Part 6

"No, Michael, I don't agree with you. You've got wrong notions. There's a condition attached to the spell, which must be discovered by yourself. Uncle Peter told you this plainly. He said nothing about success depending on your being very clever, or learned in the ways he was, and he knew none of you were. He knew the condition was one quite possible for you to fulfil, but it had to be your own doing. Well--Hodge and Giles have failed--Giles less than Hodge----"

"Because he wasn't such a selfish pig as Hodge," Michael interrupted, "still----"

Ysenda smiled.

"Still," she went on, "a meal of bread and cheese isn't worth the trouble. I agree with you. But I don't see why _you_ should not succeed, though the others have failed."

"I don't know why I _should_!" exclaimed he. "I can think of nothing new to try, and it worries me. I keep dreaming about it night and day, till I want to throw it over and have done with it. I had a plan----" but he hesitated.

"Tell me your plan," she urged.

"It was this. I thought maybe Hodge and Giles would forget the right words or miss the time or do something stupid that I could see and guard against when my turn came, and if so I had planned how I'd invite the poor dame and her children to the Sunday feast--I'd have just bid them come a few minutes before the time, the way uncle did with us--and when I'd got it all ready--steaming hot and all beautiful and tempting, I'd throw open the door and show them in. My! just to think of it," and his blue eyes danced with pleasure.

So did Ysenda's pretty grey ones, but she kept her self-control.

"Well," she said gently, "why shouldn't you carry out your plan?"

"Ysenda!" exclaimed Michael, "how could I risk it after the failure of the others? Supposing I had as good luck as Giles--and how can I be sure of even that?--a nice feast it would be to invite the poor things to--a lump of bread and a wedge of cheese! I'd be ashamed past words."

"You'd have a nice, dainty table, and no doubt, if the good people knew how many guests you'd asked, they'd lay places for them all, as has always been the case so far as I understand," said Ysenda. "I'll tell you what I'd do--I'll help you all I can--let's have some simple fare ready to fall back upon if need be. I'm sure I can manage a joint of cold meat and some potatoes, which you can roast in readiness. Then when you invite Dame Martha and the children just say it's really to take 'pot-luck' with you, so they won't expect over much."

Michael's face brightened.

"Thank you, Ysenda," he said, "thank you a thousand times. You've cheered me greatly, and made me think I'd be a coward not to take my chance. So I'll do as you say. Maybe I can get some vegetables or fruit to help out the dinner. And I'll just invite them in an off-hand sort of way, as you advise. A case of 'pot-luck' it certainly will be, if there never was one before!" and he laughed quite heartily.

That very evening he invited the dame and her grandchildren, and the first time he met Hodge and Giles he told them of these expected guests. Hodge was rather scornful about it, but Giles was more cheery.

"There's something in numbers," he maintained, "and three's a lucky one. You're the third to try, and you've invited three, besides us three ourselves. And--" he added, slapping his cousin on the shoulder as he spoke--"why yes, Mike, old fellow, fate's smiling on you and no mistake! Sunday's the third of the month, for sure!"

Michael's spirits rose still higher.

"Thank you, Giles," he said. "Well, we'll know before long. And you two mustn't fail me. If we don't meet at church, I'll depend on you soon after twelve o'clock on Sunday. Don't be late."

"No fear," said Giles, and Hodge, who was influenced by the others' hopefulness, felt his mouth already watering in anticipation of the excellent fare, echoed "no fear."

And some quarter of an hour or so before the usual time the three were settled in their places, Mike, bell in hand, all three pair of eyes glancing every minute or so at the clock. Now and then Michael's strayed to the cupboard in the corner, with a comfortable expression, for there, thanks to Ysenda and his own precautions, there was a good piece of meat and a few other odds and ends, sufficient for a plain though not very choice or ample meal.

At last--and how very slowly do the hands of a clock seem to move, if one is watching them!--at last the long needle approached the figure "six" at the bottom of the dial. Mike glanced at his companions.

"Now for it," he said, and for the life of him he could not prevent his voice shaking a little. "Here goes," and then pulling himself together he repeated the rhyme of incantation in a firm clear voice:

"Little table, fair to see, Magic bell now summons thee. Spread with viands good to taste, Fairy table, prithee haste!"

and after a moment's pause he lifted the silver toy and rang it cheerily.

Then--utter silence, save for Michael's drawing a deep breath or two--and--oh, joy! the whirring sounds began to be heard--no mistake about it, as they grew louder and nearer. Giles chuckled as he whispered, "Some good honest bread and cheese, hey, Mike?"

But he laughs best who wins!

Michael made no reply. In another moment came the soft swing of the invisible hinges--the floor opened, and up came the table. You could almost have fancied that it or its burdens were laughing with pleasure, for there was a merry clatter among the pretty china plates and dishes--so closely were they packed, so many were they, though as the whole finally emerged and settled down as it were, the table seemed to grow longer, till there was ample space for its six guests. Then the floor closed, and all was quiet.

Not so the three cousins.

"Hurrah in good earnest this time," cried Giles.

"Hush, my good fellow," said Michael, though his own face was by this time one broad smile "they'll have come, I'm sure. I must fetch them in," and he turned towards the door.

"Stay a moment," interrupted Hodge, who by this time was in high spirits, busily lifting the covers and examining the viands, "stay, till I tell you what there is for dinner. The giver of the feast should know the fare."

"Well, then," said Michael, "tell me quickly."

"There's a couple of ducks," replied Hodge, "stuffed, and roasted to a turn. How good they smell! And apple sauce and mashed potatoes, and a plum-pudding--to be sure Christmas is not so very far off now--and a whole pile of gingerbread snaps with whipped cream, and oranges galore, for dessert. My word, but the brownies keep first-rate cooks and caterers."

Michael had opened the door before his hungry friend had left off speaking, but he heard Hodge calling after him, "Stop, stop, I've forgotten the pork pie. Oh, my goodness, such a beauty!"

In another moment Michael had seized Dame Martha by the hand and was leading her into the cottage, followed by Paul and Mattie, looking very neat and clean in spite of their poor clothes, and in not a little excitement at this visit to the kind young man who had been their first friend in this strange land.

"I hope you've not been waiting long," said Mike.

"Oh no, thank you," the dame replied. "Just a very few minutes. We heard the church clock strike the half-hour as we drew near."

The door was wide open. Hodge and Giles greeted the new-comers heartily, Hodge adding that they'd better set to at once, before the dishes got cold. But though Dame Martha had very good manners by nature and even by habit, for in her better days she had been a much-respected upper servant in an excellent family, she could not restrain an exclamation of the greatest astonishment when she caught sight of the wonderful display of good things, and perceived their appetising odour.

"My dear boy--Michael!" she cried. "What extravagance is this? And you said it would be just a simple meal--'pot-luck' you called it, if I remember right?"

"And pot-luck it is," he replied, laughing. "There's no reason that I know of why pot-luck shouldn't be good fare, as I hope you will find our dinner to be."

There is no need to tell you how the feast was enjoyed. To begin with, it was flavoured not only with the "best sauce" of the old proverb--hunger--but also with the excellent additions of friendliness and gratitude and goodwill, and besides these even, there was a mysterious feeling of graciousness and prettiness over it all, which I am inclined to think must have been wafted with the viands from fairyland itself.

Never had the children had such a treat, and being modest and unselfish and far from greedy they enjoyed it all the more, nor was there any necessity for their grandmother to warn them not to eat too much.

Every one had enough--indeed Hodge's appetite seemed equal to that of two ordinary people--but yet when all had replied, "No thank you, nothing more," to Michael's hospitable offers, the dishes looked by no means empty, and though he made the children carry off a couple of oranges each, for a little Sunday treat at home, the pile of fruit scarcely appeared to have been touched. The thought did cross Michael's head that he wished he could keep the remains of the feast in his larder. But "No," he decided, "it would be greedy and might displease the fairies."

So when the dame and her grandchildren, with many and many expressions of gratitude, took their leave--though, by the bye, I must not forget to tell you that what brought the poor things' pleasure to the _highest_ height was Michael's telling them that he would expect them at the same hour and in the same way the following Sunday, "and every Sunday, so long as my pot-luck continues to suit you," he added--well then, as soon as the three had left he re-entered the cottage with his cousins and carefully closing the door, rang the fairy bell for the invisible attendants to remove the table.

It disappeared as it had come, obediently to his summons. Then Hodge and Giles turned to him.

"The luck's with you, Mike, no doubt about it," they said, but without any ill-will, it must be allowed.

"Let's count it as belonging to us all," said hospitable Michael. "It shall be a fixed rule that you two dine with me every Sunday, same as to-day. And as long as the good people favour us as they've done this time, the least _we_ can do is to let those who are less well off than we, share in our prosperity. I've a feeling that it's what old Uncle Peter would wish."

"That's why you mean to have the dame and her boy and girl every Sunday?" said Hodge. "Well, for my part I wouldn't take upon me to object. They're nice-mannered children, and the dame's an old friend. And there was enough and to spare."

Giles was looking very thoughtful.

"Yes, indeed," he exclaimed. "It's the right thing to do, and, as you say, it's following after our kind old godfather. I say, Mike," he went on, "maybe--I shouldn't be very surprised if that's how you've hit the nail on the head--eh, what do you think of that?"

Michael stared. Such an idea had never occurred to him, and indeed he scarcely understood what Giles meant. He thought of it afterwards, however.

Then his cousins left him, and he began to wish he could manage to see Ysenda to tell her the good news.

"She'll be as pleased as I am myself," he thought, "as pleased as if the good luck had been her own. And after all, it's thanks to her I persevered. By the bye, I wonder what I should do with that nice piece of meat she brought me, to fall back upon in case of need. I shouldn't keep it--maybe she'd like me to take it to the dame. I'll just have a look at it."

He turned to the cupboard--it was a sort of larder with a wired opening to the fresh air, which he had arranged himself, for he was very neat-handed. But when he drew back the door, he started with surprise. He could scarcely believe his eyes, and rubbed them hard to make sure he was not dreaming! For there, neatly placed on the shelves, was not only kind Ysenda's gift, but all the remains of the dinner--cold duck, pork pie, plum-pudding, sauces, vegetables, fruit! almost as tempting a sight as had been the viands on their first appearance, so daintily were they all arranged, so clean and bright were the china and glass.

Michael really laughed with pleasure.

"If only I could tell Ysenda," he said aloud.

The opportunity for so doing was coming nearer, though he knew it not.

On their way home Dame Martha and the children met the farmer and his daughter. Ysenda stopped to speak to them, and her father, who happened to be in a very good humour, as he had made excellent terms for the sale of his numerous stacks of hay, accosted the old woman kindly enough, though he had been one of those who had called her very foolish for accepting the charge of the penniless orphans.

"Well, dame," he began, "and how goes the world with you?" and almost before Ysenda heard the first words of her reply, the young girl guessed, what indeed she was already sure of, that Michael's trial of the magic spell had succeeded--so bright and happy looked the dame, so bursting with joyful excitement were Paul and Mattie.

"Oh, I am all of a tremble with thankfulness," replied Martha. "Such a feast as we have had! Never was there a kinder host than young Michael----"

"And, and," interrupted the children, forgetting their shyness, "we're to have dinner with him every Sunday--just fancy that! And see what we've got to take home for a treat," and they held out the beautiful oranges.

"I _am_ pleased----" began Ysenda, but her father interrupted her.

"Young Michael, did you say," he inquired, turning to the dame, "young _Michael_! How comes it that he can afford to give feasts? I thought it was all he could do to keep himself--not to speak of feasting."

"And a real feast it was," said Martha, "roast ducks, and pies, and----"

"Plum-pudding, and these oranges and apples," the children went on. "And every Sunday, sir, every Sunday it's to be the same--dinner with him."

"Glad to hear it," said the farmer, rather shortly.

Then with a nod of farewell, and a sweet smile from his daughter, the two walked on.

For a few moments neither spoke. They were near their own home by this time. Suddenly the farmer exclaimed:

"Queer business this seems of young Michael's. He's a steady, hard-working fellow, but none too well-off. Maybe old Peter left him something after all--unbeknown to any one?"

He did not exactly ask the question of Ysenda, but he looked at her as he spoke. He knew how very friendly she had been with the old man. She smiled, and her pretty eyes lighted up.

"Maybe," was all she said.

But an hour or two later, when her father had finished smoking his Sunday afternoon pipe, he called her.

"Ysenda," he said,--he was sitting in the porch, for the day was mild for the time of year,--"Ysenda, I'm thinking about that young fellow--Michael."

"Yes, father?" she said questioningly.

"You know that old Thomas is leaving us." Thomas was the farmer's head man. "He's getting past work, and he's got some tidy savings put by. He won't be badly off. I'm not sorry. I'd like some one younger and sharper about the place, though I'd scarce have found it in my heart to dismiss him. But he wants to go. I've been casting about for a new man. I wonder how Michael would do."

"Was it what you heard this afternoon that's made you think of him?" the girl asked, straight-forwardly.

The farmer seemed a little taken aback.

"Well--not exactly. But you see," he replied, "if so be that old Peter did leave him something, well then, Peter was a wise man, a very wise man--it shows he thought highly of the young fellow, and if he was to come to me instead of Thomas, I'd as lief as not that he had a something of his own. It would give him a better position over the others, you see."

From her father's practical point of view, Ysenda did "see"; and when he went on to propose that they should stroll round by Michael's cottage for their evening walk, "just to have a look at things," she made no objection.

"We might say we heard of his kindness to the dame, and ask about her and how she's getting on," added the farmer.

So Michael, sitting ruminating by the fire, was not a little surprised when, on opening the door in answer to a knock, he was confronted by the two visitors.

"We thought we'd look in to--to congratulate you on your--your kindness to our old friend and her grandchildren," the farmer began, very amiably. "We've heard all about it from them, you must know."

Michael's sunburnt face had grown very red, first with the delight of seeing Ysenda, and then by the startling word "congratulate." For he knew that the secret confided to him and his cousins would be of no value if it were made known to others, so that Peter had trusted to them to keep it faithfully.

Ysenda seemed to guess his alarm, and with a smile and a whisper she reassured him, even before her father had finished speaking.

"It is all right," she said. "I know you have won"; and later on, she added, "It is what Peter hoped and wished for."

So nothing was wanting to Michael's satisfaction. He begged his visitors to honour him by staying to supper, and when the farmer saw the good fare so quickly and neatly laid before them, his opinion of Michael, needless to say, rose still higher, and before he took leave of the young man he had hinted at the proposal he was thinking of.

This was the beginning of a happy life for Mike. He became the farmer's right hand, and before long his son-in-law. Nor in his prosperity did Michael ever forget his old friends. Never a Sunday passed without his cousins and his poorer neighbours--Martha and her grandchildren--being his guests. Never, therefore, did the "good people" fail to respond to his summons.

And even before Ysenda became the hostess on these occasions, she felt that she might reveal to him the secret of the condition which in his generosity he had unconsciously fulfilled.

"Peter told me what it was," she said. "The magic feast is only bestowed on him who invites as his guests those poorer than himself. But had you known this, the charm would have been lost. Your motive was pure kindness--free from all selfishness, therefore you succeeded where Hodge and even Giles, good-natured though he is, failed!"

"All the same, sweetheart," said Michael, "I feel that I owe my happy fortune to _you_, as well as to dear old Peter and to the 'good people' themselves. May I always have a grateful heart and remember those whose lives are less favoured than mine."

The Weather Maiden

Once upon a time--it does not matter if it was a long ago "once," or not a long ago one; it does not matter what country it was in, whether far off or near at hand--it was just a "once upon a time," somewhere and somewhen--a little girl sat crying quietly but very sadly, all by herself in a queer room which I will describe. But first I must tell you that she was not crying from temper, or from having been naughty and now being sorry, no, she was just crying because she was lonely and unloved and in a sense friendless. And it had not always been so with her. Some years ago--to her they seemed many, for she was only twelve, but in reality they were but few--she had had kind parents, father and mother both, who loved their only child very dearly, though she was not a very pretty or "taking" little girl. She was small for her age and more thoughtful than clever or amusing. And now that the dear ones whom she belonged to were gone, and her only home as an orphan, and a poor orphan, was with cousins, who, though good worthy people, had adopted her out of duty and did not understand the shy silent child, or care to do so, it is not to be wondered at that she grew shyer and silenter and often seemed what she was really far from being, stupid and slow and even sullen.

Her new home--though "new" it no longer was to her, for it was now nearly four years since Farmer Mac, as we will call him, had brought her back with him from the desolate house where she had been so happy and cared for since her birth--this new home was a large rambling old farm-house. A busy beehive of a place, cheerful enough to its owners and their sons, who were strong and active and hard-working from morning to night, but to Merran a sort of incessant worry and bustle, of loud voices and hurrying steps and noisy laughter, or noisier scolding, not really as cross or angry as it sounded, but startling to her sensitive nerves and childish timidity. So she grew duller and slower and thinner and whiter, till at last those about her began to say she was in a "dwine," and "maybe all for the best if so it were, for--" and at this, voices were lowered--"it's plain to see the child's 'not all there.'"

And her aunt, as she had been told to call the farmer's wife, a strong hearty woman, who had done and meant to do her best for the little maiden, grew tired of worrying about her, and trying to feed her up and turn her into the sort of girl a daughter of her own would have been. Merran did her no credit, and the mixture of shame and pity Dame Mac came to feel about her gradually grew into a kind of constant, half-repressed irritation. She made her work, which of course was right, the child would have pined and "dwined" still more had she been left alone to do nothing but creep about and dream in corners, but the worst of it was that what Merran did, or tried to do, seldom pleased her aunt. As often as not, after telling her to sweep or dust, the dame would snatch the cloths or brush out of her hand, crying that she'd rather do it all herself than see the girl's feckless ways of going about the work.

This had happened the day that this story begins. Merran had had an even worse scolding than usual, and though she set her face hard and said not a word in self-defence, when she got upstairs to the hiding-place where first we see her, she let her tears burst out and sobbed and wept to her heart's content.

There was a special reason for her aunt's vexation with her that morning. Merran had had a soaking in the rain the day before, when she had gone out without an umbrella and with the clean, freshly starched and ironed frock on, which should have lasted her the whole week, as yesterday had been Monday. Now it was not only limp and draggled but on one side a mass of mud, for in her hurry to get home the child had slipped in the lane, always a rather watery one from the overhanging trees and want of sun, and fallen at full length, so of course there was nothing for it but to have the unlucky garment returned to the wash-house six days before it was due there, and as a punishment Merran was now arrayed in an old stuff skirt, too short for her, which she particularly disliked, and a kind of loose jacket or bed-gown once her aunt's, in which, it must be allowed, she did look rather a figure of fun, something like a very shabby Dutch doll.

"And Dirk will see me like this," she said to herself, "after the long time he's been away. He will think me so ugly and untidy, and he's the only person in the world who cares for me at all," and at these thoughts her sobs redoubled.