Part 6

"I have never heard anything but 'pecious wecious,' and 'mother's blessing,' and things like that," said the fairy. "You may stop crying now, for I will save Juliet. If you had given me to the wicked fairy, she would have gobbled me up in a minute, so you see I owe my life to you. Henceforth I will take Juliet under my protection. She shall live to be an hundred years old, and never have an illness or a wrinkle."

Fancy it, children! No mumps, no measles, no whooping-cough, no castor-oil! What rapture in the thought!

The queen kissed the fairy's little hand, and begged that Juliet should at once be taken away. So the weeping princess was put into the basket, and carefully let down to the bottom of the tower. Then the fairy resumed the shape of a mouse and ran after her down the string, which the queen still held in her hands. Suddenly she came running back again. "Alas! alas!" she cried to the terrified queen, "our enemy, the fairy Cancaline, was hidden below, and seized upon the child, and flew away with it. Unfortunately she is older and more powerful than I am, and I don't know how to rescue Juliet from her hands."

At these words the queen uttered a loud cry, and in came running the jailer of the tower, his men, some soldiers, and after them, gnashing his teeth with rage, the horrid Grimgouger himself.

"Where is the child?" he said, stamping.

"Alas, I know not, king," said the mother. "A fairy has taken it off."

"Then you shall be hanged at once," he cried in a fury. "Seize her, guards."

They dragged the poor queen by the hair of her head to the gallows. Just as the executioner was about to tie the rope around her neck, the gallows fell down beneath him and knocked out all his front teeth, while invisible hands carried the queen through the air to a safe retreat in the mountains. She found herself in a beautiful castle, where all her attendants were white mice. Here the queen lived for eighteen years, surrounded by luxury and tender care. But she always thought of her little daughter, and dreamed of her by day and night. The mouse fairy made every attempt to find news of the lost princess, but failed to do so.

At this period the son of the wicked King Grimgouger had grown up, and everybody was talking about his strange fancy for a poultry-woman's maid-servant, who had refused to marry him in spite of his rank and fine clothes. The story went that the prince sent her, every day, a new gown of silk or velvet, and that the girl would not look at them. So the little white mouse fairy determined, through curiosity, to have a peep at this strange damsel. Accordingly she visited King Grimgouger's capital, and entering the poultry-yard found there an extremely beautiful young creature dressed in a coarse woollen gown, with her feet bare, and a cap of goat-skin on her head. Lying by her side were magnificent dresses, embroidered with gold and silver and ornamented with precious stones; the turkeys and other fowls that surrounded her trampled on them and spoiled them. The poultry-girl sat upon a stone in the yard when the king's son arrived; he was crooked, and hump-backed, and horrible to look upon.

"Do you still refuse to marry me, fair maiden?" he asked. "If so, I shall have you put to death immediately."

"I am not afraid of you, prince," the girl replied, modestly. "I certainly should prefer death to marriage with you. And I like the society of my chickens and turkeys better than yours, if it please your highness."

The prince went off in a rage, and the mouse fairy appeared, in her real shape as a little old lady.

"Good-day, fair damsel," she said. "I respect you and admire you--let me be your friend."

"Willingly, good madam," said the girl. "I am greatly in need of friends, as you may see."

"Have you, then, no father or mother, my child?"

"None, madam; I am an orphan, and this poultry-yard is my refuge from the cruelty of the only protector I have ever known. The fairy Cancaline, who had charge of me, used to beat me until I was nearly killed. Weary of suffering I ran away from her at last; and while wandering in a wood I met the prince, who promised to befriend me, and placed me here as poultry-girl. Alas! now that I find he is in love with me, I must leave this place, and where to go I know not."

"And what is your name, my dear?" asked the mouse fairy, affectionately.

"Juliet, madam."

"Then, kiss me, my dear; I knew you before you knew yourself," the fairy cried, joyfully. "I am delighted to see you so sensible. But your complexion is a little dark. Bathe in yonder fountain. And you should be better dressed. Put on one of these dresses, and then let me see you."

The girl obeyed. On taking off her cap of goat-skin her long golden curls fell nearly to her knees. After bathing in the fountain she revealed a complexion more bright and transparent than the choicest pearls of India. Roses bloomed in her cheeks, and her eyes shone like the brightest diamonds. Her figure was light and graceful as a young fir-tree. The fairy gazed at her in wonder and delight. Her next thought was to restore the lost child to her mother.

"Stay here one moment," she said, "while I fly back to your mother, and prepare her for this happiness, lest she should die of joy."

The son of the wicked King Grimgouger went back to his father, and cried and groaned dreadfully. His boo-hoo might have been heard for miles, and the king naturally desired to stop it.

"What in the world are you roaring about?" asked the father.

"I'll roar as much as I like," said the spoiled prince. "If I can't marry the poultry-girl, I'll roar for a week without stopping."

"Good gracious!" cried the alarmed king; "guards, go and fetch her here at once."

The guards went to the poultry-yard, and found the princess Juliet, dressed in gorgeous attire, and looking more beautiful than the new moon.

"Whom do you seek, my good men?" she said in a soft voice.

"Madam," they answered humbly, "we are looking for a vile creature named Juliet; but you would never have stooped to notice her."

"I am she," the princess said, proudly.

Upon this the guards seized her, bound her hands and feet, and roughly carried her into the presence of the king.

"So you won't have my son, miss," shouted the king. "Don't love him, hey? Stuff and nonsense! Love! Gammon and spinach! Marry him at once, or I'll have you flayed alive! Here, you rascal (addressing his son, who had now roared himself quite black in the face), stop that racket, for goodness' sake, or you'll split my head."

But the princess held out firmly. They sent for a chaplain, but the princess said "no," instead of "yes," and when they shook her till she couldn't utter a syllable, she nodded her head from side to side. So, finding it quite a hopeless matter, the king ordered the prince put to bed with ice upon his head, and the princess to be shut up for life in a high tower, where she would never more see the light of day.

At this moment the good mouse fairy returned in her flying chariot, and with her was the queen mother, who was almost crazy with delight at the prospect of embracing her child. When they heard the sad fate of Juliet, the queen wrung her hands in agony; but the fairy bade her cheer up, as she would find a way to help the captive.

King Grimgouger had gone to bed in a rage, and the little white mouse ran up on his pillow. First she bit one ear, and made him turn over in his sleep. Then she bit the other, and made him turn back again. Now the king woke up, and howled for his attendants. They came running in, and while they sought to stanch the blood that flowed from his royal ears, the little white mouse ran to the chamber of the sleeping prince, and served him exactly the same way. The prince, who, to the great relief of the household, had fallen asleep in the very act of crying, now woke up and began again, this time with a vengeance.

"Confound that fellow, he's at it again," said the king, smarting from his wounds. "Stop him, somebody; and get me the court-plaster, and the arnica, and the Pond's extract, and the chloroform; and send for all the surgeons."

While the attendants ran hither and thither the mouse returned to visit the king. She bit his nose, and bit his toes, and bit his fingers; and when he opened his mouth to scold and yell, she bit a piece of his tongue off, so that he could not articulate, but could only make absurd mouthings, at which everybody wanted to laugh, yet dared not.

Then she ran back to the prince, and ate out both of his eyes, which sent him flying out of bed. He seized his sword, and ran storming and swearing into the apartment of his father, who, on his side, had taken a sword, and vowed to kill everybody around him if they did not catch the mouse who had done this mischief.

The prince could not understand what his father said, and as he was blind, attacked the king furiously. The king made a violent cut back at him, and in ten minutes they were in the thick of an awful fight, which ended in both being mortally wounded at exactly the same moment. Seeing them fall, their attendants, who hated the wicked tyrants, made haste to tie them hands and feet, and tumbled them into the swiftly flowing river.

Thus ended the horrible King Grimgouger and his son. The good fairy now took her own shape, and, leading the queen by the hand, opened the door of the tower where Juliet was confined. Juliet flew into her mother's arms, and all was happiness.

The kingdom of Grimgouger and that of Sweet Content, which he had joined to his, were now without a sovereign, and the people, by universal consent, chose Juliet to reign over them. Juliet became their queen, and in due time married a young king, who was rich and handsome, and wise and witty, and brave and modest--all that a young husband ought to be. The little white mouse continued to be their chief friend and counsellor.

THE FAIRIES AND THE FIDDLER.

In the pretty little village of Hayfield, not far from the borders of a thick forest, lived a good-natured, idle fellow, named Simon, who supported his wife and two children by trapping or shooting in winter, and by fishing or doing odd jobs of harvest work in summer. Simon could play upon the fiddle in a way to make the tears come into your eyes; or if he chose to be merry, his tunes would set every foot in motion, as the wind starts the leaves upon an aspen tree. This accomplishment caused him to be much in demand among the young people of the village, who dropped many a bit of silver into his worn old hat; and at all the weddings and barn-dances, Simon might be seen with a huge bunch of flowers in his buttonhole, and his fiddle under his arm, footing it in the procession. Then, too, Simon was the best man in the village to coax stories from, especially the old-time gossip about the little folk in green, for whom in former days Hayfield had been famous. Simon knew how the fairies dressed, what they ate and drank, how they punished saucy human beings who offended them; and could point out the smooth rings of short fine grass where they had held their midnight revels. That the fairies really had haunted Hayfield and its surrounding woods, nobody in the village doubted. They had heard too many things to prove it from their grandparents, whose parents were said to have lived on the best of terms with the little people--setting pans of cream by the hearth-stone at night for them to skim--leaving, when the holidays came around, a cheese and bag of nuts in a hollow tree at the entrance of the wood--and getting all sorts of kind offices from the fairies back again. Although it had now been a long time since any one could testify to having actually seen a fairy (as it was well known that the band were frightened out of Hayfield when the first stage-coach, with its noise and clatter, took to dashing along the village street), many people believed the men in green to be still lurking in the neighborhood. What else could account for the trouble some of the good wives had with their butter and their bees? What could it be but fairy thumps and pinches that kept the lazy folk from sleeping soundly, when their houses were not to rights before they went to bed. And what could explain the silver penny often found in the shoe of a tidy housekeeper, when up she jumped at break of day to set her maids to work? For fairies never show by day, and it is only when the people of a house are fast asleep and snoring, that they glide in by key-holes, through cracks and broken panes of glass, and swarm over the rooms, spying out everything amiss, and leaving tracks on the dust of shelves or tables, scattering the ashes of an unswept hearth, and bewitching the inside of a dirty iron pot, so that it never more may cook sweet porridge!

Of all the villagers, as I have said, Simon alone professed to have any recent acquaintance with the little folk, and the wonder was how they, who were known to be sworn enemies to idleness, could keep him in their favor.

Simon's house was a poor little cottage on the outskirts of the town. His wife, once a pretty, rosy lass, had taken to drink, and the husband and children led a dog's life within doors. Consequently, their one pleasure was to roam the woods and fields, and the children were growing up brown and barefoot as two young gypsies. They were a boy named Timothy and a girl named Bess, of whom Simon was very proud, their fresh young faces making a strong contrast with his wizened visage, crossed with a hundred lines, and topped with a sunburned mop of hair. As they grew old enough to understand, their father instructed them in all the arts of woodcraft. There was no tree or plant for which he had not a name or a virtue. The habits of all birds and fishes and animals were as familiar to him as their haunts. In this way, the vast green forest, with its great tree-boles and twisted boughs, its verdant moss-carpet and hidden streams, became to them an enchanted world, through which the children strayed like a sylvan king and queen. A sad change it was to come back to the dirt and confusion of their miserable home, where the mother received them either with grudging welcome if they brought berries or a string of brook trout, or with blows and drunken curses if they came empty-handed. As his wife's intemperance increased, Simon stayed less and less at home, and the children dreaded lest some day their poor father would be driven to desert them altogether. So they resolved to keep a close watch on his movements, and to follow him should he go away.

One night the harvest moon was riding her glorious way across the heavens, and the little village of Hayfield lay steeped in silver light. Not a lamp or a taper glimmered in the hamlet, and every one of the brown thatched cottages was buried in profound repose. Not even a watch-dog barked; and the forest-leaves yielded to the universal spell, and ceased to rustle.

There had been held a harvest-home that day, and Simon had been hard at work with his fiddle, playing jigs and reels for the dance in the squire's great barn. Between every dance, he had quenched his thirst at the cider-barrel, or quaffed the big brown mug of beer they kept brimming at his side. Naturally, Simon's brain was a little the worse for such free potations; and when the last strains of the "Wind that Shakes the Barley" had died upon his fiddle-strings, and all the gay company had gone their homeward way, Simon with his pocket full of silver pennies staggered out into the field, and lay down under a haystack to take his well-earned rest.

There, just before midnight, his two children, who had come in search of him, found their father peacefully sleeping, his fiddle on his breast. Not wishing to disturb him, the children decided to have their own night's sleep in the same fragrant nest of hay; and curling up at some little distance from the slumbering fiddler, they whispered together for a while, and then were about to drop asleep. Just as their eyes were closing they heard an odd sound, as of hundreds of little pattering feet, and out from the shadow of the wood came into the unbroken argent of the field a long train of little men, women, and children, dressed magnificently in cobweb gauze and green, bespangled with glittering gems, and wearing each a tiny crimson cap with a golden bell upon its peak. The two children were broad awake in a moment, for they knew that these were the fairies they had so longed to see, all dressed in holiday costume, and proceeding to their famous midsummer festival. The procession wavered like a gleaming snake across the field, and, when passing near the haystack, came to a halt. To the children's surprise, two queer little old men, holding carved ivory wands, came straight up, and tapped the sleeping fiddler across the bridge of his nose.

"Nay, I will play no more for you, you light-of-head and light-of-heel," said sleepy Simon, believing himself to be still perched upon the barrel that served as the fiddler's throne.

"Aye, but play you shall, at his Majesty's command," said the little old man, thumping him more sharply. "Isn't that part of your bargain with us, if we allow the trout to haunt your brook, and the hares to run into your traps? Come, mortal! Up with you and follow. Here's the bandage to blindfold your eyes, as usual; and remember that, if you peep, you are our prisoner for life."

By this time thoroughly awakened, Simon stumbled upon his feet, and stood making abject bows before the angry little fairy chamberlains. He let his eyes be bound with a green silk ribbon, and leading-strings were passed around his waist. At the blast of a golden trumpet, the procession moved forward with a sound of tripping feet and whirring gauzy wings and tinkling bells most lovely to the ear.

Last of all came Simon, in fairy leading-strings, and the two children, unable to resist the impulse, followed noiselessly.

Their way led again into the forest, through the dense underwood, to a smooth circle of velvet sward, set around with hundreds of little mushrooms, on which the fairies took their seats. In the centre was a hammock of silver cobweb, swinging by jewelled chains from the crossed stems of two tall white lilies, under a bower of maiden-hair ferns. Sweet blue violets were sprinkled in the grass, making a path where the king and queen of the fairies marched to take their places on the cobweb-throne. Dew was handed around in acorn-cups, of which the fairy guests sipped daintily, followed by bark trays containing every variety of fairy refreshment. There were delicate fried butterflies, marrow-bones of a field-mouse, snail soup served in nutshells, and wild strawberries in baskets made of moss.

When the banquet was at an end, the chamberlains gave notice to Simon, who had been bound with ropes made of plaited grass to the trunk of a wide-spreading oak; the fiddle struck up a tune, and at once the dance began. Such a mad and merry dance the wondering children had never seen before! Old and young joined hands and trod a circle, then, breaking the chain, formed into a hundred fantastic figures; and at each touch of a light footstep, the earth opened to give birth to a flower, until the entire fairy ring was enamelled with fragrant blossoms. Fast flew the fiddle-bow, but faster flew the tiny feet; and when the mirth was at its height, Simon who, as we know, had taken a drop too much, was suddenly inspired to tear the bandage from his eyes, and crying, "It's my turn now," capered right into the middle of the magic ring.

The honest fellow had meant no harm, but his offence was a mortal one!

Instantly, he was surrounded by a swarm of the furious little men in green, who, without waiting for an excuse, stabbed out both his eyes, and taking away his fiddle and bow, bound his arms behind his back. Again the procession--this time sad and silent--was formed, and the king striking the nearest tree with his wand, it flew open; the whole party, leading Simon behind them, entered the aperture, and before the children knew where to turn, it had closed upon their father.

And now, in what a distressing condition were the unhappy Timothy and Bess! Not knowing what better to do, they sat down at the foot of the great oak-tree which had swallowed up their father, and from sheer weariness fell asleep. When morning came, and the birds piped upon the boughs, the children awoke and looked in wonder about them. All was dewy, green, and fragrant in the deep woods, but no sign remained of the fairy revel, except a fine fringe of newly sprung grass, growing in a circle where their ring had been.

The bark of the great oak tree was unbroken, and above stretched a broad canopy of dark-green leaves, which whispered in the morning breeze, but told no tales of what the children longed to know. Hunger drove them to retrace their steps homeward; and when they reached the cottage, their mother was so cross at her husband's failure to fetch her the usual stock of silver pennies earned at the harvest-home, that she beat them both soundly, and gave them but a dry crust apiece for breakfast.

Still the children hoped their father might return; and, not knowing to whom to confide their wonderful tale, they kept silence. When it was found Simon had disappeared in earnest, all the wise heads in Hayfield decided that he had run away to escape from his good wife's tongue, an act of independence which had the bad effect of making more than one married man in the village unduly restless.

A month passed, and the two children were again wandering in the forest trying to find a few berries to appease their hunger (for things at home were now worse than before), when they fancied they heard a child crying close at hand. They searched everywhere, and at length the sound was renewed, seeming to come from a thicket of tall ferns. Falling on their knees, the children worked their way under the bushes and through the brakes, until they came in view of a lovely chubby elf sitting forlorn upon a mushroom on a hillock of soft green moss, beneath a screen of ferns and wild flowers, and letting fall a flood of tears from his big blue eyes. He wore no clothing, if we may except a pair of drooping wings, and in his hand he held a stalk of snowy lilies.

"Who are you, dear little one, and how came you here?" they asked.

"I am a fairy," the tiny creature sobbed. "Last night was the monthly revel, and we sported till the moon set. But I saw these lilies growing over in yonder swamp, and I wanted them so; and as I ran, they seemed to run too. I had such hard work to gather them; when at last I succeeded, my red cap dropped off; and without it I am as helpless as a mere mortal. While searching for the cap, which I have not found, a cock in the village crowed, and the fairies all fled away and left me. The door of the mound is closed, and for a whole long month there is no hope of my getting in again. Oh! I wish I could find my cap."

"If we help you to find the cap, will you stop crying?" said the children.

The shivering sprite wiped his eyes and promised that he would weep no more. The girl wrapped him in her apron, and then all three of them set out in search of the missing treasure. At last Timothy saw in the water around some reeds a red object which a bull-frog was opening his mouth to swallow; and, wading into the stream, he was able to rescue the magic cap, dry it in the sun, and restore it to its happy little owner.

"And now," said the smiling elf, who appeared to have suddenly grown old and wise, "as for a whole long month I am without a home, what do you say to taking me to yours? You will never regret it, that I promise you."