CHAPTER XIV
ECHOES OF FAIRY-LAND
“Mr Button,” said Emmeline that night, as they sat on the sand nearthe tent he had improvised, “Mr Button—cats go to sleep.”
They had been questioning him about the “never-wake-up” berries.
“Who said they didn’t?” asked Mr Button.
“I mean,” said Emmeline, “they go to sleep and never wake up again.Ours did. It had stripes on it, and a white chest, and rings all downits tail. It went asleep in the garden, all stretched out, and showingits teeth; an’ I told Jane, and Dicky ran in an’ told uncle. I went toMrs Sims, the doctor’s wife, to tea; and when I came back I asked Janewhere pussy was—and she said it was deadn’ berried, but I wasn’t totell uncle.”
“I remember,” said Dick. “It was the day I went to the circus, and youtold me not to tell daddy the cat was deadn’ berried. But I told MrsJames’s man when he came to do the garden; and I asked him where catswent when they were deadn’ berried, and he said he guessed they went tohell—at least he hoped they did, for they were always scratchin’ upthe flowers. Then he told me not to tell any one he’d said that, for itwas a swear word, and he oughtn’t to have said it. I asked him whathe’d give me if I didn’t tell, an’ he gave me five cents. That was theday I bought the cocoa-nut.”
The tent, a makeshift affair, consisting of two sculls and a treebranch, which Mr Button had sawed off from a dwarf aoa, and thestay-sail he had brought from the brig, was pitched in the centre of thebeach, so as to be out of the way of falling cocoa-nuts, should thebreeze strengthen during the night. The sun had set, but the moon hadnot yet risen as they sat in the starlight on the sand near thetemporary abode.
“What’s the things you said made the boots for the people, Paddy?”asked Dick, after a pause.
“Which things?”
“You said in the wood I wasn’t to talk, else—”
“Oh, the Cluricaunes—the little men that cobbles the Good People’sbrogues. Is it them you mane?”
“Yes,” said Dick, not knowing quite whether it was them or not that hemeant, but anxious for information that he felt would be curious. “Andwhat are the good people?”
“Sure, where were you born and bred that you don’t know the Good Peopleis the other name for the fairies—savin’ their presence?”
“There aren’t any,” replied Dick. “Mrs Sims said there weren’t.”
“Mrs James,” put in Emmeline, “said there were. She said she liked tosee children b’lieve in fairies. She was talking to another lady, who’dgot a red feather in her bonnet, and a fur muff. They were having tea,and I was sitting on the hearthrug. She said the world was gettingtoo—something or another, an’ then the other lady said it was, andasked Mrs James did she see Mrs Someone in the awful hat she woreThanksgiving Day. They didn’t say anything more about fairies, but MrsJames——”
“Whether you b’lave in them or not,” said Paddy, “there they are. An’maybe they’re poppin’ out of the wood behint us now, an’ listenin’ tous talkin’; though I’m doubtful if there’s any in these parts, thoughdown in Connaught they were as thick as blackberries in the ould days.O musha! musha! the ould days, the ould days! when will I be seein’thim again? Now, you may b’lave me or b’lave me not, but me own ouldfather—God rest his sowl!—was comin’ over Croagh Patrick one nightbefore Christmas with a bottle of whisky in one hand of him, and agoose, plucked an’ claned an’ all, in the other, which same he’d won ina lottery, when, hearin’ a tchune no louder than the buzzin’ of a bee,over a furze-bush he peeps, and there, round a big white stone, theGood People were dancing in a ring hand in hand, an’ kickin’ theirheels, an’ the eyes of them glowin’ like the eyes of moths; and a chapon the stone, no bigger than the joint of your thumb, playin’ to thimon a bagpipes. Wid that he let wan yell an’ drops the goose an’ makesfor home, over hedge an’ ditch, boundin’ like a buck kangaroo, an’ theface on him as white as flour when he burst in through the door, wherewe was all sittin’ round the fire burnin’ chestnuts to see who’d bemarried the first.
“‘An’ what in the name of the saints is the mather wid yiz?’ says memother.
“‘I’ve sane the Good People,’ says he, ‘up on the field beyant,’ sayshe; ‘and they’ve got the goose,’ says he, ‘but, begorra, I’ve saved thebottle,’ he says. ‘Dhraw the cork and give me a taste of it, for meheart’s in me throat, and me tongue’s like a brick-kil.’
“An’ whin we come to prize the cork out of the bottle, there wasnothin’ in it; an’ whin we went next marnin’ to look for the goose, itwas gone. But there was the stone, sure enough, and the marks on it ofthe little brogues of the chap that’d played the bagpipes—and who’d bedoubtin’ there were fairies after that?”
The children said nothing for a while, and then Dick said:
“Tell us about Cluricaunes, and how they make the boots.”
“Whin I’m tellin’ you about Cluricaunes,” said Mr Button, “it’s thetruth I’m tellin’ you, an’ out of me own knowlidge, for I’ve spoken to aman that’s held wan in his hand; he was me own mother’s brother, ConCogan—rest his sowl! Con was six fut two, wid a long, white face; he’dhad his head bashed in, years before I was barn, in some ruction orother, an’ the docthers had japanned him with a five-shillin’ piecebeat flat.”
Dick interposed with a question as to the process, aim, and object ofjapanning, but Mr Button passed the question by.
“He’d been bad enough for seein’ fairies before they japanned him, butafther it, begorra, he was twiced as bad. I was a slip of a lad at thetime, but me hair near turned grey wid the tales he’d tell of the GoodPeople and their doin’s. One night they’d turn him into a harse an’ride him half over the county, wan chap on his back an’ another runnin’behind, shovin’ furze prickles under his tail to make him buck-lep.Another night it’s a dunkey he’d be, harnessed to a little cart, an’bein’ kicked in the belly and made to draw stones. Thin it’s a goosehe’d be, runnin’ over the common wid his neck stritched out squawkin’,an’ an old fairy woman afther him wid a knife, till it fair drove himto the dhrink; though, by the same token, he didn’t want much dhrivin’.
“And what does he do when his money was gone, but tear thefive-shillin’ piece they’d japanned him wid aff the top of his hed, andswaps it for a bottle of whisky, and that was the end of him.”
Mr Button paused to relight his pipe, which had gone out, and there wassilence for a moment.
The moon had risen, and the song of the surf on the reef filled thewhole night with its lullaby. The broad lagoon lay waving and ripplingin the moonlight to the incoming tide. Twice as broad it always lookedseen by moonlight or starlight than when seen by day. Occasionally thesplash of a great fish would cross the silence, and the ripple of itwould pass a moment later across the placid water.
Big things happened in the lagoon at night, unseen by eyes from theshore. You would have found the wood behind them, had you walkedthrough it, full of light. A tropic forest under a tropic moon is greenas a sea cave. You can see the vine tendrils and the flowers, theorchids and tree boles all lit as by the light of an emerald-tinted day.
Mr Button took a long piece of string from his pocket.
“It’s bedtime,” said he; “and I’m going to tether Em’leen, for fearshe’d be walkin’ in her slape, and wandherin’ away an’ bein’ lost inthe woods.”
“I don’t want to be tethered,” said Emmeline.
“It’s for your own good I’m doin’ it,” replied Mr Button, fixing thestring round her waist. “Now come ’long.”
He led her like a dog in a leash to the tent, and tied the other end ofthe string to the scull, which was the tent’s main prop and support.
“Now,” said he, “if you be gettin’ up and walkin’ about in the night,it’s down the tint will be on top of us all.”
And, sure enough, in the small hours of the morning, it was.