Part 9

It flew on beside her, and Betty was so taken up with watching it that she did not notice when she got up to Crackrattle that a dozen other fairy-like creatures were flying over the downs towards her, until they were quite close.

'We are the Lady Soft Wind's sisters,' they said, 'and out of deep gratitude to you we have come to go with you to the Wise Woman's hut.'

'Have you really, you little dears?' was all Betty could find words to say. 'Come along, then.'

And they came, and were a rhythm of colour as they flew beside her, or, as the child expressed it, 'a little flying garland of flowers.'

Thus accompanied, Betty came to the hut, where, in the doorway, stood the Wise Woman, leaning on her stick, evidently awaiting her and her companions' arrival.

'We have come,' said one of the little creatures.

'I felt certain you would,' said the Wise Woman, making a curtsey, 'and a thousand welcomes. If the child has brought the thrushes' notes everything is ready.'

'She has brought them,' put in another tiny voice, 'and they are impatient to sing.'

'Then please follow me,' said the Wise Woman, going into the hut; and in flew all the lovely little creatures, with gentle fanning of wings, which made a soft breeze as they came.

'Prince Fire is already at work,' said the Wise Woman, pointing to the box, and Betty, who had followed the Little Lady Soft Winds, saw, sitting in the box amongst the thrushes' feathers, a small person dressed in red, busy making wings! He was Little Prince Fire, and a very great person in the Small People's World.

'My dear life! aw, my dear life! What shall I see next?' cried the little Padstow maid to herself; and what more she would have said is not known, for at that moment the Wise Woman took the tiny crystal bottle out of her hand and put it into the box beside the dinky person within.

'The Lady Soft Winds have arrived, your Royal Highness,' she said, 'and Betty, the little Padstow maid, is also here.'

'Good!' piped the tiny man. 'Bid them sing the Making Song.'

'We require no bidding, Prince Fire,' said a little Lady Soft Wind, with gentle dignity, as she and the others alighted on the table. 'Out of gratitude and love we have come from afar to sing this song, knowing well, unless we sang it, you would never complete the wings. We, as well as you, can never repay the little maid of Padstow Town for releasing us from the witch's spell.'

The voice had hardly died away when all the radiant fairies began to wave their wings, at first slowly, and then rapidly, in a kind of rhythm, and sang very softly as they waved them.

Betty watched them with all her eyes, and whether it was the movement of their wings or the curious song they sang, with its hush-a-by kind of tune, she felt ever so drowsy, just as she had felt when Little Prince Fire blazed away like a faggot on the hearthstone, and sitting down on the settle, she fell asleep with the two first verses of the song in her ears:

'We Wee Folk together With music and feather The gift of the birds-- The little grey-birds-- Do make her a thrush All sweetness and gush. Lallaby! Gallady!

'And the Little Prince Fire Her sweet song will inspire, That she may fly high Where little maids sigh, And undo the spell Of the Witch o' the Well. Lallaby! Gallady!'

The next thing she heard was the Wise Woman telling her to rise up and move her wings, and Betty, nothing loth, lifted herself from the settle and found she was all air and lightness, like the Little Lady Soft Winds themselves, and could fly about the hut with the greatest ease; the feeling of flying was altogether delightful!

The Lady Soft Winds watched her flight with the deepest interest, and Prince Fire, who was sitting on the edge of the carved box, watched too; that he approved of her flying powers it was plain to see, for his bright eyes never left her wings.

'What am I now?' asked Betty at last, perching on a beam, and looking down sideways bird fashion on the Wise Woman.

'You are a little grey thrush,' said the Wise Woman, her withered face a big smile.

'And now, little grey thrush, away to the east, where the witch's house looms out dark and strong against the gold of the morning sky,' said the Lady Soft Winds, 'and fly up her terrible stairs and set your six little children free, as you did us.'

'Yes; away to Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday,' cried Little Prince Fire.

'And Thursday, Friday, and Little Saturday,' struck in the Wise Woman.

'Away, away, little grey thrush!' cried they all, singing as they cried. 'The sun is rising behind the Tors, and the time is come for our little thrush to fly and sing. Then, away, away!'

Their little thrush wanted no further urging, and with one full, clear, melodious note, which filled all the small fairies with delight, it flew out of the hut, followed by the gentle winnowing of the Lady Soft Winds' wings.

So glad was Betty, the little grey thrush, at being on her way to see those dear little maids that she flew faster than ever thrush flew before, and the sun was not yet over the Tors when she reached a grim old house standing all alone on a brown and desolate moor, with its back to the golden sunrise.

Instinct told the little grey thrush that it was the witch's house, and alighting on a blasted tree, close to its spell-bound door, she began to sing with all her might; and so joyous and so triumphant was her song that it seemed to bring gladness and hope even to that desolate spot.

As Betty, in her bird form, sang on, the old witch came round the corner of her house, dragging her unwilling feet as she came. When she lifted her bad old eyes and saw a grey thrush high on the tree, singing with all its cheerful heart, she turned green, and hearing the door of the tower leading up the stairs--where Monday and all the other little maids were shut up--groaning as if in pain, she sank in a heap on the ground, and began to groan and moan too.

The bird sang on, and its whole body was one shake with its music, and the more thrilling was its song, the more the witch moaned and groaned. Then, when its last triumphant note rang out, the great door opened, as if pushed back by some magic power, and revealed a flight of very steep stairs. The witch gave a piercing howl when she saw the door open wide, for she knew that the small grey thrush's music had broken her spells, and that she was completely in the power of that little singing bird.

When the door of the tower was as wide open as it could go, the thrush gave three flaps of its wings, and then it flew out of the tree, and in through the doorway of the tower, up and up the witch's stairs. And at the top of the stairs was a small room, where six little maids sat spinning.

They were so busy, and the hum of the wheels was so loud, that none of them noticed the entrance of the grey-bird until it broke into a song from the window-sill.

'Why, it is a dear little thrush!' cried Friday, who was the first to notice it. 'How ever did it get up here? It must be the bird we heard singing so beautifully outside just now;' and all the children stopped their spinning-wheels to look at it.

'Did it really fly up the witch's stairs?' asked Thursday, resting her sad, soft eyes on the thrush, whose heart was beating so against its speckled breast at the sight of those dear little maids that it couldn't tell them at first who it was.

'It did,' answered Monday, 'and its flying up here makes me think of our Little Mother Betty, who played the game with us. Will she ever be able to fly up the witch's stairs, I wonder?'

'I am afraid not,' said one of the other children, with a sigh. 'I have given up all hope of her ever doing that now.'

'You are wrong, my dears,' cried the thrush, finding its voice at last. 'I am Mother Betty, turned into a dinky bird for your sakes, and have flown up the witch's stairs!'

And it flapped its wings, jerked its tail, and behaved altogether in a most extraordinary manner, for the children's faces of amazement and hope nearly sent it mad with joy. And then, as if it must relieve its feelings still more, it burst into a most enchanting song, which was answered outside the tower by a series of joyful barks from Pincher, the witch's dog.

'It must be Little Mother Betty,' said Monday, leaving her spinning-wheel. 'I can hear her own voice in the song.'

Then all the other little maids left their wheels to gaze at the bird.

'Are you really Betty who played the "Witch in the Well" with us that terrible day?' they asked.

'Indeed I am,' sang the thrush. 'I have come to take you away from here. Now follow me down the stairs and out of the house.'

'The stairs are so steep,' began Saturday, with frightened eyes.

'Don't be afraid, dear little Saturday,' sang the bird. 'It will be as easy as thinking. Come along, all of you.'

The six little maids followed the bird out of the room and down those wall-like stairs, and in a minute or less were outside the witch's house, where they found the old hag in the act of mounting her broom.

They were met at the door by Pincher the dog, who welcomed them with joyful barks and wagging of tail; and then, finding his mistress had fled, he looked up at the little grey thrush, who was wheeling round and round the children's heads out of sheer gladness, and begged her to give chase to the witch. 'For,' said he, 'if she goes out of your sight before you have commanded her to do something, you are in danger of having to retain your thrush-shape.'

'I am glad you told me,' said the thrush, and it was about to fly after the witch, when it recalled to mind what the dog had said the day he helped to drag the faggot of wood into the hut: 'Remember me when you have flown up the witch's stairs.' 'I have been up the witch's stairs and down again,' it said, alighting on the ground beside him. 'Is there anything I can do for you, Pincher? I am here to do it if I can.'

'I long to be set free from the power of the witch,' said the little dog, fixing his gentle eyes on the bird, 'and to be restored to my own shape. If you bid the witch do this, though it will be vinegar and gall to her, she is bound to obey you by the merit of your wings and your song. I long exceedingly to be myself again.'

'You shall,' sang the little grey thrush.

And then, telling the children to mount Footman's Horse [44] and follow hard after her and the witch, it flapped its wings again, and flew after the old hag on her broom, and Pincher the dog and the six little maids sped after them.

Over the moor and across the downs they all went like the wind, the witch keeping well in advance. Uphill and downhill and through the lanes they flew, and never once did they stop till they came to Place Hill, where the great stone gateway of Place House stood greyly out from a background of beech-trees and oaks. Here the six little maids stopped to get breath, but the old hag, though ready to drop from her broom with fatigue, paused not a second, and went on down the hill with little Thrush Betty, and Pincher the dog close behind her.

'The witch is out of sight!' cried Monday, as the old hag and the little grey-bird disappeared round a corner.

'So she is!' said Friday.

And they all whipped up their tired little steeds, and away they sped down the steep hill in pursuit of the witch; but they did not overtake her until she got to the well, when they stood watching to see what would happen.

The old hag slid off her broom, and, looking cunningly about her, as if in search of the thrush, which was on top of the wall above the well, she made a quick step to the well, and put her foot on its ledge.

'Sing, sing, dear Thrush Betty!' cried the small white dog in great distress, or the witch will disappear into the well before you can command her to do what you said.'

And Betty, the little grey-bird, flew into a tree, and began to sing with all its might once more. And as it sang, the old hag crept back from the well, and stood in the middle of the road, with a terrible look on her face.

Now, being a witch, and one of the worst of her kind, she could not endure anything so pure and sweet as the small bird's song; every note it sang was an agony to listen to, and, knowing in her wicked soul that its music had crushed all her evil power, she begged permission in a humble voice to be allowed to go into the well.

'You may go,' sang little Thrush Betty; 'with one condition, which is that you turn Pincher back into a boy!'

'Please ask me something less hard!' pleaded the witch, cringing before the little bird. 'Pincher will be mine no longer if I do that, and I cannot do without my faithful little dog. Where I go, he must also go.'

'That he shall not!' sang the thrush. 'I command you, by the merit of my wings and the power of my song, to remove your spell from this poor little boy!'

'To lose my little white dog is worse than having the Lady Soft Winds and Prince Fire set free from my spells!' muttered the witch. 'Worse even than losing the six little maids who played the game with me and did all my spinning.'

'Give him back his own self this very minute,' sang the little grey thrush, 'or else----'

If a threat was implied in the sentence, the witch understood it, for, with a howl of rage, she made a pass with her broom over the dog. As she did so, the dog vanished, and in its place stood a young boy, dark and very handsome, dressed in clothes of a bygone age!

The six little maids stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment, and as they stared as only little maids can, the witch made for the well.

'Please sing once more, little Thrush Betty,' cried the boy in a voice it knew so well. 'This last song will quite end the power of the bad old witch, and keep her down in the bottom of the Witch's Well until she repents of all she has done.'

'That will be never!' snarled the witch; and with a horrible cry, which even the victorious song of the little grey thrush could not drown, she splashed into the well. And when Monday, Tuesday, and the other little maids could get that cry out of their ears, the well and its quaint old arch were no longer to be seen, and near where it had stood was dear little Betty, their friend, who had played the 'Mother' in the game, looking very little altered, only a few inches taller, and standing beside her, holding her hand, was the boy, who, in his dog-shape, had done so much for them all.

'Now let us go home to our mothers,' cried Friday.

'I have no mother to go to,' said the boy sadly, as he hesitated to go with the happy children. 'Mine died long ago, and I have no home.'

'Our mothers shall be your mother,' cried the little maids, 'and you will never lack anything if you come with us.'

So they all came down through Padstow Town, the boy in their midst.

Nobody noticed them till they reached Middle Street, a straight cobbled street with quaint houses on either side, when a 'Granfer man' [45] spied them, and shouted the news that the long-lost children had come back, and the whole street rushed out to welcome them.

Thursday lived at the bottom of this street, and Betty thought she ought to see her safely home; but the child's mother had already heard of their arrival, and came out to meet them and to clasp her own little maid to her heart.

Monday's home was in a narrow street called Lanedwell, and when she was safe within her parents' house and arms, the other five little maids and the handsome boy, accompanied by a great crowd, went on their way to the market, where Saturday lived.

As they came out of Lanedwell Street, a house across the market stood full in view. It was one of the quaintest of buildings, of Tudor date, with an outside flight of stone stairs leading up to its side entrance under the eaves. Little Saturday's eyes glistened when she caught sight of this house, for it was her own dear home. Her father happened to be at the top of the stairs looking over the wooden rail as the children drew near, and he nearly fell over into the street below when he saw his own long-lost little maid.

Through a narrow passage, called the Blind Entry, the children and crowd of people poured, and they only got through when Saturday's father was down the steps and over to the Entry to greet them.

'There is the "George and the Dragon"!' cried Thursday, pointing to an inn at the bottom of a street as they crossed the market.

'Iss,' said Betty, with a smile; 'and St. George is still slaying the Dragon!' gazing up at the sign hanging above the door.

'Perhaps the Dragon is even more difficult to conquer than the Witch o' the Well,' put in the boy, eyeing with great interest the inn's sign, on which was painted in glowing colours England's patron saint, with uplifted sword to slay the Dragon.

'Ever so much more, I reckon,' responded Betty.

Another small street brought them to the quay, where the other four little maids' homes were, as well as Betty's, and to their exceeding joy they saw their fathers and mothers and all their relations and friends coming to meet them. And what a meeting it was, and what a welcome they had!

Never since the day when the two ships, which the people of this ancient town sent fully equipped to help in the siege of Calais in Edward III.'s reign, came safely back was there such rejoicing, so the old 'granfer men' said.

Every vessel in the harbour hoisted its flag in honour of the children's return and the overcoming of that wicked old witch.

The boy, when Betty told how she had got her wings that enabled her to fly up the witch's stairs, was made much of by the people of Padstow Town, and the friends of those seven little maids almost fought who should have him for their own.

How it was settled there is no need to tell, save only that he lived on Padstow quay, and that he and Betty were always friends and loved each other dearly; and when they grew up they married, and were as happy as the summer is long.

BORROWED EYES AND EARS

In a lane where red-stemmed tamarisks grew lived another Wise Woman. She was a nice old body, as many of her kind were, and, like them, was well acquainted with the healing properties of herbs and blossoms--revealed to them, it was said, by the fairies. But this Wise Woman was not at all liked; nobody seemed to know why, except that she could do many wonderful things her neighbours could not, and was, moreover, very ugly. People were even afraid of her, and never went near her cottage unless they wanted to buy her herb physic, ointments, and that sort of thing. But there was one who was not afraid of her at all, and that was a dear little girl called Bessie Jane Rosewarne, the only child of a farmer who lived near Tamarisk Lane.

This little maid had a kind heart, especially for those who were lonely or sad; and when she knew how lonely the poor old Wise Woman was, she often went to see her, and took her little presents in the shape of fruit and flowers.

Annis, as the old woman was called, soon got to be very fond of the kind-hearted child; and to show how she appreciated her kindness she used to tell her stories about the Small People and the dear little brown, winking Piskeys, whom she seemed to know very intimately.

Bessie Jane was always interested in the Wee Folk, particularly the cliff ones and the sea-fairies, and expressed a great desire to see them.

Early one afternoon the child brought her old friend a basket of red currants and a cup of cream; and when she had set her gifts on the table, the Wise Woman went to her dresser and took from it a very small shrimping-net, or what looked like a shrimping-net.

'It is a present I have made for you, dear little maid,' she said.

'What is it for?' asked the child, when she had thanked Old Annis for her gift. 'It looks like a shrimping-net, only its meshes are so fine--as fine as gossamer--that I am afraid it will not bear even the weight of a baby-shrimp!'

'It is stronger than it looks,' said the Wise Woman, with a curious look in her sloe-black eyes. 'Its meshes are made out of Piskey-wool, which the Small People spun on their own little spinning-wheels, and which they gave me to mesh into a net. Its hoop and handle I cut from an ash-tree, where the Wee Folk gather to hold their gammets [46] in the moonshine.'

'Did you really?' cried little Bessie Jane. 'How very interesting! I shall go down to Harlyn Bay at once and catch shrimps in the great pool under the shadow of the cliffs there.'

'It will catch something nicer than shrimps, I hope,' said Old Annis, following the child to the door. 'Whatever you catch in it, my dear, don't let it get out of the net until it promises to lend you its eyes and its ears for a night and a day.'

'I don't think I want anyone's eyes and ears but my own,' laughed the little maid as she went down Tamarisk Lane, which led to Harlyn Bay, swinging the shrimping-net as if it were a common net, and not spun from Piskey-wool by the Small People and made by a Wise Woman.

The bay, with its great beach of golden sand, its many hillocks--silvery-blue in places with sea-holly, and green with clumps of feathery tamarisk--lay open before her as she came out of the lane. There were many gulls on the wing to-day, white as the waves that broke gently over the rocks and against the sides of the cliffs. She looked about her, as was her wont, when she reached the beach, but there was nobody on the bar save an old man with his donkey, its panniers full of sand, coming up the beach on the way back to Higher Harlyn, where he lived.

Bessie Jane made straight for the pool of which she had spoken. It was a very deep pool, full of sea-anemones, shrimps, and lovely seaweed, and in the centre of the pool was a rock, in the shape of an arch, covered with mussels.

As the child was about to dip her net into the pool, she saw a streak of silver dancing up and down in the clear water.

She watched it for a minute, and then she thought she would try and catch it, and leaning over the pool, she put her shrimping-net under the whirling brightness and caught it. Looking into the net to see if it were a fish, to her great delight she saw it was like one of the tiny sea-fairies Old Annis had told her about. It was a most beautiful little creature; its eyes were the colour of the Cornish sea at its bluest, and its hair, which was a pale shade of gold, was sprinkled all over with sunbeams. It had no clothes on save a little green shift!

'Oh, you dear little darling!' cried Bessie Jane, after gazing at the lovely atom sitting in her shrimping-net. 'I came down here to this bay to catch shrimps, and I do believe I've caught a sea-fairy instead!'

'You have,' piped the little creature in the most silvery of voices; 'and woe is me that I am the first of the sea-fairies to be caught in a net!'

'I hope you don't mind very much,' said Bessie Jane, looking uncomfortable. 'I have never seen a fairy before of any sort, and I have been longing to see a little sea-fairy like you. The Wise Woman who lives in Tamarisk Lane, near our farm, told me about the sea-fairies. It was she who made me the net, which she meshed her own self out of Piskey-wool spun by the dear Little People.'