Part 7

Dirk was the youngest of the farmer's five sons, the youngest but by no means the favourite or the spoilt one, as a youngest is generally supposed to be. He was not as strong or fine a fellow as his brothers; indeed as a baby he had been so puny and delicate that his mother was half ashamed to let him be seen for fear of its being said or hinted that he was a changeling. There was some reason for this, as the first few months of his life had been spent in much wailing and crying, poor little chap. And even when he got over this stage and grew into boyhood, his position in the family was rather a Cinderella-like one. Yet to those who took the trouble to notice and encourage him, he quickly showed himself to be a sweet-tempered, cheerful and intelligent child. So by degrees things had improved for him, and now when he was expected home from a long sea-voyage on which he had been sent to strengthen him after growing too fast, his relations were ready to welcome him back with heartiness.

He was four years older than Merran, so when she first came to the farm he was only a boy of eleven or twelve, sorry for the orphan, and in his awkward way very kind to her. So naturally she turned to him gratefully. But now he had been absent so long that she felt shy at the thought of meeting him again.

"He'll be big and strong like the others now," she said to herself; "he'll not think me worth speaking to, looking like a beggar-girl as I do. Oh, oh, I wish I could die! I wish it wasn't wrong to wish I could die! I wish I could fly away somewhere, quite, quite away. Everybody dislikes me--even the doll-woman up there in the rain-house seems to be laughing at me, 'cos I'm so ugly and stupid."

What she called the "rain-house" was one of those old-fashioned toy barometers, or weather-tellers, now so seldom seen. It had been discarded long ago, as broken and out of order, years before Merran had come to the farm. She had never seen it except up on a high shelf in the garret, standing among other old things, broken or chipped or useless, and yet which Dame Mac, if ever she remembered them, had not the time to sort or look over. Possibly too, unsentimental as she was, there were certain objects among the "rubbish" which she had not found it in her heart to burn or throw away.

This, the garret, was the queer room which I said I would describe. It was large, as it covered a good part of the first story of the farm-house, which was a long, rather low building, and only one end of this second floor had been plastered and boarded and turned into habitable rooms. And these, where some of the younger sons and farm-servants slept, had a separate staircase; the garret was approached by a ladder-like flight of steps leading to nowhere else. So Merran had long ago appropriated it as a place of refuge for herself when her head ached, or her cousins had been teasing her, or her aunt scolding. She grew to love it dearly. There were queer corners where she could hide; there were one or two small unglazed storm-windows, in whose eaves the swallows built, and from which she had a wide view of the country, in its own way a beautiful part of the world, for though flat and what some call "tame," it was well wooded--the trees in summer and autumn, even in early spring, when the first tender greens began to shimmer and sparkle, were a sight to be seen, so lofty and spreading were they. And not very far off, though too far to be perceived from the lower windows, was a silvery glimmer which Merran knew was the sea.

She knew by heart every inch of the place and everything it contained. She made up stories to herself about the old pieces of furniture--quaint chairs short of a leg or two, a tumble-down chest of drawers, with a marble top, which must, in the far past, have stood in a handsome, perhaps in a beautiful, room; a cracked and blackened mirror or two; a pathetic old cradle on rockers, which seemed asking for a baby to nurse. Merran talked to and pitied them all; sometimes even she sang in her very thin tiny voice to the cradle, "just to make it think it's not empty," she would say to herself as a sort of excuse.

Among the things on the shelf, nothing interested her much except the "rain-house." She had never been able to examine it, for it was too high up for her to reach, and there was nothing in the shape of a ladder in the garret. Now and then she had thought of climbing up by the help of some of the chairs, but they were all too rickety to be of any use. So she contented herself with fancies about the queer little cottage with its two doors, out of one of which the woman could be seen peeping--the man never appeared, and Merran used to picture to herself that perhaps there was a pretty fairy garden behind the house, in which he was always busy working, while his wife kept everything neat and clean inside and cooked the dinner, pretending that the little woman only looked out now and then just to wish her--Merran--good-morning.

But to-day she was too unhappy to have cheerful fancies about anything at all, and she even felt vexed with the doll, imagining that its face was laughing at her as she sat there crying, and as she gazed up at it the fancy increased till she began to feel quite angry.

"You'd cry too, if you were me," she said at last. "You are up there quite safe and snug--nobody to scold you, or order you about. _You're_ not forced to wear ugly dirty old clothes 'cos you got caught in the rain--no, of course, you never come out in the rain. I wish I lived in a country where it was always dry and clean, instead of muddy and wet."

There was some excuse for this wish. For though it was not a hilly part of the world--and one generally imagines that it is in mountainous districts that the weather is the most uncertain--the country where the farm-house, now Merran's home, stood, was extraordinarily trying in this respect. It was very fertile, as it was well watered, but changeable past description, quite enough to try the farmers' tempers, not to speak of little girls'. Never, for two days together, could even the oldest inhabitants, naturally supposed to be the most weather-wise, prophesy with any security what was coming. Barometer after barometer proved all but useless. I believe it was in a fit of irritation that Farmer Mac had knocked over the old "rain-house," and broken it, because he imagined "the pair who tell the weather" had misled him. They had not done so, as you will hear, and it would have been better for him if he had not treated them as he did. But of this Merran knew nothing.

"Yes," she repeated angrily, for it seemed to her that the figure had moved forward a little and was really looking down at her as if it were alive, "yes," she said, "_you_ wouldn't like it, I can tell you, so you needn't stare at me so. If only I could get up to you, I'd tell you things that would make even you, a silly wooden doll, sorry for me."

To her amazement, a voice replied to her.

"Close your eyes," it said, and even if Merran had felt inclined to disobey, I doubt if she could have done so. "Hold out your hands--upwards," it went on, and then the child became aware that whoever it was that spoke was somewhere above her, and again she obeyed, stretching up her hands as far as she could reach. Then for a third time came a command. "Spring," said the voice, "spring, high, into the air. Yes, that is right," and as she gave the leap upwards, instead of at once dropping down again as one naturally would, she felt her fingers grasped, gently but firmly, and in another moment her feet touched ground again, and the same voice now said gently, "Good girl. Now, Merran, you may look about you."

You may be sure she lost no time in availing herself of the permission. But--just at first, she did not feel sure that her eyes were not somehow or other playing her a trick. What she saw, the place where she found herself, seemed so strange; still more so the person who, still holding her by the hands, was looking down at her, smiling.

"Who are you?" said Merran, drawing away a little, for she felt half frightened.

"Don't you know? Look at me well--you have often done so, though you never saw me so plainly before."

It was the same voice, and though sweet and gentle it had to be obeyed. So Merran looked at her, and gradually she began to understand, though vaguely.

"Yes," she said, "I seem to know your face, and your dress, and--and--but yet you can't be the figure in the rain-house. You are so pretty, so very pretty, and even your dress--oh what lovely stuff it's made of."

And so it was. The "doll-woman," as Merran had called her, was attired in a short, queerly spotted red skirt, with a white jacket--only painted wood, of course, to mortal eyes--and a kind of kerchief on her head. Now the skirt had changed into fine, rose-coloured silky stuff, beautifully embroidered all over with tiny daisies; the hard stiff upper dress was of snowy, delicate muslin, such as Merran had never before seen or dreamt of; the head-gear a gauzy scarf of golden tissue; the little feet were shod with slippers of the same lovely red as the skirt, gleaming against the whitest and finest of stockings.

"Oh," exclaimed Merran again, "how pretty, oh how _very_ pretty you are; your dress too! I can't believe you're the doll-woman. I didn't think her at all pretty, and yet----" she felt too puzzled to explain, and no wonder, for the face still smiling at her was so very charming. Blue eyes like forget-me-nots; cheeks like delicate blush roses; lovely bright brown hair, some ends of which came straying out of the graceful head-dress, and above all such a sweet and kindly expression!

"Yet," said the fairy lady, for that this she was the little girl began to feel sure, "yet, Merran, your idea is right. I am the same, and this place where you are standing is what you have called the 'rain-house.' Look about you--this is only the entrance--and then I will take you inside and you shall see my husband, who will welcome you as I do. We have expected you for a long time, but till you spoke to me in your trouble I had no power to bid you come."

Then Merran turned and gazed around her, and strange as it had seemed at first, she began to recognise the roughened walls, the branches wreathed round the porch with its two open doorways, even the flooring on which she stood, painted to look like tiles.

"Yes," she exclaimed, "it _is_ like the rain-house, as much as I could see of it. But--" and then for the first time a new perplexity struck her, "if it really is it," she asked, "how can I be in it? How can I be littler even than you? Why I could have held you in my hand when I was down in the garret, if I could have got you? Have you grown big, or have I grown tiny?"

The Sunshine fairy--we can call her by her name now--laughed, and oh how pretty her laugh was!

"My dear Merran," she said, "it doesn't matter. Perhaps, however, it is less confusing for you to think you have grown tiny. But I needn't puzzle you if you understand that to all intents and purposes you are in fairyland--as much there as it is well for a mortal child to be. Your old rain-house is one of its entrances. Come now, and you shall see more."

She opened a door in the back of the hut--or what seemed the back--and led Merran through. The little girl gave a cry of pleasure. They were standing in the prettiest room you could imagine. It was all brightness and cosiness, the chairs and tables of white wood, the carpet like green moss, the walls hung with soft pink silk, and above all the "window-doors," as Merran called them to herself, opened on to--surely the loveliest garden that ever was seen, "out of fairyland" I was going to say, forgetting that it was, if not fairyland itself, just at the entrance to it. It did not seem a very large garden, or rather one could not quite tell how far it extended, for at the farther end it sloped down rather suddenly and beyond, a great thicket of beautiful trees and bushes gave a misty, vague appearance, through which Merran only caught sight of gleams of sky and sunshine--almost, she fancied, of blue hills far in the distance.

"That must be the real fairyland," she thought. But she did not feel much curiosity about it; the pretty room and lovely garden were too full of delight. And as she gazed, another object attracted her. This was a fountain in the centre of one of the velvety lawns. She had never seen a fountain before, but she was a clever child in her own way, and she remembered pictures which she had seen, of which the dancing silvery drops reminded her.

"Is that a--a waterfall?" she asked.

The fairy lady shook her head.

"Not exactly," she replied, "though for a little girl like you it is a very good guess. No, it is the fountain by which we know about the rain and showers. We send messages far and wide by its means. You could not understand if I explained. But we work very hard. Fairy folk are not idle, as some foolish mortals imagine. See--my husband is coming to speak to you. He and I work together, though behind there in your world people fancy we don't! Rain without sunshine, or sunshine without rain, would make a sad state of things."

"Yes, indeed," said a merry voice, and from behind the mist and dazzle of the fountain Merran perceived a new-comer--a man with a nice brown face, dressed something like a charming old china figure which her aunt greatly treasured--brown velvet jacket and breeches, flowered waistcoat, a scarlet cap on his short curls--altogether quite the right sort of person to match the lovely Sunshine fairy.

He doffed his cap as he came forward, Merran gazing at him in surprise. She would much have liked to ask him how ever he managed to keep so beautifully clean and smart if he was always working away at the water, but she felt rather shy, and only gazed.

"So you have come at last, little maiden," he said pleasantly. "We have been waiting here a good while for you."

Merran felt greatly astonished and puzzled.

"Yes," said the Sunshine fairy, "our queen knows all about you. She always cares for lonely or unhappy children more than for any others, though they may not be aware of it. And she told us to stay here till the time came for us to be of service to you, poor little Merran. Not that it matters much to us where we live. Rain and I can do our work wherever we are, and move our abode in less time than it would take you to run downstairs."

"I wish you would stay here always and let me come and live with you," pleaded Merran. "Nobody cares for me down there," and she nodded towards where she supposed the farm must be. "Couldn't you--couldn't your queen turn me into a fairy for good? I shouldn't ever want to be a real little girl again, and nobody would mind. They'd just think I'd got lost--they'd never imagine I'd gone to fairyland."

"Would nobody mind--would nobody miss you?" the Sunshine fairy asked gently.

Merran's eager face fell. She hesitated.

"P'r'aps Dirk would have minded once, before he went away," she said ruefully. "But not now--oh no--they say he's grown so fine and strong like the others. He won't care for me any more, I'm sure. That's another reason why I wish you'd let me stay with you and never go back to the farm again. Aunt says I grow stupider and stupider, and uglier too, I daresay she thinks, though she doesn't exactly say so. And just look at me"--she held out her shabby old skirt as she spoke--"this horrid dress is only fit for a beggar girl, and I'll have to wear it all the week, though it wasn't my fault that I dirtied my nice clean one. The lane was so slippery, and so muddy. It had been raining so hard."

The Sunshine fairy smiled.

"Yes," she said, "but you don't know what it would be like in your country if it didn't rain a good deal."

"I know it has to, of course," said Merran, "but if only we knew better, everything would be easier. Uncle Mac often says there never was such changeable weather as we have. I don't believe he'd be so cross and surly if he wasn't always worrying about what the sky's like and what it's going to do. And if _I_ knew, I'd take care not to go out without an umbrella, if it was going to be wet, nor along that muddy lane."

The Rain fairy had gone back to the fountain while Merran was speaking, and by this time she had quite lost all feelings of shyness with the pretty Sunshine lady. Just then the sound of the rushing water stopped suddenly. The fairy looked up and called out. The words seemed strange, and Merran could not understand them, nor the reply which came back. But Sunshine turned to her.

"You will find bright weather on your return," she said, "and I promise you a pleasant surprise as well. So do not be low-spirited, little Merran. You have been watched over in ways you know not of, and you may cheer up from now."

But it was difficult for the child to believe this all at once.

"Oh mayn't I stay with you, dear kind fairy?" she pleaded again. "It wouldn't matter to me how the time passed. I shouldn't be like little Bridget, who found her friends all gone, for you see I should never want to go back at all. Oh do let me stay. Can't you turn me into a fairy altogether?" she repeated. "I'd be your servant or anything you like."

Still Sunshine shook her head.

"No, my little maiden," she replied. "What you ask is impossible. You can never become one of us--a human child you are, a woman you must before long become. But a happy woman you may be, and to help you to be happy is the task that has been appointed to us. Long ago, but for love and pity for you, the old rain-house, as you call it, would have fallen to pieces, and we should have deserted the farm altogether, as indeed its master deserved after his treatment of us. He has been punished for it, however, and now by your means great and unusual good fortune may be before him and his. And this I will now explain to you, but on one condition."

Merran felt a little frightened.

"Is it something very difficult that I have to do?" she asked timidly.

The Sunshine lady shook her head.

"No, indeed," she replied. "It is simply to keep carefully two gifts which we have prepared for you, and to use them as I will describe. But--there is the condition."

"What is it?" said Merran eagerly. "I'm sure you wouldn't want me to do anything wrong, or to promise anything I can't be sure of being able for, so I do promise now, this very minute, even before you tell me."

She was rewarded by a smile.

"You do right to trust me," said the fairy. "All I bind you to is this--to tell no one of the magic gifts, to keep your possession of them a complete secret, until----"

"Till when?" Merran interrupted.

"Till you are grown up, and only then if you marry and love your husband dearly. For I know that without complete confidence, little rifts are sadly apt to come between even those who love each other most truly."

"I don't think I'll ever marry," said the poor little maiden. "I'm too ugly and stupid. But still, if ever I did, I know I'd love my husband, 'cos you see it would be so kind of him to love _me_. And then it would be nice to tell him the secret, if it would do him good too. Oh I do wonder what it is you're going to give me!"

Fairy Sunshine slipped her hand into the front of her bodice and drew out something. At the same moment the Rain brownie, or gnome--no, he was too handsome to be a gnome--or whatever you like to call him, came forward again, and he too was holding something. Together the pair presented their gifts, and Merran gave a little cry of delight as she saw what they were. One was a tiny umbrella, a real umbrella, not a sham toy one, or a gold or silver "charm," such as ladies hang by their watch-chains, no, a real, exquisitely made and finished umbrella of green silk and with a beautifully carved ivory handle.

"I have made it myself," said the Rain man. "It will never wear out and never lose its power, unless you forget your promise."

"And for my gift I say the same," echoed Fairy Sunshine. Hers was even prettier, for it was a parasol, smaller of course than the umbrella, but just as beautifully perfect--of rose-coloured gauze, lined with white, and the handle was in the form of a daisy, of silver and enamel.

Merran was silent with pleasure and admiration.

"Oh thank you, thank you," she was beginning, but the fairy stopped her. "Wait a moment," she said, "wait till you learn the real value of these two things. They are not merely pretty toys. It would be foolish to give them to you if they were nothing better than that. But they are much better. We have endowed them with fairy power. See here--if you want to know what the weather is going to be, you must test them--by yourself, of course, and when no one can see you, for magic gifts belong to their owner alone. You must test by trying to open them. If the umbrella refuses to spread itself, you will know that it is not going to rain. If so, turn to the parasol. If it opens quite widely you may count on plenty of sunshine; if only partly, then though the day will be dry, it will not be very bright. But you must be gentle; it would be useless to try to force either of them, for then they would break and you would have lost them for ever."

Merran's eyes were gleaming with delight.

"I will be very gentle, I promise you. Oh it will be splendid always to know about the weather, and uncle and all of them will never again think me stupid or useless if they find I can foretell it. It will make them much nicer to me, won't it?"

"Yes," replied her friend. "That is the reason of our giving you this secret power. But I must tell you a little more. You must not only be gentle in touch, you must have gentle feelings in your heart, otherwise you will fail. Neither umbrella nor parasol will open if you apply to them with any unkind feeling or wish. For instance, if the farmer or his sons have been sharp or rough to you and you wish it _would_ rain just to vex them, it would be no good at all for you to try to open either--and if your aunt has been cross to you some very hot day----"

"She often is when it is very hot," interrupted Merran. "More than when it's cold. She gets headaches in summer."

"Just so--then if you take hold of the parasol with a secret hope that the sun is going to blaze away all day, without any cooling summer rain, so that the dame will be punished for scolding you--no--it would be no good at all! Inside your heart must be the _hope_ that the wishes of others shall be fulfilled, whether it come to pass or not; otherwise all the magic will be gone for the time," and at this Merran looked grave, very grave, for she had known what it was to long for power to annoy others. But the fairy's next words cheered her. "I don't think there is much fear of your having those unkind feelings," she said. "I know that you are going to be a much happier little girl than ever before, and remember to begin with, I have promised you a pleasant surprise when you go home to-day."

"I wonder what it will be," thought Merran, and she felt so anxious to know, that it took away part of her reluctance to leave the charming "rain-house," as just then the Sunshine fairy, taking her hand, added, "I will show you now how to find your way back."

They were turning to enter the house again when a sudden thought struck Merran, who was carrying her new treasures with the greatest care.

"Where shall I hide them?" she asked anxiously. "I _am_ so afraid of any one finding them, or taking them, and there's nowhere in the little room where I sleep that I can lock up. Aunt comes in any time and looks all about, to see that I keep things tidy."

"Quite right of her," said the fairy. "I can help you to keep your treasures in perfect safety, much more so than if you locked them up in the strongest box that ever was made. Hold them out--one in each hand."