out on to the caravan steps.

Tuppenny rolled off, under the surprised nose of Cuddy Simpson, who was brought to a sudden standstill, whilst Tuppenny was picked up amidst squeaks of laughter. He was put to ride in a basket, one of several that were slung at the back of the caravan. Xarifa sat in the doorway; and the visitor mice hung on anywhere, like Cinderella’s footmen behind the pumpkin coach. They set up an opposition fiddling, and joked with Paddy Pig and the donkey. Indeed, Pippin fiddled so sweetly that presently they all joined in concert together, and the little birds in the trees sang to them also as they passed along. First a robin sang—

“Little lad, little lad, where was’t thou born?

Far off in Lancashire under a thorn,

Where they sup sour milk, in a ram’s horn!”

Pippin did not know that tune, so he began another—

“I ploughed it with a ram’s horn,

Sing ivy, sing ivy!

I sowed it all over with one peppercorn,

Sing holly go whistle and ivy!

I got the mice to carry it to the mill

Sing ivy, sing ivy!”

Then he changed his tune, and the chaffinches sang with him—

“I saw a little bird, coming hop, hop, hop!”

Then he played another; and Xarifa pelted him with hempseeds—

“Madam will you walk, madam will you talk—

Madam will you walk and talk with me?”

And then he heard a cuckoo and he played,

“Summer is icumen in!”

The music did sound pretty all the way up Cuckoo Brow Lane.

Where they crossed the beck there was a row of stepping stones, with the water tinkling merrily between them. On a stone, bobbing and curtseying, stood a fat, browny-black little bird with a broad white breast. “Bessie Dooker! Bessie Dooker! Tell all the other little birds and beasties that there will be a circus show this evening. Bid them come to the big hawthorn tree, near the whin bushes by High Green Gate.” Bessie Dooker bobbed her head; she sped swiftly up the beck, whistling as she flew.

The lane was steep after crossing the stream; as they climbed they met the early sunbeams. The bank on their right was full of wild flowers; wood sorrel, spotted orchis, dog violets, germander speedwell, and little blue milkwort. “See!” cried Xarifa, “the milkwort! the milk is coming with the grass in spring; the grass is coming with the soft south wind. Listen to the lambs! they are before us in the other lane.”

Sandy had been in advance of the procession; he turned back. “Wait a little while, Pony Billy; wait with a stone behind the wheel. The sheep are going up to the intake pastures [23] in charge of Bobs and Matt. Let them gain a start before us at the meeting of the lanes; it is slow work driving lambs. How they bleat and run back and forward! Their own mothers’ call, but they run to each other’s mothers, and bawl and push!”

“Here under this sunny hedge I could pleasantly eat a bite and rest,”said Cuddy Simpson; “put stones behind the wheels, and unharness the cart.”

“May we get down and play? we have been shut up so long, me and Tuppenny?”  “Yes, yes! go and play; but do not get left behind.”

Xarifa clapped her little hands, “Oh, look at the flowers.”  “What is that peeping at us, Xarifa? with bright black eyes?” said Tuppenny, pointing to something that rustled amongst the hedge. “It is my dearest Belinda Woodmouse! Oh, what a happy meeting!”

Belinda was a sleek brown mouse; she was larger than the house mice; and more active than Xarifa. Tuppenny turned shy, and stared at her very solemnly; but her sprightliness soon reassured him. Xarifa introduced her to Tuppenny, Pippin, Cobweb, Dusty, and Smut – “Rufty Tufty I am unable to introduce, because she has stayed at home to rock the cradle. But here are enough of us to dance a set tonight on the short-cropped turf by the hawthorn bush.”  “More mice to pull!” laughed Pony Billy. “Oh, oh! Mr. Pony William, you have swallowed three violets!”  “Well?”said Pony Billy, “what then? I must eat!”  “I do not think they liked it,” said Xarifa, doubtfully, “could you not eat young nettles, like Cuddy Simpson?”

Pony Billy rubbed his nose against his foreleg, and gave it up! He moved a little further up the lane, and went on nibbling.

XARIFA’S FAIRY TALE

“Can the flowers feel, Xarifa?” whispered Tuppenny. “I do not know how much or how little; but surely they enjoy the sunshine. See how they are smiling, and holding up their little heads. They cannot dart about, like yonder buzzing fly, nor move along the bank, like that big yellow striped queen wasp. But I think they take pleasure in the gentle rain and sun and wind; children of spring, returning from year to year; and longer-lived than us – especially the trees. Tuppenny, you asked me about fairies. Here on this pleasant sunny bank, I can tell you better than in the shadowed woods.”  “Are they good fairies, Xarifa?”  “Yes; but all fairies are peppery. The fairy of the oak tree was spiteful for a while. Sit you round on the moss, Belinda, and Tuppenny, and visitor mice; and I will try to tell you prettily a tale that should be pretty – the tale of the Fairy in the Oak.”

CHAPTER XXIII

The Fairy in the Oak

There is something glorious and majestic about a fine English oak. The ancient Britons held them sacred; and the Saxons who came after revered the Druids’ trees. William the Norman Conqueror ordered a record of all the land. Because there were no maps they wrote down landmarks; I remember an oak in Hertfordshire, that had been a landmark for Doomsday Book.

This north country oak of my story was less old than the Doomsday Oak. It had been a fine upstanding tree in Queen Elizabeth’s reign. For centuries it grew tall and stately, deep-rooted amongst the rocks, by a corner above an old highway that led to a market town.

How many travellers had passed the tree, since that road was a forest track! Hunters, robbers, bowmen; knights on horseback riding along; pikemen, jackmen marching; country folk and drovers; merchants, pedlars with laden pack-horses.

At each change the road was mended and widened. There began to be two-wheeled carts. Then farmers’ wives left off riding on pillions; the gentry drove gigs and coaches; and alas! there came the wood wagons.

Other oak trees were carried to the sea-port to make ships’ timbers – old England’s wooden walls – but the fairy’s oak towered out of reach. No wood-feller clambered up to it.

Now our ships are built of steel, and iron horses rush along our roads; and the District Council decided to remove the rocks and corner, to widen the road for motor cars.

Surely it is cruel to cut down a very fine tree! Each dull, dead thud of the axe hurts the little green fairy that lives in its heart. The fairy in the oak had been a harmless timid spirit for many hundred years. Long ago, when the oak was a sapling, there had been wolves; and the dalesmen hunted them with hounds. The hunt swept through the forest; the frightened fairy leaped into the oak branches. She found the tree a place of refuge; therefore she loved it and made it her home. Because it had a guardian fairy, that oak grew tall and strong. And each of the finest trees in the forest had a fairy of its own as well.

There were birch fairies, beech fairies, alder fairies, and fairies of the fir trees and pines; all were dressed in the leaves of their own special trees; and in spring when the trees had new leaves, each fairy got herself a new green gown.

They never went far from the trees that they loved; only on moonlight nights they came down, and they danced together on the ground. In autumn when the leaves fell off and the trees were left bare and cold, each fairy withdrew into the heart of its tree, and slept there, curled up, till spring.

Only the pine and fir fairies kept awake, and danced upon the snow, because the firs and pines do not lose their needle-like evergreen leaves; and that is why the fir trees sing in the wind on frosty winter’s nights.

The oak fairy had danced with the pine fairies beneath the hunter’s moon, because oak trees keep their leaves much later than birch or beech; but the last of the russet oak leaves were blown off by a November gale. She settled herself to sleep. The oak was enormous; tall and bold. It held up its head against wind and snow; and scorned the wintry weather.

But the Surveyor of the District Council has no sentiment; and no respect, either for fairies or for oaks!

The pine fairies were awake and saw what happened from their tree-tops further back in the wood. The pine trees swayed, and moaned, and shivered. But the oak fairy slept through it all. There arrived the surveyor, his assistant with the chain links, two men who carried the theodolite with three legs; a woodmonger [61]; and four members of the Council. They did much measuring with the chains; they made notes in their pocketbooks; they squinted through the theodolite at white and black sticks. Then they clambered up the rocks, and stared at the fairy’s oak. The woodmonger measured it with a tape measure; he measured near the foot of the butt; he measured again six foot up; he reckoned the quarter girth; they did calculations according to Hoppus. [20] The councillors said that the tree had an enormous butt; thirty foot run of clean timber to the first branch, with never a knot. They looked at the rocks; and did sums. Then they went away.

Nothing happened for six weeks; except a gale that blew down an ash tree. It crashed amongst the rocks. Its fairy fell out, shrieking. She ran up and down in tattered yellow leaves, till she found an empty bird-nest, and hid in it.

In January a number of men arrived; they had tools, and wheelbarrows, and carts, and a wooden hut. They were quarrymen, navvies, wood-fellers; and carters and wagoners with horses. They cleared away the underwood; they drilled and blasted the rocks. The noise of blasting was like thunder; it awoke every fairy in the wood.

And they felled the fairy’s oak.

For three days they hacked and sawed and drove wedges; the wood was as hard as iron. Their axes broke; their saws were nipped; they lost their wedges overhead in the cuts. But day after day they laboured, and swung their heavy axes; and drove iron wedges with sledge hammer blows into the great tree’s heart. Then one climbed the tree and tied a wire rope to its head; and they pulled with a wagon horse. The tree swayed and groaned, and the hawser broke. Again they wielded their axes; and the little fairy sobbed and cried with pain.

Suddenly, with a rending shriek and a roar, the oak thundered down amongst the rocks!

It lamed a horse, and it did the men a mischief.

All next day they hacked and sawed; they cut off its head and arms. They left the trunk lying overnight beside the road. The fairy stayed beside it, and caused another accident, upsetting a farmer’s cart. His horse in the dusk saw a thing like a little green squirrel that scolded and wrung its hands.

Next day came the wagoners to hoist the great tree; and then again there was disaster. The three legs slipped; the chains broke twice – was it the fury of the little angry spirit that beat against the chains and snapped them?

At length the tree was loaded. They drew away the wagon with two extra pairs of horses; and the fairy, sullen and exhausted, sat huddled upon the log. They swept the top stones off the walls; they had every sort of trouble; but at last they reached the summit of the moor. Ten chain horses were unhooked; leaving one trembling thill-horse in the shafts. The brake was screwed on hard, to face the steep descent.

Down below the hill there sounded a humming, whirring sound – the noise of the sawmill. The fairy sprang from her tree, and fled away into the woods.

All winter she wandered homeless. One day she climbed into one tree; another day she climbed into another tree. She always chose an oak tree; but she could not settle to sleep. Whenever a load of sawn timber came back up the road from the sawmill, the fairy came down to the road.

She looked at it wistfully; but it was always larch, or ash, or plane; not oak.

She wandered further afield in spring time, into the meadows outside the woods. There was grass for the lambs in the meadows; on the trees young green leaves were budding – but no new green leaves for the oak fairy. Her leaf-gown was tattered and torn.

One day she sat on a tree-top, and the west wind blew over the land. It brought sounds of lambs bleating; and the cuckoo calling. And a strange new sound from the river – clear ringing blows upon oak.

‘Men do not fell trees in May, when the sap rises. Why does this sound stir my heart, and make my feet dance, in spite of me? Can I hear cruel hammers and saws upon oak-wood, and feel glad?’ said the fairy of the oak.

She came out of the wood, and her feet danced across the meadow, through the cuckoo flowers and marsh mary-golds, to the banks of the flooded stream, where men were building a bridge. A new bridge to the farm, where none had been before; a wooden bridge with a broad span across the rushing river; and the straight brave timbers that spanned it were made of the fairy’s oak!

“Is that all, Xarifa?” She had come to a stop.

“All except that she was happy again, and she made her home in the bridge. She lives there, contented and useful; and may live there for hundreds of years; because hard-grown oak lasts forever; well seasoned by trial and tears. The river sings over the pebbles; or roars in autumn flood. The bridge stands sure and trusty, where never before bridge stood. Little toddling children take that short cut to the school; and Something guards their footsteps by the bank of the flowery pool. The good farm-horses bless the bridge that spares them a weary road; and Something leads them over, and helps to lighten their load. It wears a russet-brown petticoat, and a little hodden gray cloak – and that is the end of my story of the Fairy in the Oak.”

“Very sweet, Xarifa, albeit longwinded. Now mount the steps and away! White clouds sail across the blue heaven. The sheep and their lambs are on the fell; the plovers and curlews are calling. Tune up little fiddlers; begone!”

They harnessed up, they trailed away – over the hills and far away – on a sunny windy morning. But still in the broad green lonnin [28] going up to the intake, I can trace my pony’s fairy footsteps, and hear his eager neighing. I can hear the rattle of the tilt-cart’s wheels, and the music of the Fairy Caravan.



The End