Part 1

A Southern Cross Fairy Tale

A SOUTHERN CROSS FAIRY TALE

BY KATE McCOSH CLARK

_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY R. ATKINSON AND THE AUTHOR_

LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEALE & RIVINGTON _Limited_ St. Dunstan’s House FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C. 1891 [_All rights reserved_]

LONDON: PRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LIMITED, ST. JOHN’S HOUSE, CLERKENWELL ROAD.

TO MY GODCHILD KITTY AND TO MY LITTLE NEPHEWS AND NIECES.

PREFACE.

The scenes of Christmas tales read by English-speaking children have been for the most part naturally laid amid winter, snow, and leafless landscape. The Yule-log and the holly-berry have been time-honoured “properties.” But there are, growing up under the Southern Cross, generations of children, with English speech and English hearts, to whom the Yule-log at Christmas is unmeaning and the snow unknown.

The little story which follows is written for such children as these, and also for those in the older land who have any desire to know what Christmas is like among their kin on the other side of the world.

While seeking to amuse, it is intended to convey pleasant information. New Zealand is a land full of natural wonders and natural beauty; its vegetation and its fauna are every way remarkable. In the following pages the allusions to these wonders and beauties, however playfully introduced, are intended to be truthful. The colours and habits of plants and animals are in sober reality just what they are made to appear in fairy-land. The illustrations are from nature, and will, it is hoped, bear out the text. For the loan of certain birds and clear descriptive notes upon them, I am deeply indebted to Mr. A. Reischek, F.L.S., the well-known naturalist. The kind interest of Professor Thomas, M.A., F.L.S., F.G.S., and the valuable notes given by him upon the Terraces, Geysers, &c., also lay me under much obligation.

K. C.

AUCKLAND, _July, 1889_.

“THE CHILDREN’S HOUR.”

The cawing rooks fly to their nests; Again the song-birds hush their lay; O’er all the world a stillness rests, And twilight shadows dance and play. The book is closed, hands folded o’er, The work, that rests the while, undone; See! glad young faces at the door, And hark! the peals of mirth and fun. Yes, ’tis the children’s hour, To waiting arms they run.

The little faces vie to press Warm kisses on our willing lips, While loving prayers, unspoken, bless The sunny heads, and finger tips Pass gently o’er the cheek’s soft bloom— That seems as stolen from the rose; Then merry voices fill the room, As round the fire-lit hearth we close, For ’tis the children’s hour, Which nought but brightness knows.

“Play with us, play!” Ah, yes, young hearts, Well that your voices coax, and make Us for awhile forget the smarts Of striving day for your brief sake. “Sing with us, sing!” and youthful notes Rise shrill in some time-hallowed strain. Discord—sweet discord round us floats, And ageing hearts grow young again— It is the children’s hour, That knows nor care nor pain.

“Now tell us stories, mother, dear!” How sweet the old and matchless word! Sweeter than aught that else we hear From children’s lips. What memories stirr’d By that loved name rush o’er the soul! For sheltering arms we once more yearn Now folded ’neath the grassy knoll. Would that the children’s hour For her, too, could return.

“Come, children, nestle close to me And question with your lips and eyes, For, as ye listen, I would see The starting flush and sweet surprise At tales of brownie and of fay That hide within your favourite glen, And ’neath the moonlight’s flickering ray Bring fairy gifts to slumbering men.” Sweet lore of children’s hour, Why need we further ken?

Ah! little ones, ye hold us fast And thoughts of you like joy-bells chime Around our lives, and link the past And present in one long sweet rhyme. And slumbering echoes wake anew, For purity glows in your eyes, And truth from out them shines so true That from our hearts all falseness flies. It is the children’s hour When purest thoughts arise.

The years roll by and leave their taint Of sin upon us, and the weight Of self-wrought grief, until we faint Beneath the burden grown so great. Fretted by sight of others’ pain, The voiceless suffering of the weak; “Wherefore?” we cry, but all in vain, No answering oracle doth speak. And in the children’s hour We fain for peace would seek.

Far off like some grand snowy height That gleams anon through driving mist, Some great End flashes on our sight; And on that peak the sun hath kissed, Could we but stand, thence gazing back Perchance Heaven’s echoes we might hear, Perchance Heaven’s light upon our track Might show the good of every tear, And in the children’s hour Life’s riddles read more clear.

Speak to our hearts, each bright young heart, Perfect in love and faith, and bid Us know that e’en as petals part To breathe the fragrance ’neath them hid, So do ye breathe around life’s hours The sweetness nought can steal away, The sweetness of our cherished flowers. Then ope bright blooms upon our way, And make the children’s hour With beauty crown each day.

Play on, ye little ones, play on, And cheer us with your guileless mirth; Too soon your careless days are gone And later years see sorrow’s birth. We love your bright eyes’ merry glance, We love your voices’ gleesome ring; To trip with you th’ unrhythm’d dance Again doth childlike rapture bring. It is the children’s hour, Sing on, ye children, sing.

Ye cradle our lost dreams anew, Ye make love’s echoes ceaseless sound, And, if for some the stretching yew O’erguards a tiny daisied mound, They have but laid their treasures where God’s angels tread with sacred feet; They have but Heavenward sent a prayer That, lisped before the mercy-seat, In God’s own children’s hour Shall win an answer sweet.

K. C.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

Bell-Bird 1

“It is Christmas Eve! and the long soft shadows of a summer night are quickly falling on the garden, fields, and meadows” _To face_ 3

“Take that,” said Santa Claus; “it will give you light in the darkest places” _To face_ 6

“We’re sorry we’re so big,” said Hal 13

Kiwi 14

Parson-Bird or Tui 15

Pied Fantail 15

Brown Owl or More-pork 16

Crow 17

Tuataras 19

Vegetable Caterpillar 20

Robins 22

Maori Hen 23

White Heron 25

“They are only Maories; and see, they are more frightened of us than you are of them” _To face_ 26

On the top of the geyser were shot out a troop of laughing gnomes 29

“Run to the hill!” cried Red Cap _To face_ 38

Kea 47

“You must have been dreaming, Hal!” _To face_ 51

A SOUTHERN CROSS FAIRY TALE.

It is Christmas Eve! and the long soft shadows of a summer night are quickly falling on the garden, fields, and meadows of a New Zealand home. The feathery edge of the forest-clad hills behind the house stands out dark against the yellow light still lingering in the west; undulating grassy slopes creep down to where the graceful tree-ferns form a billowy mass of light and shade near the deep, dark creek, that divides the fields. The murmuring of the stream, in hidden depths below, rises like a lullaby, while countless shrill crickets sing their merry carols amid the trees. No sound of joyous bells is borne upon the air, as on the English Christmas Eves of pleasant memory, only the Bell-bird’s[1] chimes from the bush, and the distant cow-bell’s tinkle mid the shadowy Manuka clumps, where sentinel cabbage-palms[2] up-raise their helmeted heads erect and stern. Fair is that house built up by English hands in the New World; fair, not with the slowly gathered beauty of centuries gone by, the clinging ivy and the gaily painted lichens on the stones, but with the quick rich growth of the southern lands. The quaint low wooden gables are wreathed with creepers of many a shade and hue, and over the broad verandah and open casement doors, the scarlet passion-flowers gleam like burning stars amid their masses of glossy leaves, and the green egg-shaped fruit of its more modest cousin hang in rich profusion on the trellised arbour near by, the scene of many a childish frolic and out-door tea-party. Sweet scents arise from the nooks of the garden which is left half wild, where many an English flower carefully tended, tells of hearts in which still cling fond memories of a childhood’s home afar. Through the sombre pines that edge the spreading lawn, are seen the last long silvery streaks, quivering on the distant sea; overhead the busy starlings flit to and fro, or, perching on some tapering branch, give forth their short-lived song, while, now and again, the harsh call of the brown owl pierces the deepening shades. But suddenly is heard the sound of merry voices, and two little children run down the winding path leading to the house, then stop near to a rose-bed rich in bloom.

“It’s Christmas Eve, you know, little Cis,” said Hal, a merry strong-limbed, dark-eyed boy between nine and ten years old, to his little sister who stood near.

She was a quaint little maid of seven in whose wavy golden hair one might well think the summer sunbeams lingered; her large blue eyes, dark lashed, in her solemn moments looked like clear deep wells, but could dance with light and laughter at a tale of fun. Hers was a sweet child-nature “so easily moved to smiles or tears,” so full of sympathy was her loving little heart.

“It is Christmas Eve, you know, little Cis, and we must get some nice flowers to give mother to-morrow morning, mustn’t we?”

“Yes, Hal, and I want to find a lot of dear little red rose-buds,—oh! here’s one, and here’s another, I’m so glad!”

“Why _red_ ones, Cis?”

“’Cos mother likes red ones, I know; she told me about the prickly tree with red berries on it, which she used to gather bunches of at Christmas time when she was a little girl like me,—I expect she gave some to her mother, and I wonder if she pricked her fingers as I do mine—never mind, I am not going to cry, Hal, because it’s for mother. Do the thorns hurt you, Hal?”

“Yes, Cis, but I am a boy you know, and boys don’t cry; I am getting white rose-buds, because in mother’s tales about Christmas, there is always a lot of white snow. I wonder why God does not send us any snow here!”

“Perhaps He will one day if we are naughty, for it kills all the pretty flowers,” replied Cis.

“No, it doesn’t kill them all, Cis, it only covers them up; besides, it’s rare fun to make snow-balls, they say.”

“Children, children!” calls a voice from the open door, “it is nearly bed-time.”

“Yes, coming, mother dear,” and the two bunches of flowers were quickly hidden beneath the little coat and pinafore, while the children ran round to a side door and gave them into the nurse’s charge to put in water, and in a safe hiding place until the morning.

“Put them under our beds, Nursie, no one will see them there,” shouted Hal, as he rushed off with his sister to their mother for the good-night chat.

In the well-known cosy room sat a slender figure in black, in a low wicker chair, and little Cis was already on her lap, her shining head nestled close in, her sweet face pressed to her mother’s, which if older and sadder, was not less sweet. Hal, taking his favourite stool, sat down close to her knee, and giving her hand a hasty boyish kiss, said: “Don’t send us to bed just yet, mother dear, ’tis Christmas Eve, you know.”

“Ah, yes! Christmas Eve,” she echoed, and her trembling voice told of the mingled memories that thronged her heart,—memories of past joys and sudden sorrow. Her thoughts flew to that time, “only a year ago,” when there came the hurried summons for her husband to a sick relative in a distant land—the hasty departure on the voyage,—and then the blank of a terrible silence,—and later, the tidings that she should see him no more till “the sea gives up her dead,”—and, laying her hand on Hal’s dark head, she pressed her fatherless little ones closer to her.

“Tell us a story, mother dear,” broke in Hal’s voice.

“Suppose you tell me one for a change, dear,” she replied.

“I don’t think I can, mother, but I’ll try,” said Hal’s determined tones, “it will be very hard, but you’ll help me, little Cis, when I stick, won’t you? Shall it be a real story or a made up one?”

“Oh! a real one, Hal, it won’t be so hard,” said little Cis.

“All right,” replied Hal, “just wait a moment whilst I think,” and the boy’s face took an earnest, thoughtful expression not often seen on it, for he was a light-hearted laddie full of the joy of a happy, careless childhood.

“We had three baby guinea-pigs this morning,” began he musingly, “but, I suppose I couldn’t make a tale out of that,—and the little white bantam was drowned in the duck-pond, and Cis and I put it in a box with flowers and buried it under the apple-tree, but, I suppose that wouldn’t do either;—and the parrot bit my fingers dreadfully, and I—no, I didn’t cry, I only howled. Oh! mother, you tell a tale, I can’t.”

Then a minute’s silence followed, broken only by the purring of Hal’s favourite, the black cat “Smut,” who was rubbing against his master’s leg, where the kneeless stocking told of the day’s exploits.

Darker grew the shadows in the long low room; the clock ticked on its monotonous “Gone by! gone by!” the faint whisper of the evening breeze through the pines came in at the window; the last rays died in the west, and once again the evening star looked out from the darkening sky upon the mother, and the child within her arms—a picture that in all its varied phases is as beauteous in our great to-day, as at that Christmas-time at Bethlehem in ages past. And little Cis, watching the shining star, raised her head from her mother’s shoulder, and said in a hushed voice:

“Do you think the angels will come to-night, mother dear?”

“Angels! why, little one?” she replied.

“Because there’s the star, mother, and I think it must be the one you told me about, that came when the angels sang, because it’s, oh! so beautiful! I should like them to come to-night; perhaps dear father will send them. Do you think if we sat ever so still they _would_ fly down near us? You know, when I sit down under the big trees up the hills for a long time, the little birds fly down and close up their wings and come and look at me, and angels have wings, haven’t they, mother dear? and so perhaps they will come.”

“Oh!” cried Hal, “if they can fly about like that, Cis, I shouldn’t like it to-night, for there are a lot of Christmas-plums ripe on the tree in the orchard, and if they come near I expect they would want them,—I should. But I didn’t take any to-day, mother; we are saving them for to-morrow as you told us to do; I only sat down under the tree and picked up any that fell down. You know you told us not to run about when it was very hot, so I thought if I was good and sat still, God would make some plums drop down. But, I say, mother, what sort of hat does God wear?”

“Hat, my boy! what do you mean?”

“Why, mother, you said I must keep my hat on these hot days or I’d get sunstroke, and I’m sure it must be dreadfully hot for God up in the sky; there are no trees there to sit under.”

What merry laughter from little Cis followed Hal’s remark, but his mother said quietly, “Hush, my boy, we must not speak lightly of Him whose ways are not as ours.” Hal’s merry face became thoughtful, and the children were silent for a few moments; then the favourite tales were won from mother by many a caress,—tales, of which the words fell on the children’s ears like the pleasant dropping of summer rain, bringing forth sweet flowers of thought, may be in later years to bear a precious fruit. Then came the patter of little feet up the stairs, and merry chatter, as the stockings were hung up ready for Santa Claus; and then, when mother came, there were murmurs of sleepy voices, as the two little white-robed figures knelt with folded hands on their curtained beds, and lay down with the last words of their childish prayer on their rosy lips—

“In the Kingdom of Thy Grace, Give a little child a place.”

“A place!” Aye, would that many an older child of earth could claim such a place as His little ones have! Then, with mother’s last “tuck up” and good-night kiss, and one last look to make sure that the stockings were all right, silence fell on the little restless tongues, and closed the sleepy eyes.

* * * * *

It was midnight, but no Christmas waits disturbed the stillness round the quiet house. The southern cross gleamed clear and bright in the dark blue heavens, and the moon sailed high, silvering the feathery clouds that here and there floated across the star-lit depths, as though some angels passing by had left stray pinions there. The distant ocean had waked from its evening dreams with a thousand twinkling smiles; the tree-ferns trembled beneath the moonbeams’ soft caress; but, brighter than all others were the rays that, creeping through the window to the white curtained beds, kissed so lovingly the sweet faces lying there, lingering round the tumbled curls of little Cis, and on the dimpled arm thrown over her head, and crowning Hal’s dark hair with a soft halo.

Then a clear voice broke the stillness of that summer night, making the children stir in their slumbers ... then, once again the silvery voice rang forth, “Wake up, little ones!”

And, starting up, Cis and Hal rubbed their eyes, and wonderingly gazed around.

And there, where the moonbeams fell upon the floor, stood a lad with a smiling face, and on his head was a crown of twinkling stars, and beneath the stars these words shone, “I bring good gifts to all.” A robe of deepest blue hung down in soft shimmering folds near to his feet; and in his hand was a wand, on the tip of which shone the evening star.

Then Hal, without fear, though in a dreamy voice, asked, “Please are you a fairy, little man?”

And Cis in a low voice added, “It’s the Angel of the Stars!”

“No, little ones,” said he, “I am neither a fairy nor an angel; I am only Santa Claus.”

“Why, I thought Santa Claus was an old man,” said Hal.

“So I am, in the Old World,” replied he, “but here, in the New World, I am young like it.”

“But,” exclaimed Hal, “where are your reindeer, and where’s the sleigh with all the good things in it I always thought you brought? Because it won’t be fair if you don’t give us anything. It’s Christmas Eve, you know, and we have put our stockings ready for you.”

“I have left my reindeer and the snow and frost in the Old World,” said Santa Claus; “but never fear, I have not forgotten you and little Cis; my wand, with the star of Love on it, is better than my sleigh full of presents. But come along, little ones; dress quickly, for I am going to take you where many wonderful things are waiting to be seen by bright young eyes.”

“All right; I am ready,” cheerily replied Hal.

But little Cis said, “I don’t know, Hal; what will mother say! Mayn’t I go and tell her, Mr. Santa Claus?”

“No need, little Cis; she knew I was coming to you to-night.”

“Yes, it’s all right,” said Hal eagerly, “come, dress quickly, Cis, we shall see lots of wonderful things, and bring some back to mother too.”

So the children dressed, and, led by their guide, went hand in hand with light steps down the stairs and out into the moonlit world.

How beautiful it looked! The drooping grasses shone with drops of dew; the tall white lilies gleamed fair as the driven snow; a white-tailed rabbit skipped across their path and then peered with bright eyes at them from high bracken; a solitary night-bird chirped out its sleepy notes; but as the children, led by Santa Claus, came near to the creek, the voice of the stream sang out cheerily. A mossy trunk lay across the waters, and Santa Claus stepped lightly along it, followed by Hal, who held the hand of little Cis tightly in his, and, guiding her, went across the slippery bridge.

“It _is_ dark down here,” murmured Cis, as they stepped on the bank where high fern-trees and thick bushes shaded the gully.

Turning round, Santa Claus placed in Hal’s hand the wand whereon so brightly shone the star of Love. “Take that,” he said, “it will give you light in the darkest places;” and, as the light from the star fell around, the black waters danced and gleamed, and the dark mosses shone.

“Please do stop a little while, here, Mr. Santa Claus,” begged Hal, “I want so much to have a look at that big carp I saw the other day in the pool,” and, as he spoke, the fish, his gold and silver scales glittering in the light, came near, and amid the rippling of the waters the children heard a little voice singing:—

“Can’t we catch him, Mr. Santa Claus?” shouted Hal, “I should like that fellow, for he talks like a book!”

But the fish only waved his tail and glided down the stream.

Then their guide beckoned them forwards, and Cis, wondering, asked, “Did you make the fish speak, Mr. Santa Claus?”

“Yes, little Cis,” answered he, “and the gift I bring you and Hal this night, is the gift that makes you know and understand Nature’s many voices.”

“Does any one else know them?” asked Hal.