Moonshine & Clover

And when he opened the door they found that every thread had been eaten away by the moths, while the mother-o'-pearl had been left uninjured.So the dress was a perfect pearl, light as gossamer, thin as bee's-wing, soft as swan's-down; and the King made Gammelyn his chief jeweller, and set all the other jewellers free.

Then the Princess was so delighted that she wished to have one more dress also, made all of butterflies' wings."That were easily done," said Gammelyn, "but it were cruel to ask for such a dress to be made."

Nevertheless the Princess would have it so, and he should make it. "I'll cut off your head if you don't," said the King.

Gammelyn bumbled like a bee; but all he said was, "Many million butterflies will be wanted for such a work: you must let me have again the two dresses—the pearl, and the gold—for butterflies love bright colours that gleam and shine; and with these alone can I gather them all to one place."

So the Princess gave him the two dresses; and he went to the highest part of the palace, out on to the battlements of the great tower.There he faced towards the west, where lay a new moon, louting towards the setting sun; and he laid the two robes, one on either arm, spreading them abroad, till they looked like two wings—a gold and a pearl. And a beam of the sun came and kissed the gold wing, and a pale quivering thread of moonlight touched the pearl wing; and Gammelyn sang:

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THE FEEDING OF THE EMIGRANTS

OVER the sea went the birds, flying southward to their other home where the sun was.The rustle of their wings, high overhead, could be heard down on the water; and their soft, shrill twitterings, and the thirsty nibbling of their beaks; for the seas were hushed, and the winds hung away in cloud-land.

Far away from any shore, and beginning to be weary, their eyes caught sight of a white form resting between sky and sea.Nearer they came, till it seemed to be a great white bird, brooding on the calmed water; and its wings were stretched high and wide, yet it stirred not.And the wings had in themselves no motion, but stood rigidly poised over their own reflection in the water.

Then the birds came curiously, dropping from their straight course, to wonder at the white wings that went not on.And they came and settled about this great, bird-like thing, so still and so grand.

On to the deck crept a small child, for the noise of the birds had come down to him in the hold."There is nobody at home but me," he said; for he thought the birds must have come to call, and he wished to be polite."They are all gone but me," he went on; "all gone.I am left alone."

The birds, none of them understood him; but they put their heads on one side and looked down on him in a friendly way, seeming to consider.

He ran down below and fetched up a pannikin of water and some biscuit.He set the water down, and breaking the biscuit sprinkled it over the white deck.Then he clapped his hands to see them all flutter and crowd round him, dipping their bright heads to the food and drink he gave them.

They might not stay long, for the water-logged ship could not help them on the way they wished to go; and by sunset they must touch land again.Away they went, on a sudden, the whole crew of them, and the sound of their voices became faint in the bright sea-air.

"I am left alone!"said the child.

Many days ago, while he was asleep in a snug corner he had found for himself, the captain and crew had taken to the boats, leaving the great ship to its fate.And forgetting him because he was so small, or thinking that he was safe in some one of the other boats, the rough sailors had gone off without him, and he was left alone.So for a whole week he had stayed with the ship, like a whisper of its vanished life amid the blues of a deep calm.And the birds came to the ship only to desert it again quickly, because it stood so still upon the sea.

But that night the mermen came round the vessel's side, and sang; and the wind rose to their singing, and the sea grew rough.Yet the child slept with his head in dreams. The dreams came from the mermen's songs, and he held his breath, and his heart stayed burdened by the deep sweetness of what he saw.

Dark and strange and cold the sea-valleys opened before him; blue sea-beasts ranged there, guarded by strong-finned shepherds, and fishes like birds darted to and fro, but made no sound.And that was what burdened his heart,—that for all the beauty he saw, there was no sound, no song of a single bird to comfort him.

The mermen reached out their blue arms to him, and sang; on the top of the waves they sang, striving to make him forget the silence of the land below.They offered him the sea-life: why should he be drowned and die?

And now over him in the dark night the great wings crashed, and beat abroad in the wind, and the ship made great way.And the mermen swam fast to be with her, and ceased from their own song, for the wind overhead sang loud in the rigging and the sails.But the child lifted his head in his sleep and smiled, for his soul was eased of the mermen's song, and it seemed to him that instead he heard birds singing in a far-off land, singing of a child whose loving hand had fed them, faint and weary, in their way over the wide ocean.

In that far southern land the dawn had begun, and the birds, waking one by one, were singing their story of him to the soft-breathing tamarisk boughs.And none of them knew how they had been sent as a salvage crew to save the child's spirit from the spell of the sea-dream, and to carry it safely back to the land that loved him.

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But with the child's body the white wings had flown down into the wave-buried valleys, and to a cleft of the sea-hills to rest.

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WHITE BIRCH

ONCE upon a time there lived in a wood a brother and sister who had been forgotten by all the world.But this thing did not greatly grieve their hearts, because they themselves were all the world to each other: meeting or parting, they never forgot that.Nobody remained to tell them who they were; but she was "Little Sister," and he was "Fair Brother," and those were the only names they ever went by.

In their little wattled hut they would have been perfectly happy but for one thing which now and then they remembered and grieved over.Fair Brother was lame—not a foot could he put to the ground, nor take one step into the outside world.But he lay quiet on his bed of leaves, while Little Sister went out and in, bringing him food and drink, and the scent of flowers, and tales of the joy of earth and of the songs of birds.

One day she brought him a litter of withered birch-leaves to soften his bed and make it warmer for the approaching season of cold; and all the winter he lay on it, and sighed.Little Sister had never seen him so sad before.

In the spring, when the songs of the pairing birds began, his sorrow only grew greater."Let me go out, let me go out," he cried; "only a little way into the bright world before I die!"She kissed his feet, and took him up in her arms and carried him.But she could only go a very little way with her burden; presently she had to return and lay him down again on his bed of leaves.

"Have I seen all the bright world?"he asked."Is it such a little place?"

To hide her sorrow from him, Little Sister ran out into the woods, and as she went, wondering how to comfort his grief, she could not help weeping.

All at once at the foot of a tree she saw the figure of a woman seated.It was strange, for she had never before seen anybody else in the wood but themselves.The woman said to her, "Why is it that you weep so?"

"The heart of Fair Brother is breaking," replied Little Sister."It is because of that that I am weeping."

"Why is his heart breaking?"inquired the other.

"I do not know," answered Little Sister."Ever since last autumn fell it has been so.Always, before, he has been happy; he has no reason not to be, only he is lame."

She had come close to the seated figure; and looking, she saw a woman with a very white skin, in a robe and hood of deep grey.Grey eyes looked back at her with just a soft touch in them of the green that comes with the young leaves of spring.

"You are beautiful," said Little Sister, drawing in her breath.

"Yes, I am beautiful," answered the other."Why is Fair Brother lame?Has he no feet?"

"Oh, beautiful feet!"said Little Sister."But they are like still water; they cannot run."

"If you want him to run," said the other, "I can tell you what to do.What will you give me in exchange?"

"Whatever you like to ask," answered Little Sister; "but I am poor."

"You have beautiful hair," said the woman; "will you let that go?"

Little Sister stooped down her head, and let the other cut off her hair.The wind went out of it with a sigh as it fell into the grey woman's lap.She hid it away under her robe, and said, "Listen, Little Sister, and I will tell you!To-night is the new moon.If you can hold your tongue till the moon is full, the feet of Fair Brother shall run like a stream from the hills, dancing from rock to rock."

"Only tell me what I must do!"said Little Sister.

"You see this birch-tree, with its silver skin?"said the woman."Cut off two strips of it and weave them into shoes for Fair Brother.And when they are finished by the full moon, if you have not spoken, you have but to put them upon Fair Brother's feet, and they will outrun yours."

So Little Sister, as the other had told her, cut off two strips from the bark of the birch-tree, and ran home as fast as she could to tell her brother of the happiness which, with only a little waiting, was in store for them.

But as she came near home, over the low roof she saw the new moon hanging like a white feather in the air; and, closing her lips, she went in and kissed Fair Brother silently.

He said, "Little Sister, loose out your hair over me, and let me feel the sweet airs; and tell me how the earth sounds, for my heart is sick with sorrow and longing."She took his hand and laid it upon her heart that he might feel its happy beating, but said no word.Then she sat down at his feet and began to work at the shoes.All the birch-bark she cut into long strips fit for weaving, doing everything as the grey woman had told her.

Fair Brother fretted at her silence, and cried, calling her cruel; but she only kissed his feet, and went on working the faster.And the white birch shoes grew under her hands; and every night she watched and saw the moon growing round.

Fair Brother said, "Little Sister, what have you done with your hair in which you used to fetch home the wind?And why do you never go and bring me flowers or sing me the song of the birds?"And Little Sister looked up and nodded, but never answered or moved from her task, for her fingers were slow, and the moon was quick in its growing.

One night Fair Brother was lying asleep, and his head was filled with dreams of the outer world into which he longed to go.The full moon looked in through the open door, and Little Sister laughed in her heart as she slipped the birch shoes on to his feet."Now run, dear feet," she whispered; "but do not outrun mine."

Up in his sleep leapt Fair Brother, for the dream of the white birch had hold of him.A lady with a dark hood and grey eyes full of the laughter of leaves beckoned him.Out he ran into the moonlight, and Little Sister laughed as she ran with him.

In a little while she called, "Do not outrun me, Fair Brother!"But he seemed not to hear her, for not a bit did he slacken the speed of his running.

Presently she cried again, "Rest with me a while, Fair Brother!Do not outrun me!"But Fair Brother's feet were fleet after their long idleness, and they only ran the faster."Ah, ah!"she cried, all out of breath."Come back to me when you have done running, Fair Brother."And as he disappeared among the trees, she cried after him, "How will you know the way, since you were never here before?Do not get lost in the wood, Fair Brother!"

She lay on the ground and listened, and could hear the white birch shoes carrying him away till all sound of them died.

When, next morning, he had not returned, she searched all day through the wood, calling his name.

"Where are you, Fair Brother?Where have you lost yourself?"she cried, but no voice answered her.

For a while she comforted her heart, saying, "He has not run all these years—no wonder he is still running.When he is tired he will return."

But days and weeks went by, and Fair Brother never came back to her.Every day she wandered searching for him, or sat at the door of the little wattled hut and cried.

One day she cried so much that the ground became quite wet with her tears.That night was the night of the full moon, but weary with grief she lay down and slept soundly, though outside the woods were bright.

In the middle of the night she started up, for she thought she heard somebody go by; and, surely, feet were running away in the distance.And when she looked out, there across the doorway was the print of the birch shoes on the ground she had made wet with her tears.

"Alas, alas!"cried Little Sister."What have I done that he comes to the very door of our home and passes by, though the moon shines in and shows it him?"

After that she searched everywhere through the forest to discover the print of the birch shoes upon the ground.Here and there after rain she thought she could see traces, but never was she able to track them far.

Once more came the night of the full moon, and once more in the middle of the night Little Sister started up and heard feet running away in the distance.She called, but no answer came back to her.

So on the third full moon she waited, sitting in the door of the hut, and would not sleep.

"If he has been twice," she said to herself, "he will come again, and I shall see him.Ah, Fair Brother, Fair Brother, I have given you feet; why have you so used me?"

Presently she heard a sound of footsteps, and there came Fair Brother running towards her.She saw his face pale and ghostlike, yet he never looked at her, but ran past and on without stopping.

"Fair Brother, Fair Brother, wait for me; do not outrun me!"cried Little Sister; and was up in haste to be after him.

He ran fast, and would not stop; but she ran fast too, for her love would not let him go.Once she nearly had him by the hair, and once she caught him by the cloak; but in her hand it shredded and crumbled like a dry leaf; and still, though there was no breath left in her, she ran on.

And now she began to wonder, for Fair Brother was running the way that she knew well—towards the tree from which she had cut the two strips of bark.Her feet were failing her; she knew that she could run no more.Just as they came together in sight of the birch-tree Little Sister stumbled and fell.

She saw Fair Brother run on and strike with his hands and feet against the tree, and cry, "Oh, White Birch, White Birch, lift the latch up, or she will catch me!"And at once the tree opened its rind, and Fair Brother ran in.

"So," said Little Sister, "you are there, are you, Brother?I know, then, what I have done to you."

She went and laid her ear to the tree, and inside she could hear Fair Brother sobbing and crying.It sounded to her as if White Birch were beating him.

"Well, well, Fair Brother, she shall not beat you for long!"said Little Sister.

She went home and waited till the next full moon had come.Then, as soon as it was dark, she went along through the wood until she came to the place, and there she crept close to the white birch-tree and waited.

Presently she heard Fair Brother's voice come faintly out of the heart of the tree: "White Birch, it is the full moon and the hour in which Little Sister gave life to my feet.For one hour give me leave to go, that I may run home and look at her while she sleeps.I will not stop or speak, and I promise you that I will return."

Then she heard the voice of White Birch answer grudgingly: "It is her hour and I cannot hold you, therefore you may go.Only when you come again I will beat you."

Then the tree opened a little way, and Fair Brother ran out.He ran so quickly in his eager haste that Little Sister had not time to catch him, and she did not dare to call aloud."I must make sure," she said to herself, "before he comes back.To-night White Birch will have to let him go."

So she gathered as many dry pieces of wood as she could find, and made them into a pile near at hand; and setting them alight, she soon had a brisk fire burning.

Before long she heard the sound of feet in the brushwood, and there came Fair Brother, running as hard as he could go, with the breath sobbing in and out of his body.

Little Sister sprang out to meet him, but as soon as he saw her he beat with his hands and feet against the tree, crying, "White Birch, White Birch, lift the latch up, or she will catch me!"

But before the tree could open Little Sister had caught hold of the birch shoes, and pulled them off his feet, and running towards the fire she thrust them into the red heart of the embers.

The white birch shivered from head to foot, and broke into lamentable shrieks.The witch thrust her head out of the tree, crying, "Don't, don't!You are burning my skin!Oh, cruel!how you are burning me!"

"I have not burned you enough yet," cried Little Sister; and raking the burning sticks and faggots over the ground, she heaped them round the foot of the white birch-tree, whipping the flames to make them leap high.

The witch drew in her head, but inside she could be heard screaming.As the flames licked the white bark she cried, "Oh, my skin!You are burning my skin.My beautiful white skin will be covered with nothing but blisters.Do you know that you are ruining my complexion?"

But Little Sister said, "If I make you ugly you will not be able to show your face again to deceive the innocent, and to ruin hearts that were happy."

So she piled on sticks and faggots till the outside of the birch-tree was all black and scarred and covered with blisters, the marks of which have remained to this day.And inside, the witch could be heard dancing time to the music of the flames, and crying because of her ruined complexion.

Then Little Sister stooped and took up Fair Brother in her arms. "You cannot walk now," she whispered, "I have taken away your feet; so I will carry you."

He was so starved and thin that he was not very heavy, and all the long way home Little Sister carried him in her arms. How happy they were, looking in each other's eyes by the clear light of the moon!

"Can you ever be happy again in the old way?"asked Little Sister."Shall you not want to run?"

"No," answered Fair Brother; "I shall never wish to run again.And as for the rest"—he stroked her head softly—"why, I can feel that your hair is growing—it is ever so long, and I can see the wind lifting it.White Birch has no hair of her own, but she has some that she wears, just the same colour as yours."

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THE LUCK OF THE ROSES

NOT far from a great town, in the midst of a well-wooded valley, lived a rose-gardener and his wife.All round the old home green sleepy hollows lay girdled by silver streams, long grasses bent softly in the wind, and the half fabulous murmur of woods filled the air.

Up in their rose-garden, on the valley's side facing the sun, the gardener and his wife lived contentedly sharing toil and ease.They had been young, they were not yet old; and though they had to be frugal they did not call themselves poor.A strange fortune had belonged always to the plot of ground over which they laboured; whether because the soil was so rich, or the place so sheltered from cold, or the gardener so skilled in the craft, which had come down in his family from father to son, could not be known; but certainly it was true that his rose-trees gave forth better bloom and bore earlier and later through the season than any others that were to be found in those parts.

The good couple accepted what came to them, simply and gladly, thanking God.Perhaps it was from the kindness of fortune, or perhaps because the sweet perfume of the roses had mixed itself in their blood, that her man and his wife were so sweet-tempered and gentle in their ways.The colour of the rose was in their faces, and the colour of the rose was in their hearts; to her man she was the most beautiful and dearest of sweethearts, to his wife he was the best and kindest of lovers.

Every morning, before it was light, her man and his wife would go into the garden and gather all the roses that were ripe for sale; then with full baskets on their backs they would set out, and get to the market just as the level sunbeams from the east were striking all the vanes and spires of the city into gold.There they would dispose of their flowers to the florists and salesmen of the town, and after that trudge home again to hoe, and dig, and weed, and water, and prune, and plant for the rest of the day.No man ever saw them the one without the other, and the thought that such a thing might some day happen was the only fear and sorrow of their lives.

That they had no children of their own was scarcely a sorrow to them."It seems to me," said her man after they had been married for some years, "that God means that our roses are to be our children since He has made us love them so much.They will last when we are grown grey, and will support and comfort us in our old age."

All the roses they had were red, and varied little in kind, yet her man and his wife had a name for each of them; to every tree they had given a name, until it almost seemed that the trees knew, and tried to answer when they heard the voices which spoke to them.

"Jane Janet, and you ought to blossom more freely at your age!"his wife might say to one some evening as she went round and watered the flowers; and the next day, when the two came to their dark morning's gathering, Jane Janet would show ten or twelve great blooms under the light of the lantern, every one of them the birth of a single night.

"Mary Maudlin," the gardener would say, as he washed the blight off a favourite rose, "to be sure, you are very beautiful, but did I not love you so, you were more trouble than all your sisters put together."And then all at once great dew-drops would come tumbling down out of Mary Maudlin's eyes at the tender words of his reproach.So day by day the companionable feet of the happy couple moved to and fro, always intent on the nurture and care of their children.

In their garden they had bees too, who by strange art, unlike other bees, drew all their honey from the roses, and lived in a cone-thatched hive close to the porch; and that honey was famous through all the country-side, for its flavour was like no other honey made in the world.

Sometimes his wife said to her man, "I think our garden is looked after for us by some good Spirit; perhaps it is the Saints after whom we have named our rose-children."

Her man made answer, "It is rich in years, which, like an old wine, have made it gain in flavour; it has been with us from father to son for three hundred years, and that is a great while."

"A full fairy's lifetime!"said his wife."'Tis a pity we shall not hand it on, being childless."

"When we two die," said her man, "the roses will make us a grave and watch over us."As he spoke a whole shower of petals fell from the trees.

"Did no one pass, just then?"said his wife.

Now one morning, soon after this, in the late season of roses, her man had gone before his wife into the garden, gathering for the market in the grey dusk before dawn; and wherever he went moths and beetles came flocking to the light of his lantern, beating against its horn shutters and crying to get in. Out of each rose, as the light fell on it, winged things sprang up into the darkness; but all the roses were bowed and heavy as if with grief. As he picked them from the stem great showers of dew fell out of them, making pools in the hollow of his palm.

There was such a sound of tears that he stopped to listen; and, surely, from all round the garden came the "drip, drip" of falling dew.Yet the pathways under foot were all dry; there had been no rain and but little dew.Whence was it, then, that the roses so shook and sobbed?For under the stems, surely, there was something that sobbed; and suddenly the light of the lantern took hold of a beautiful small figure, about three feet high, dressed in old rose and green, that went languidly from flower to flower.She lifted up such tired hands to draw their heads down to hers; and to each one she kissed she made a weary little sound of farewell, her beautiful face broken up with grief; and now and then out of her lips ran soft chuckling laughter, as if she still meant to be glad, but could not.

The gardener broke into tears to behold a sight so pitiful; and his wife had stolen out silently to his side, and was weeping too.

"Drip, drip," went the roses: wherever she came and kissed, they all began weeping.The gardener and his wife knelt down and watched her; in and out, in and out, not a rose blossom did she miss. She came nearer and nearer, and at last was standing before them. She seemed hardly able to draw limb after limb, so weak was she; and her filmy garments hung heavy as chains.

A little voice said in their ears, "Kiss me, I am dying!"

They tasted her breath of rose.

"Do not die!"they said simply.

"I have lived three hundred years," she answered."Now I must die.I am the Luck of the Roses, but I must leave them and die."

"When must you die?"said her man and his wife.

The little lady said: "Before the last roses are over; the chills of night take me, the first frost will kill me.Soon I must die.Now I must dwindle and dwindle, for little life is left to me, and only so can I keep warm.As life and heat grow less, so must I, till presently I am no more."

She was a little thing already—not old, she did not seem old, but delicate as a snowflake, and so weary.She laid her head in the hand of the gardener's wife, and sobbed hard.

"You dear people, who belong so much to me too, I have watched over you."

"Let us watch over you!"said they.They lifted her like a feather-weight, and carried her into the house.There, in the ingle-nook, she sat and shivered, while they brought rose-leaves and piled round her; but every hour she grew less and less.

Presently the sun shone full upon her from the doorway: its light went through her as through coloured glass; and her man and his wife saw, over the ingle behind her, shadows fluttering as of falling rose-petals: it was the dying rose of her life, falling without end.

All day long she dwindled and grew more weak and frail.Before sunset she was smaller than a small child when it first comes into the world.They set honey before her to taste, but she was too weary to uncurl her tiny hands: they lay like two white petals in the green lap of her gown.The half-filled panniers of roses stood where they had been set down in the porch: the good couple had taken nothing to the market that day.The luck of the house lay dying, for all their care; they could but sit and watch.

When the sun had set, she faded away fast: now she was as small as a young wren.The gardener's wife took her and held her for warmth in the hollow of her hand.Presently she seemed no more than a grasshopper: the tiny chirrup of her voice was heard, about the middle of the night, asking them to take her and lay her among the roses, in the heart of one of the red roses, that there she and death might meet sweetly at the last.

They went together into the dark night, and felt their way among the roses; presently they quite lost her tiny form: she had slipped away into the heart of a Jane Janet rose.

The gardener and his wife went back into the house and sat waiting: they did not know for what, but they were too sad at heart to think just then of sleep.

Soon the first greys of morning began to steal over the world; pale shivers ran across the sky, and one bird chirped in its sleep among the trees.

All at once there rang a soft sound of lamentation among the roses in the rose-garden; again and again, like the cry of many gentle wounded things in pain.The gardener and his wife went and opened the door: they had to tell the bees of the fairy's death.They looked out under the twilight, into the garden they loved."Drip," "drip," "drip" came the sound of steady weeping under the leaves.Peering out through the shadows they saw all the rose-trees rocking softly for grief.

"Snow?"said his wife to her man.

But it was not snow.

Under the dawn all the roses in the garden had turned white; for they knew that the fairy was dead.

The gardener and his wife woke the bees, and told them of the fairy's death; then they looked in each other's faces, and saw that they, too, had become white and grey.

With gentle eyes the old couple took hands, and went down into the garden to gather white roses for the market.

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THE WHITE DOE

ONE day, as the king's huntsman was riding in the forest, he came to a small pool.Fallen leaves covering its surface had given it the colour of blood, and knee-deep in their midst stood a milk-white doe drinking.

The beauty of the doe set fire to the huntsman's soul; he took an arrow and aimed well at the wild heart of the creature.But as he was loosing the string the branch of a tree overhanging the pool struck him across the face, and caught hold of him by the hair; and arrow and doe vanished away together into the depths of the forest.

Never until now, since he entered the king's service, had the huntsman missed his aim.The thought of the white doe living after he had willed its death inflamed him with rage; he could not rest till he had brought hounds to the trail, determined to follow until it had surrendered to him its life.

All day, while he hunted, the woods stayed breathless, as if to watch; not a blade moved, not a leaf fell.About noon a red deer crossed his path; but he paid no heed, keeping his hounds only to the white doe's trail.

At sunset a fallow deer came to disturb the scent, and through the twilight, as it deepened, a grey wolf ran in and out of the underwood.When night came down, his hounds fled from his call, following through tangled thickets a huge black boar with crescent tusks. So he found himself alone, with his horse so weary that it could scarcely move.

But still, though the moon was slow in its rising, the fever of the chase burned in the huntsman's veins, and caused him to press on.For now he found himself at the rocky entrance of a ravine whence no way led; and the white doe being still before him, he made sure that he would get her at last.So when his horse fell, too tired to rise again, he dismounted and forced his way on; and soon he saw before him the white doe, labouring up an ascent of sharp crags, while closer and higher the rocks rose and narrowed on every side.Presently she had leapt high upon a boulder that shook and swayed as her feet rested, and ahead the wall of rocks had joined so that there was nowhere farther that she might go.

Then the huntsman notched an arrow, and drew with full strength, and let it go.Fast and straight it went, and the wind screamed in the red feathers as they flew; but faster the doe overleapt his aim, and, spurning the stone beneath, down the rough-bouldered gully sent it thundering, shivering to fragments as it fell.Scarcely might the huntsman escape death as the great mass swept past: but when the danger was over he looked ahead, and saw plainly, where the stone had once stood, a narrow opening in the rock, and a clear gleam of moonlight beyond.

That way he went, and passing through, came upon a green field, as full of flowers as a garden, duskily shining now, and with dark shadows in all its folds. Round it in a great circle the rocks made a high wall, so high that along their crest forest-trees as they clung to look over seemed but as low-growing thickets against the sky.

The huntsman's feet stumbled in shadow and trod through thick grass into a quick-flowing streamlet that ran through the narrow way by which he had entered.He threw himself down into its cool bed, and drank till he could drink no more.When he rose he saw, a little way off, a small dwelling-house of rough stone, moss-covered and cosy, with a roof of wattles which had taken root and pushed small shoots and clusters of grey leaves through their weaving.Nature, and not man, seemed there to have been building herself an abode.

Before the doorway ran the stream, a track of white mist showing where it wound over the meadow; and by its edge a beautiful maiden sat, and was washing her milk-white feet and arms in the wrinkling eddies.

To the huntsman she became all at once the most beautiful thing that the world contained; all the spirit of the chase seemed to be in her blood, and each little movement of her feet made his heart jump for joy."I have looked for you all my life!"thought he, as he halted and gazed, not daring to speak lest the lovely vision should vanish, and the memory of it mock him for ever.

The beautiful maiden looked up from her washing."Why have you come here?"said she.

The huntsman answered her as he believed to be the truth, "I have come because I love you!"

"No," she said, "you came because you wanted to kill the white doe.If you wish to kill her, it is not likely that you can love me."

"I do not wish to kill the white doe!"cried the huntsman; "I had not seen you when I wished that.If you do not believe that I love you, take my bow and shoot me to the heart; for I will never go away from you now."

At his word she took one of the arrows, looking curiously at the red feathers, and to test the sharp point she pressed it against her breast."Have a care!"cried the hunter, snatching it back.He drew his breath sharply and stared."It is strange," he declared; "a moment ago I almost thought that I saw the white doe."

"If you stay here to-night," said the maiden, "about midnight you will see the white doe go by.Take this arrow, and have your bow ready, and watch!And if to-morrow, when I return, the arrow is still unused in your hand, I will believe you when you say that you love me.And you have only to ask, and I will do all that you desire."

Then she gave the huntsman food and drink and a bed of ferns upon which to rest."Sleep or wake," said she as she parted from him; "if truly you have no wish to kill the white doe, why should you wake?Sleep!"

"I do not wish to kill the white doe," said the huntsman.Yet he could not sleep: the memory of the one wild creature which had escaped him stung his blood. He looked at the arrow which he held ready, and grew thirsty at the sight of it. "If I see, I must shoot!" cried his hunter's heart. "If I see, I must not shoot!" cried his soul, smitten with love for the beautiful maiden, and remembering her word. "Yet, if I see, I know I must shoot—so shall I lose all!" he cried as midnight approached, and the fever of long waiting remained unassuaged.

Then with a sudden will he drew out his hunting-knife, and scored the palms of his two hands so deeply that he could no longer hold his bow or draw the arrow upon the string."Oh, fair one, I have kept my word to you!"he cried as midnight came."The bow and the arrow are both ready."

Looking forth from the threshold by which he lay, he saw pale moonlight and mist making a white haze together on the outer air.The white doe ran by, a body of silver; like quicksilver she ran.And the huntsman, the passion to slay rousing his blood, caught up arrow and bow, and tried in vain with his maimed hands to notch the shaft upon the string.

The beautiful creature leapt lightly by, between the curtains of moonbeam and mist; and as she went she sprang this way and that across the narrow streamlet, till the pale shadows hid her altogether from his sight."Ah!ah!"cried the huntsman, "I would have given all my life to be able to shoot then!I am the most miserable man alive; but to-morrow I will be the happiest.What a thing is love, that it has known how to conquer in me even my hunter's blood!"

In the morning the beautiful maiden returned; she came sadly."I gave you my word," said she: "here I am.If you have the arrow still with you as it was last night, I will be your wife, because you have done what never huntsman before was able to do—not to shoot at the white doe when it went by."

The huntsman showed her the unused arrow; her beauty made him altogether happy.He caught her in his arms, and kissed her till the sun grew high.Then she brought food and set it before him; and taking his hand, "I am your wife," said she, "and with all my heart my will is to serve you faithfully.Only, if you value your happiness, do not shoot ever at the white doe."Then she saw that there was blood on his hand, and her face grew troubled.She saw how the other hand also was wounded."How came this?"she asked; "dear husband, you were not so hurt yesterday."

And the huntsman answered, "I did it for fear lest in the night I should fail, and shoot at the white doe when it came."

Hearing that, his wife trembled and grew white."You have tricked us both," she said, "and have not truly mastered your desire.Now, if you do not promise me on your life and your soul, or whatever is dearer, never to shoot at a white doe, sorrow will surely come of it.Promise me, and you shall certainly be happy!"

So the huntsman promised faithfully, saying, "On your life, which is dearer to me than my own, I give you my word to keep that it shall be so." Then she kissed him, and bound up his wounds with healing herbs; and to look at her all that day, and for many days after, was better to him than all the hunting the king's forest could provide.

For a whole year they lived together in perfect happiness, and two children came to bless their union—a boy and a girl born at the same hour.When they were but a month old they could run; and to see them leaping and playing before the door of their home made the huntsman's heart jump for joy."They are forest-born, and they come of a hunter's blood; that is why they run so early, and have such limbs," said he.

"Yes," answered his wife, "that is partly why.When they grow older they will run so fast—do not mistake them for deer if ever you go hunting."

No sooner had she said the word than the memory of it, which had slept for a whole year, stirred his blood.The scent of the forest blew up through the rocky ravine, which he had never repassed since the day when he entered, and he laid his hands thoughtfully on the weapons he no longer used.

Such restlessness took hold of him all that day that at night he slept ill, and, waking, found himself alone with no wife at his side.Gazing about the room, he saw that the cradle also was empty."Why," he wondered, "have they gone out together in the middle of the night?"

Yet he gave it little more thought, and turning over, fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamed of hunting and of the white doe that he had seen a year before stooping to drink among the red leaves that covered the forest pool.

In the morning his wife was by his side, and the little ones lay asleep upon their crib."Where were you," he asked, "last night?I woke, and you were not here."

His wife looked at him tenderly, and sighed."You should shut your eyes better," said she."I went out to see the white doe, and the little ones came also.Once a year I see her; it is a thing I must not miss."

The beauty of the white doe was like strong drink to his memory: the beautiful limbs that had leapt so fast and escaped—they alone, of all the wild life in the world, had conquered him."Ah!"he cried, "let me see her, too; let her come tame to my hand, and I will not hurt her!"

His wife answered: "The heart of the white doe is too wild a thing; she cannot come tame to the hand of any hunter under heaven.Sleep again, dear husband, and wake well!For a whole year you have been sufficiently happy; the white doe would only wound you again in your two hands."

When his wife was not by, the hunter took the two children upon his knee, and said, "Tell me, what was the white doe like?what did she do?and what way did she go?"

The children sprang off his knee, and leapt to and fro over the stream."She was like this," they cried, "and she did this, and this was the way she went!" At that the hunter drew his hand over his brow. "Ah," he said, "I seemed then almost to see the white doe."

Little peace had he from that day.Whenever his wife was not there he would call the little ones to him, and cry, "Show me the white doe and what she did."And the children would leap and spring this way and that over the little stream before the door, crying, "She was like this, and she did this, and this was the way she went!"

The huntsman loved his wife and children with a deep affection, yet he began to have a dread that there was something hidden from his eyes which he wished yet feared to know."Tell me," he cried one day, half in wrath, when the fever of the white doe burned more than ever in his blood, "tell me where the white doe lives, and why she comes, and when next.For this time I must see her, or I shall die of the longing that has hold of me!"Then, when his wife would give no answer, he seized his bow and arrows and rushed out into the forest, which for a whole year had not known him, slaying all the red deer he could find.

Many he slew in his passion, but he brought none of them home, for before the end a strange discovery came to him, and he stood amazed, dropping the haunch which he had cut from his last victim."It is a whole year," he said to himself, "that I have not tasted meat; I, a hunter, who love only the meat that I kill!"

Returning home late, he found his wife troubling her heart over his long absence."Where have you been?"she asked him, and the question inflamed him into a fresh passion.

"I have been out hunting for the white doe," he cried; "and she carries a spot in her side where some day my arrow must enter.If I do not find her I shall die!"

His wife looked at him long and sorrowfully; then she said: "On your life and soul be it, and on mine also, that your anger makes me tell what I would have kept hidden.It is to-night that she comes.Now it remains for you to remember your word once given to me!"

"Give it back to me!"he cried; "it is my fate to finish the quest of the white doe."

"If I give it," said she, "your happiness goes with it, and mine, and that of our children."

"Give it back to me!"he said again; "I cannot live unless I may master the white doe!If she will come tame to my hand, no harm shall happen to her."

And when she denied him again, he gave her his bow and arrows, and bade her shoot him to the heart, since without his word rendered back to him he could not live.

Then his wife took both his hands and kissed them tenderly, and with loud weeping quickly set him free of his promise."As well," said she, "ask the hunter to go bound to the lion's den as the white doe to come tame into your keeping; though she loved you with all her heart, you could not look at her and not be her enemy."She gazed on him with full affection, and sighed deeply. "Lie down for a little," she said, "and rest; it is not till midnight that she comes. When she comes I will wake you."

She took his head in her hands and set it upon her knee, making him lie down."If she will come and stand tame to my hand," he said again, "then I will do her no harm."

After a while he fell asleep; and, dreaming of the white doe, started awake to find it was already midnight, and the white doe standing there before him.But as soon as his eyes lighted on her they kindled with such fierce ardour that she trembled and sprang away out of the door and across the stream."Ah, ah, white doe, white doe!"cried the wind in the feathers of the shaft that flew after her.

Just at her leaping of the stream the arrow touched her; and all her body seemed to become a mist that dissolved and floated away, broken into thin fragments over the fast-flowing stream.

By the hunter's side his wife lay dead, with an arrow struck into her heart.The door of the house was shut; it seemed to be only an evil dream from which he had suddenly awakened.But the arrow gave real substance to his hand: when he drew it out a few true drops of blood flowed after.Suddenly the hunter knew all he had done."Oh, white doe, white doe!"he cried, and fell down with his face to hers.

At the first light of dawn he covered her with dry ferns, that the children might not see how she lay there dead."Run out," he cried to them, "run out and play! Play as the white doe used to do!" And the children ran out and leapt this way and that across the stream, crying, "She was like this, and she did this, and this was the way she went!"

So while they played along the banks of the stream, the hunter took up his beautiful dead wife and buried her.And to the children he said, "Your mother has gone away; when the white doe comes she will return also."

"She was like this," they cried, laughing and playing, "and she did this, and this was the way she went!"And all the time as they played he seemed to see the white doe leaping before him in the sunlight.

That night the hunter lay sleepless on his bed, wishing for the world to end; but in the crib by his side the two children lay in a sound slumber.Then he saw plainly in the moonlight, the white doe with a red mark in her side, standing still by the doorway.Soon she went to where the young ones were lying, and, as she touched the coverlet softly with her right fore-foot, all at once two young fawns rose up from the ground and sprang away into the open, following where the white doe beckoned them.

Nor did they ever return.For the rest of his life the huntsman stayed where they left him, a sorrowful and lonely man.In the grave where lay the woman's form he had slain he buried his bow and arrows far from the sight of the sun or the reach of his own hand; and coming to the place night by night, he would watch the mists and the moonrise, and cry, "White doe, white doe, will you not some day forgive me?" and did not know that she had forgiven him then when, before she died, she kissed his two hands and made him sleep for the last time with his head on her knee.

---

THE MOON-STROKE

IN the hollow heart of an old tree a Jackdaw and his wife had made themselves a nest.As soon as the mother of his eggs had finished laying, she sat waiting patiently for something to come of it.One by one five mouths poked out of the shells, demanding to be fed; so for weeks the happy couple had to be continually in two places at once searching for food to satisfy them.

Presently the wings of the young ones grew strong; they could begin to fly about; and the parents found time for a return to pleasuring and curiosity-hunting.They began gathering in a wise assortment of broken glass and chips of platter to grace the corners of their dwelling.All but the youngest Jackdaw were enchanted with their unutterable beauty and value; they were never tired of quarrelling over the possession and arrangement of them.

"But what are they for?"asked the youngest, a perverse bird who kept himself apart from the rest, and took no share in their daily squabblings.

The mother-bird said: "They are beautiful, and what God intended for us: therefore they must be true.We may not see the use of them yet, but no doubt some day they will come true."

The little Jackdaw said: "Their corners scratch me when I want to go to sleep; they are far worse than crumbs in the bed.All the other birds do without them—why should not we?"

"That is what distinguishes us from the other birds!"replied the Janedaw, and thanked her stars that it was so.

"I wish we could sing!"sighed the littlest young Jackdaw.

"Babble, babble!"replied his mother angrily.

And then, as it was dinner-time, he forgot his grief, as they all said grace and fell-to.

One evening the old Jackdaw came home very late, carrying something that burned bright and green, like an evening star; all the nest shone where he set it down.

"What do you think of that for a discovery?"he said to the Janedaw.

"Think?"she said; "I can't.Some of it looks good to eat; but that fire-patch at the end would burn one's inside out."

Presently the Jackdaw family settled itself down to sleep; only the youngest one sat up and watched.Now he had seen something beautiful.Was it going to come true?Its light was like the song of the nightingale in the leaves overhead: it glowed, and throbbed, and grew strong, flooding the whole place where it lay.

Soon, in the silence, he heard a little wail of grief: "Why have they carried me away here," sighed the glow-worm, "out of the tender grass that loves the ground?"

The littlest Jackdaw listened with all his heart.Now something at last was going to become true, without scratching his legs and making him feel as though crumbs were in his bed.

A little winged thing came flying down to the green light, and two voices began crying together—the glow-worm and its mate.

"They have carried you away?"

"They have carried me away; up here I shall die!"

"I am too weak to lift you," said the one with wings; "you will stay here, and you will die!"Then they cried yet more.

"It seems to me," thought the Jackdaw, "that as soon as the beautiful becomes true, God does not intend it to be for us."He got up softly from among his brothers."I will carry you down," he said.And without more ado, he picked it up and carried it down out of the nest, and laid it in the long grass at the foot of the tree.

Overhead the nightingale sang, and the full moon shone; its rays struck down on the little Jackdaw's head.

For a bird that is not a nightingale to wake up and find its head unprotected under the rays of a full moon is serious: there and then he became moon-struck.He went back into bed; but he was no longer the same little Jackdaw."Oh, I wish I could sing!"he thought; and not for hours could he get to sleep.

In the morning, when the family woke up, the beautiful and the true was gone.The father Jackdaw thought he must have swallowed it in his sleep.

"If you did," said his wife, "there'll be a smell of burnt feathers before long!"

But the littlest Jackdaw said, "It came true, and went away, because it was never intended for us."

Now some days after this the old Jackdaw again came carrying something that shone like an evening star—a little spike of gold with a burning emerald set in the end of it. "And what do you think of that?" said he to his wife.

"I daren't come near it," she answered, "for fear it should burn me!"

That night the little Jackdaw lay awake, while all the others slept, waiting to hear the green stone break out into sorrow, and to see if its winged mate would come seeking it.But after hours had gone, and nothing stirred or spoke, he slipped softly out of the nest, and went down to search for the poor little winged mate who must surely be about somewhere.

And now, truly, among the grasses and flowers he heard something sobbing and sighing; a little winged thing darted into sight and out again, searching the ground like a dragon-fly at quest.And all the time, amid the darting and humming of its wings, came sobbing and wringing of hands.

The young Jackdaw called: "Little wings, what have you lost?Is it not a spike with a green light at the end of it?"

"My wand, my wand!"cried the fairy, beside herself with grief."Just about sunset I was asleep in an empty wren's nest, and when I woke up my wand was gone!"

Then the little Jackdaw, being moon-struck, and not knowing the value of things, flew up to the nest and brought back the fairy her wand.

"Oh!"she cried, "you have saved my life!"And she thanked the Jackdaw till he grew quite modest and shy.

"What is it for?What can you do with it?"he asked.

"With this," she answered, "I can make anything beautiful come true!I can give you whatever you ask; you have but to ask, and you shall have."

Then the little Jackdaw, being moon-struck, and not knowing the value of things, said, "Oh, if I could only sing like a nightingale!"

"You can!"said the fairy, waving her wand but once; and immediately something like a melodious sneeze flew into his head and set it shaking.

"Chiou!chiou!True-true-true-true!Jug!jug!Oh, beautiful!beautiful!"His beak went dabbling in the sweet sound, rippling it this way and that, spraying it abroad out of his blissful heart as a jewel throws out its fires.

The fairy was gone; but the little Jackdaw sprang up into the high elm, and sang on endlessly through the whole night.

At dawn he stopped, and looking down, there he saw the family getting ready for breakfast, and wondering what had become of him.

Just as they were saying grace he flew in, his little heart beating with joy over his new-found treasure.What a jewel of a voice he had: better than all the pieces of glass and chips of platter lying down there in the nest!As soon as the parent-birds had finished grace, he lifted his voice and thanked God that the thing he had wished for had become true.

None of them understood what he said, but they paid him plenty of attention. All his brothers and sisters put up their heads and giggled, as the young do when one of their number misbehaves.

"Don't make that noise!"said his mother; "it's not decent!"

"It's low!"said the father-bird.

The littlest young Jackdaw was overwhelmed with astonishment.When he tried to explain, his unseemly melodies led to his immediate expulsion from the family circle.Such noises, he was told, could only be made in private; when he had quite got over them he might come back,—but not until.

He never got over them; so he never came back.For a few days he hid himself in different trees of the garden, and sang the praises of sorrow; but his family, though they comprehended him not, recognised his note, and came searching him with beak and claw, and drove him out so as not to have him near them committing such scandalous noises to the ears of the public.

"He lies in his throat!"said the old Jackdaw."Everything he says he garbles.If he is our son he must have been hatched on the wrong side of the nest!"

After that, wherever he went, all the birds jeered at and persecuted him.Even the nightingales would not listen to his brotherly voice.They made fun of his black coat, and called him a Nonconformist without a conscience."All this has come about," thought he, "because God never meant anything beautiful to come true."

One day a man who saw him and heard him singing, caught him, and took him round the world in a cage for show. The value of him was discovered. Great crowds came to see the little Jackdaw, and to hear him sing. He was described now as the "Amphabulous Philomel, or the Mongrel-Minstrel"; but it gave him no joy.

Before long he had become what we call tame—that is to say, his wings had been clipped; he was allowed out of his cage, because he could no longer fly away, and he sang when he was told, because he was whipped if he did not.

One day there was a great crowd round the travelling booth where he was on view: the showman had a new wonder which he was about to show to the people.He took the little Jackdaw out of his cage, and set him to perch upon his shoulder, while he busied himself over something which he was taking carefully out of ever so many boxes and coverings.

The Jackdaw's sad eye became attracted by a splendid scarf-pin that the showman wore—a gold pin set with a tiny emerald that burned like fire.The bird thought, "Now if only the beautiful could become true!"

And now the showman began holding up a small glass bottle for the crowd to stare into.The people were pushing this way and that to see what might be there.

At the bottom sat the little fairy, without her wand, weeping and beating her hands on the glass.

The showman was so proud he grew red in the face, and ran shouting up and down the plank, shaking and turning the bottle upside down now and then, so as to make the cabined fairy use her wings, and buzz like a fly against the glass.

The Jackdaw waggled unsteadily at his perch on the man's shoulder."Look at him!"laughed someone in the crowd, "he's going to steal his master's scarf-pin."

"Ho, ho, ho!"shouted the showman."See this bird now!See the marvellous mongrel nature of the beast!Who tells me he's only a nightingale painted black?"

The people laughed the more at that, for there was a fellow in the crowd looking sheepish.The Jackdaw had drawn out the scarf-pin, and held it gravely in its beak, looking sideways with cunning eyes.He was wishing hard.All the crowd laughed again.

Suddenly the showman's hand gave a jerk, the bottle slipped from his hold and fell, shivering itself upon the ground.

There was a buzz of wings—the fairy had escaped.

"The beautiful is coming true," thought the Jackdaw, as he yielded to the fairy her wand, and found, suddenly, that his wings were not clipped after all.

"What more can I do for you?"asked the fairy, as they flew away together."You gave me back my wand; I have given you back your wings."

"I will not ask anything," said the little Jackdaw; "what God intends will come true."

"Let me take you up to the moon," said the fairy."All the Jackdaws up there sing like nightingales."

"Why is that?"asked the little Jackdaw.

"Because they are all moon-struck," she answered.

"And what is it to be moon-struck?"he asked.

"Surely you should know, if anyone!"laughed the fairy."To see things beautifully, and not as they are.On the moon you will be able to do that without any difficulty."

"Ah," said the little Jackdaw, "now I know at last that the beautiful is going to come true!"

---

THE GENTLE COCKATRICE

FAR above the terraces of vine, where the goat pastures ended and the rocks began, the eye could take a clear view over the whole plain.From that point the world below spread itself out like a green map, and the only walls one could see were the white flanks and tower of the cathedral rising up from the grey roofs of the city; as for the streets, they seemed to be but narrow foot-tracks on which people appeared like ants walking.

This was the view of the town which Beppo, the son of the common hangman, loved best.It was little pleasure to him to be down there, where all the other lads drove him from their play: for the hangman had had too much to do with the fathers and brothers of some of them, and his son was not popular.When there was a hanging they would rush off to the public square to see it; afterwards they made it their sport to play at hanging Beppo, if by chance they could catch him; and that play had a way at times of coming uncomfortably near to reality.

Beppo did not himself go to the square when his father's trade was on; the near view did not please him.Perched on the rocky hillside, he would look down upon a gathering of black specks, where two others stood detached upon a space in their midst, and would know that there his father was hanging a man.

Sometimes it was more than one, and that made Beppo afraid.For he knew that for every man that he hanged his father took a dram to give him courage for the work; and if there were several poor fellows to be cast off from life, the hangman was not pleasant company afterwards for those very near and dear to him.

It happened one day that the hangman was to give the rope to five fellows, the most popular and devil-may-care rakes and roysterers in the whole town.Beppo was up very early that morning, and at the first streak of light had dropped himself over the wall into the town ditch, and was away for the open country and the free air of the hills; for he knew that neither at home nor in the streets would life be worth living for a week after, because of all the vengeances that would fall on him.

Therefore he had taken from the home larder a loaf of bread and a clump of dried figs; and with these hoped to stand the siege of a week's solitude rather than fall in with the hard dealings of his own kind.He knew a cave, above where the goats found pasture, out of which a little red, rusty water trickled; there he thought to make himself a castle and dream dreams, and was sure he would be happy enough, if only he did not grow afraid.

Beppo had discovered the cave one day from seeing a goat push out through a thicket of creepers on the side of the hill; and, hidden under their leaves, he had found it a wonderful, cool refuge from the heat of summer noons.Now, as he entered, the place struck very cold; for it was early spring, and the earth was not yet warmed through with the sun.So he set himself to gather dead grass, and briers, and tufts of goat's hair and from farther down the hillside the wood of a ruined goat-paddock, till he had a great store of fuel at hand. He worked all day like a squirrel for its winter hoard; and as his pile mounted he grew less and less afraid of the cave where he meant to live.

Seeing so large a heap of stuff ready for the feeding of his fire, he began to rise to great heights in his own imagination.First he had been a poor outlaw, a mere sheep-stealer hiding from men's clutches; then he became a robber-chief; and at last he was no less than the king of the mountains.

"This mountain is all caves," he said to himself, "and all the caves are full of gold; and I am the king to whom it all belongs."

In the evening Beppo lighted his fire, in the far back of his cave, where its light would not be seen, and sat down by its warmth to eat dried figs and bread and drink brackish water.To-morrow he meant to catch a kid and roast it and eat it.Why should he ever go home again?Kid was good—he did not get that to eat when he was at home; and now in the streets the boys must be looking for him to play at their cruel game of hanging.Why should he go back at all?

The fire licked its way up the long walls of the cavern; slowly the warmth crept round on all sides.The rock where Beppo laid his hand was no longer damp and cold; he made himself a bed of the dried litter in a niche close to the fire, laid his head on a smooth knob of stone, and slept.But even in his sleep he remembered his fire, dreading to awake and find himself in darkness.Every time the warmth of it diminished he raised himself and put on more fuel.

In the morning—for faint blue edges of light marking the ridged throat of the cavern told that outside the day had begun—he woke fully, and the fire still burned.As he lay, his pillow of rock felt warm and almost soft; and, strangely enough, through it there went a beating sound as of blood.This must be his own brain that he heard; but he lifted his head, and where he laid his hand could feel a slow movement of life going on under it.Then he stared hard at the overhanging rock, and surely it heaved softly up and down, like some great thing breathing slowly in its sleep.

Yet he could make out no shape at all till, having run to the other side of the cave, he turned to see the whole face of the rock which seemed to be taking on life.Then he realised very gradually what looked to be the throat and jaws of a great monster lying along the ground, while all the rest passed away into shadow or lay buried under masses of rock, which closed round it like a mould.Below the nether-jaw bone the flames licked and caressed the throat; and the tough, mud-coloured hide ruffled and smoothed again as if grateful for the heat that tickled its way in.

Very slowly indeed the great Cockatrice, which had lain buried for thousands of years, out of reach of the light or heat of the sun, was coming round again to life.That was Beppo's own doing, and for some very curious reason he was not afraid.

His heart was uplifted."This is my cave," thought he, "so this must be my Cockatrice!Now I will ride out on him and conquer the world.I shall be really a king then!"

He guessed that it must have been the warmth which had waked the Cockatrice, so he made fires all down the side of the cave; wherever the great flank of the Cockatrice seemed to show, there he lighted a fire to put heat into the slumbering body of the beast.

"Warm up, old fellow," he cried; "thaw out, I tell you!I want you to talk to me."

Presently the mouth of the Cockatrice unsealed itself, and began to babble of green fields."Hay—I want hay!"said the Cockatrice; "or grass.Does the world contain any grass?"

Beppo went out, and presently returned with an armful.Very slowly the Cockatrice began munching the fresh fodder, and Beppo, intent on feeding him back to life, ran to and fro between the hillside and the cavern till he was exhausted and could go no more.He sat down and watched the Cockatrice finish his meal.

Presently, when the monster found that his fodder was at an end, he puckered a great lid, and far up aloft in the wall of the cave flashed out a green eye.

If all the emeralds in the world were gathered together, they might shine like that; if all the glow-worms came up out of the fields and put their tails together, they might make as great an orb of fire.All the cave looked as green as grass when the eye of the Cockatrice lighted on it; and Beppo, seeing so mighty an optic turning its rays on him, felt all at once shrivelled and small, and very weak at the knees.

"Oh, Cockatrice," he said, in a monstrous sad voice, "I hope I haven't hurt you!"

"On the contrary," said the Cockatrice, "you have done me much good.What are you going to do with me now?"

"I do with you?" cried Beppo, astonished at so wild a possibility offering to come true."I would like to get you out, of course—but can I?"

"I would like that dearly also!"said the Cockatrice.

"But how can I?"inquired Beppo.

"Keep me warm and feed me," returned the monster."Presently I shall be able to find out where my tail is.When I can move that I shall be able to get out."

Beppo undertook whatever the Cockatrice told him—it was so grand to have a Cockatrice of his own.But it was a hard life, stoking up fires day and night, and bringing the Cockatrice the fodder necessary to replenish his drowsy being.When Beppo was quite tired out he would come and lay his head against the monster's snout: and the Cockatrice would open a benevolent eye and look at him affectionately.

"Dear Cockatrice," said the boy one day, "tell me about yourself, and how you lived and what the world was like when you were free!"

"Do you see any green in my eye?"said the Cockatrice.

"I do, indeed!"said Beppo."I never saw anything so green in all the world."

"That's all right, then!"said the Cockatrice."Climb up and look in, and you will see what the world was like when I was young."

So Beppo climbed and scrambled, and slipped and clung, till he found himself on the margin of a wonderful green lake, which was but the opening into the whole eye of the Cockatrice.

And as soon as Beppo looked, he had lost his heart for ever to the world he saw there.It was there, quite real before him: a whole world full of living and moving things—the world before the trouble of man came to it.

"I see green hills, and fields, and rocks, and trees," cried Beppo, "and among them a lot of little Cockatrices are playing!"

"They were my brothers and sisters; I remember them," said the Cockatrice."I have them all in my mind's eye.Call them—perhaps they will come and talk to you; you will find them very nice and friendly."

"They are too far off," said Beppo, "they cannot hear me."

"Ah, yes," murmured the Cockatrice, "memory is a wonderful thing!"

When Beppo came down again he was quite giddy, and lost in wonder and joy over the beautiful green world the Cockatrice had shown him."I like that better than this!"said he.

"So do I," said the Cockatrice."But perhaps, when my tail gets free, I shall feel better."

One morning he said to Beppo: "I do really begin to feel my tail.It is somewhere away down the hill yonder.Go and look out for me, and tell me if you can see it moving."

So Beppo went to the mouth of the cave, and looked out towards the city, over all the rocks and ridges and goat-pastures and slopes of vine that lay between.

Suddenly, as he looked, the steeple of the cathedral tottered, and down fell its weathercock and two of its pinnacles, and half the chimneys of the town snapped off their tops.All that distance away Beppo could hear the terrified screams of the inhabitants as they ran out of their houses in terror.

"I've done it!"cried the Cockatrice, from within the cave.

"But you mustn't do that!"exclaimed Beppo in horror.

"Mustn't do what?"inquired the Cockatrice.

"You mustn't wag your tail!You don't know what you are doing!"

"Oh, master!"wailed the Cockatrice; "mayn't I?For the first time this thousand years I have felt young again."

Beppo was pale and trembling with agitation over the fearful effects of that first tail-wagging."You mustn't feel young!"said he.

"Why not?"asked the Cockatrice, with a piteous wail.

"There isn't room in the world for a Cockatrice to feel young nowadays," answered Beppo gravely.

"But, dear little master and benefactor," cried the Cockatrice, "what did you wake me up for?"

"I don't know," replied Beppo, terribly perplexed."I wouldn't have done it had I known where your tail was."

"Where is it?"inquired the Cockatrice, with great interest.

"It's right underneath the city where I mean to be king," said Beppo; "and if you move it the city will come down; and then I shall have nothing to be king of."

"Very well," said the Cockatrice sadly; "I will wait!"

"Wait for what?"thought Beppo."Waiting won't do any good."And he began to think what he must do."You lie quite still!"said he to the Cockatrice."Go to sleep, and I will still look after you."

"Oh, little master," said the Cockatrice, "but it is difficult to go to sleep when the delicious trouble of spring is in one's tail!How long does this city of yours mean to stay there?I am so alive that I find it hard to shut an eye!"

"I will let the fires that keep you warm go down for a bit," said Beppo, "and you mustn't eat so much grass; then you will feel better, and your tail will be less of an anxiety."

And presently, when Beppo had let the fires which warmed him get low, and had let time go by without bringing him any fresh fodder, the Cockatrice dozed off into an uneasy, prehistoric slumber.

Then Beppo, weeping bitterly over his treachery to the poor beast which had trusted him, raked open the fires and stamped out the embers; and, leaving the poor Cockatrice to get cold, ran down the hill as fast as he could to the city he had saved—the city of which he meant to be king.

He had been away a good many days, but the boys in the street were still on the watch for him. He told them how he had saved the city from the earthquake; and they beat him from the city gate to his father's door. He told his own father how he had saved the city; and his father beat him from his own door to the city gate. Nobody believed him.

He lay outside the town walls till it was dark, all smarting with his aches and pains; then, when nobody could see him, he got up and very miserably made his way back to the cave on the hill.And all the way he said to himself, "Shall I put fire under the Cockatrice once more, and make him shake the town into ruins?Would not that be fine?"

Inside, the cave was quite still and cold, and when he laid his hand on the Cockatrice he could not feel any stir or warmth in its bones.Yet when he called, the Cockatrice just opened a slit of his green eye and looked at him with trust and affection.

"Dear Cockatrice," cried Beppo, "forgive me for all the wrong I have done you!"And as he clambered his way towards the green light, a great tear rolled from under the heavy lid and flowed past him like a cataract.

"Dear Cockatrice," cried Beppo again when he stood on the margin of the green lake, "take me to sleep with you in the land where the Cockatrices are at play, and keep quite still with your tail!"

Slowly and painfully the Cockatrice opened his eye enough to let Beppo slip through; and Beppo saw the green world with its playful cockatrices waiting to welcome him.Then the great eyelid shut down fast, and the waking days of the Cockatrice were over. And Beppo's native town lay safe, because he had learned from the Cockatrice to be patient and gentle, and had gone to be king of a green world where everything was harmless.

---

THE GREEN BIRD

THERE was once a Prince whose palace lay in the midst of a wonderful garden.From gate to gate was a day's journey, where spring, summer, and autumn stayed captive; for warm streams flowed, bordering its ways, through marble conduits, and warm winds, driven by brazen fans, blew over it out of great furnaces that were kept alive through the cold of winter.And day by day, when no sun shone in heaven, a ball of golden fire rose from the palace roof and passed down to the west, sustained invisibly in mid-air, and giving light and warmth to the flowers below.And after it by night went a lamp of silver flame, that changed its quarters as the moon changes hers in heaven, and threw a silver light over the lawns and the flowered avenues.

All these things were that the Prince might have delight and beauty ever around him.To his eyes summer was perpetual, without end, and nothing died save to give out new life on the morrow.So through many morrows he lived, and trod the beautiful soft ways devised for him by cunning hands, and did not know that there was winter, or cold, or hunger to be borne in the world, for he never crossed the threshold of his enchanted garden, but stayed lapped in the luxury of its bright colours and soft airs.

One day he was standing by a bed of large white bell-lilies.Their great bowls were full of water, and inside among the yellow stamens gold fish went darting to and fro. While he watched he saw, mirrored in the water, the breast of a green bird flying towards the trees of the garden.

It had come from a far country surely, for its shape and colour were strange to him; and the most curious thing of all was that it carried its nest in its beak.

Its flight came keen as a sword's edge through those bowery spaces, till its wings closed with a shock that sent the golden fruit tumbling from the branches where it had lodged: and through the whole garden went a crashing sound as of soft thunder.

The Prince waited long, hoping to hear the bird sing, but it hid itself silently among the thickest of the leaves, and never moved or uttered a sound.He went back to the palace a little sorry not to have heard the green bird sing; "But, at least," he said to himself, "I shall hear it to-morrow."

That night he dreamed that something came and tapped at his heart; and that his heart tapped back saying, "Go away, for if I let you in there will be sorrow!"

In the morning on the window-sill he saw a green feather lying; but as he opened the window a puff of wind lifted it, and carried it high up into the air and out of sight.

All that day the Prince saw nothing of the Green Bird, nor heard a note of its singing."Strange," thought he to himself, "I have never heard its song; yet I know quite well somehow that it sings most beautifully."At dusk, when the lilies began to close their globes around the gold fish and the yellow stamens, he went back to the palace, and before long to bed, and slept.

Once more he heard in dreams someone come tapping at his heart, and this time his heart said, "Who is there?"Then a voice answered back, "The Green Bird"; but his heart said, "Go away, for if I let you in there will be sorrow!"

Now it had been foretold of the Prince at his birth that if he ever knew sorrow, his wealth, and his estate, and his power would all go from him.Therefore from his childhood he had been shut up in a beautiful palace with miles and miles of enchanted gardens, so that sorrow might not get near him; and it was said that if ever sorrow came to him the palace and the enchanted gardens would suddenly fall into ruin and disappear, and he would be left standing alone to beg his way through the world.Therefore it was for this that his heart said in his dream, "Go away, for if I let you in there will be sorrow!"

In the morning a green feather lay on the window-sill; but as he opened the window the wind took it up and carried it away.

So the next night, as soon as his attendants were gone, the Prince got up softly and opening the window called "Green Bird!"

Then all at once he felt something warm against his heart, and suddenly his heart began to ache: and there was the green bird with its wings spread gently about him, keeping time ever so softly to the beating of his heart.

Then the Prince said, "Beautiful Green Bird, what have you brought me?"and the Green Bird answered, "I have brought you dreams out of a far-off country of things you never saw; if you will come and sleep in my nest you shall dream them."

So the Prince went out by the window and along the balcony, and so away into the garden and up into the heart of the great tree where the Green Bird had its nest.There he lay down, and the Green Bird spread its wings over him, and he fell fast asleep.

Now as he slept he dreamed that the Green Bird put in his hand three grains of seed saying, "Take these and keep them till you come to the right place to sow them in.And so soon as one is sown, go on till you come to the place where the next must be sown, following the signs which I shall tell you of.Now the first you must not sow till you find yourself in a white country, where the trees and the grass are white."(And the Prince said in his heart, "Where can I find that?") "And the second one you must not sow till you see a thing like a tortoise put out a small white hand."("And where," said the Prince, "can I meet with that wonder?") "And when you have seen the second sprout up through the ground, go on till you come again to a land you had lost and the place where you first knew sorrow."("And what is sorrow?"said the Prince to his heart.)"Then when you have sown the third seed and watched it sprout you will know perfect happiness, and will be able to hear the song which I sing."

Then the Green Bird lifted its wings and flew away through the night; and out of the darkness came three notes that filled the Prince with wonderful delight.

But afterwards, when they ceased, came sorrow.

Now, when the Prince woke he was in his own bed; and he rose much puzzled by the dream which had seemed so true.Then there came to him one of his pages who said, "There was a strange bird flying over the palace about dawn, and a watchman on the high tower shot it; so I have brought it for you to see."And as he spoke, the page showed him the Green Bird lying dead between his hands.

The Prince took it without a word, and kissed it before them all, afterwards burying it where the white lilies full of gold fishes grew, wherein he had first seen the image of its green breast fly.And as he stood sorrowing, the garden faded before his eyes, and a cold wind blew; and the palace which had its foundations on happiness crumbled away into ruin; and heaven came down kissing the earth and making it white.

He opened his hand and found in it three grains of seed, and then he knew that some of his dream was really coming to pass.For he saw the whole world was turning white before his eyes, all the trees and the grass; therefore he sowed the first grain of seed over the little grave that he had made, and set out over hill and dale to fulfil the dream that the Green Bird had given him."But the Green Bird I shall see no more!"he said, and wept.

For a year he went on through a waste and desolate country, meeting no man, nor discovering any sign.Till one day as he was coming down a mountain he saw at the bottom a hut with a round roof like a great tortoise; and when he got quite near, out of the door came a small white hand, palm upward, feeling to know if it rained. All at once he remembered the word of the Green Bird, and as he dropped the second seed into the ground it seemed to him that he heard again the three notes of its song.

A young girl looked out of the hut; "What do you want?"she said when she saw the Prince.He saw her eyes, how blue and smiling they were, and it seemed as if he had dreamed of them once."Let me stay here for a little," he said, "and rest.""If you will rest one day and work the next, you may," she answered.So he rested that day, and the next he worked at her bidding in a small patch of ground that was before the hut.

When the day was over and he had returned to the hut for the night, he looked again at the young girl, and seeing how beautiful she was, said, "Why are you here all alone, with no one to protect you?"And she answered, "I have come from my own country, which is very far away, in search of a beautiful Green Bird which while it was mine I loved greatly, and which one day flew away promising to return.When you came, something made me think the bird was with you, but perhaps to-morrow it will return."At that the Prince sighed in his heart, for he knew that the bird was dead.Then also she told him how in her own country she had been a Princess; so now she from whom the Green Bird had flown, and he to whom it had come, were living there together like beggars in a hut.

For a whole year he toiled and waited, hoping for the second seed to sprout; and at last one day, just where he had planted it, he saw a little spring rising out of the ground.When the Princess saw it, she clapped her hands, "Oh," she cried, "it is the sign I have waited for!If we follow it, it will take us to the Green Bird."But the Prince sighed, for in his heart he knew that the Green Bird was dead.

Yet he let her take his hand, and they two went on following the course of the spring till they came to a wild desolate place full of ruins; and as soon as they came to it the spring disappeared into the ground.

Then the Prince began to look about him, and saw that he was standing once more in the land that he had lost, above the very spot in the enchanted garden where he had buried the Green Bird and sorrowed over it.Then he stooped down, and set the last grain of seed into the ground; and as he did so, surely from below the soil came the three sweet notes of a song!Then all at once the earth opened and out of it grew a tree, tall and green and waving, and out of the midst of the tree flew the Green Bird with its nest in its beak.

The sun was setting; in the east rose a full red moon: grey mists climbed out of the grass.The Bird sang and sang and sang; every note had the splendour of palace-walls and towers, and gardens, and falling fountains.The Princess ran fast and let herself be caught in the Prince's arms while she listened.

Many times they hung together and kissed, and all the time the Bird sang on.

"I see the palace walls grow," said the Princess."They are high as the hills, and the garden covers the valleys: and the sun and the moon lighten it."And, in truth, round them a new palace had grown, and the Green Bird was building his nest in the roof.

---

THE MAN WHO KILLED THE CUCKOO

ONCE upon a time there was a man who lived in a small house with a large garden.He made his living by gardening, while his wife looked after the house.They were better off than most of their neighbours, but they were an envious couple who looked sourly over the hedge at all who passed by, and took no man's advice about anything.

At the end of the garden stood a large pear-tree: and one day the man was working in the shade beneath it, when a cuckoo came and perched itself on the topmost branch, crying "Cuckoo, cuckoo!"

The man looked up with a frown on his face, and cried, "Get out of my tree, you noisy thing!"But the cuckoo only sat and stared at the landscape, going up and down on its two notes like a musical see-saw.

The man stooped down, and took up a clod of earth and cast it at the cuckoo, which immediately flew away.

A neighbour who was passing at the time saw him, and said, "It's ill-luck to drive away cuckoos: you would be better not to do it again.""Do it again?"cried the man."If it comes into my tree again I'll kill it!""Nobody dares kill a cuckoo;" replied the neighbour, "it's against Providence.""I'll not only kill it, if it returns," exclaimed the man in a fury, "but I'll eat it too!""No, no," cried his neighbour, "you will think better of it. Even the parson daren't kill a cuckoo." "Wait and see if I don't better the parson, then!" growled the man, as he turned to go on with his work; "just wait and see!"

All the day he heard the cuckoo crying about in the field, now here, now there, but always somewhere close at hand.It seemed to be making a mock of him, for it always kept within sound, but never returned to the tree.When he left off work for the day, he went into the house and grumbled to his wife about that everlasting cuckoo."Did you see what a big one it was?"said his wife."I saw it as it sat in our tree this morning.""It will make all the bigger pie then," said the man, "if it comes again."

The next morning he had hardly begun to work, when the bird came and settled on the pear-tree over his head, and shouted "Cuckoo!"

Then the man took up a great stone, which he had by him ready, and aimed with all his might; his aim was so true, that the stone hit the bird on the side of the head, so that it fell down out of the tree into the grass in front of his feet.

"Wife," he shouted, "I've killed the cuckoo!Come and carry it in, and cook it for my dinner.""Oh, what a great fat one!"cried his wife, as she ran and picked it up by the neck; "and heavy!It feels as heavy as a turkey!"

She laid it in her apron, and went and sat in the doorway, and began plucking it, while her husband went on with his work.Presently she called to him, "Just look here at all these feathers!I never saw anything like it; there are enough to stuff a feather-bed!" He looked round, and saw the ground all covered with a great heap of feathers that had been plucked from the bird: enough, as she said, for a feather-bed.

"This is a new discovery," cried he, "that a cuckoo holds so many feathers.We can make our fortunes in this way, wife—I going about killing cuckoos, and you plucking them into feather-beds."

Then his wife carried the cuckoo indoors, and set it down to roast.But directly the spit began to turn, the cat jumped up from before the front of the fire, and ran away screaming.

The smell of the roast came out to the man as he worked in his garden. "How good it smells!" said he. "Don't you touch it, wife! You mustn't have a bit!" "I don't care if I don't," she replied: for she had watched it as it went turning on the spit; and up and down, up and down, it kept moving its wings!

When dinner-time came the man sat down, and his wife dished up the bird, and set it upon the table before him.He ate it so greedily that he ate it all—the bones, and the back, and the head, and the wings, and the legs down to the last claw.

Then he pushed back his plate, and cried, "So there's an end of him!"But just as he was about saying that, a voice from inside of him called, "Cuckoo!cuckoo!cuckoo!"

"Oh my heart and liver!"cried the man."What's that!"

Then his wife began laughing and jiggering at him. "It's because you were so greedy. If you had given me half of that cuckoo this wouldn't have happened. Now you see you are paid."

"Cuckoo!cuckoo!cuckoo!"cried the voice again from within.

"What have I done to myself?"cried the man, in an agony of terror."What a poisonous noise to come from a man's belly!I shall die of it, I know I shall!"

His wife only said, "See, then, what comes of being greedy."

He got up on to his feet, and looked down at his empty plate: there was not a scrap left on it.Then he put his hands to his sides, and shrieked, "I feel as if a windmill were turning round inside me!And I'm so light!Wife, hold me down—I'm going off my feet!"And as he spoke, he swung sideway, and began rising with a wobbling motion into the air.His wife caught him by the head, while his feet swung like the pendulum of a clock, and all the time a voice inside him kept calling, "Cuckoo!cuckoo!cuckoo!cuckoo!"

Presently it seemed to the unfortunate man as if the windmill had stopped, and he was able to strike the ground with his feet once more."Oh, blessed Mother Earth!"he cried, and began rubbing it up and down with his feet, and caressing it as if it had been a pet animal.But his face had grown very white.

"Put me to bed," he said to his wife; and she put him to bed on the top of the great feather-mattress which she had made only that morning from the cuckoo-pluckings.

The cuckoo kept him awake far into the night, and his wife herself could get no sleep; but towards morning he dozed off into a disturbed sort of slumber, and began to dream.

He felt his eyes turning inwards, so that he could see into the middle of his body.And there sat the cuckoo, like an unpleasant nestling, with great red eyes staring at him, and the wound on its head burning a blue flame.It seemed to grow and grow and grow, dislocating his bones, and thrusting aside his heart to make room for itself.Its wings seemed to be sawing out his ribs, and its head was pushed far up into his throat, where with its angry beak it seemed reaching to peck out his eyes."I will torment you for ever," said the bird."You shall have no peace until you let me go.I am the King of the Cuckoos; I will give you no rest.You will be surprised at what I can do to you; even in your despair you will be surprised."Then it drew down its head and pecked his heart, so that he woke in great pain.And as his eyes turned outwards he saw that it was morning.

"Wife," he said, before going out, "I feel as though, if I went out, I might be carried away, like a worm in a bird's beak.Fasten a chain round me, and drive it with a stake into the ground, and let me see if so I be able to work safely in my garden."

So his wife did as he told her; but whenever he caught hold of a spade the bird lifted him off his feet, so that he could not drive it into the ground.He wrung his hands and wailed, "Alas, alas!now my occupation is gone, and my wife and I shall become beggars!"

The villagers came and looked over the hedge, wagging their heads."Ah, you are the man who killed the cuckoo yesterday!and already you are come to this!"

Every day things got worse and worse.His wife used to have to hold him down and feed him with a spoon, for if he took up a knife to eat with, the bird hurled him upon it so violently as to put him in danger of his life.Also it kept him ceaselessly awake with its cry, so that he was worn to a shadow.

One day in the end of the month of June he heard a change come in its horrible singing; instead of crying "Cuckoo" as before, it now broke its note as is the cuckoo's habit to do before it goes abroad for the winter, and cried "Cuck-cuck-Cuckoo, cuck-cuck-Cuckoo!"Some sort of a hope came into the man's heart at that."Presently it will be winter," he thought to himself, "and the cuckoo must die then, even if I have to eat ice and snow to make him!if only I do not die first," he added, and groaned, for he was now indeed but a shadow.

Soon after this the cuckoo left off its crying altogether."Is he dead already?"thought the man.All the other cuckoos had gone out of the country: he grew quite happy with this new idea and began to put on flesh.

But one night, at the dead of night, the cuckoo felt a longing to be in lands oversea come into its wings.The man woke with a loud cry, and found himself sailing along through the air with only the stars overhead, and the feeling of a great windmill inside him.And the cuckoo was crying with a new note into the darkness: the cry it makes in far lands oversea which is never heard in this country at all: a cry so strange and terrible and wonderful that we have no word that will give the sound of it. This man heard it, and at the sound his hair went quite white with fright.

When his wife woke up in the morning, her husband was nowhere to be seen."So!"she said to herself, "the cuckoo has picked him up and thrown him away somewhere; and I suppose he is dead.Well, he was an uncomfortable husband to have; and it all came of being greedy."

She drew down the front blinds, and dressed herself in widow's mourning all through the winter; and the next spring told another man he might marry her if he liked.The other man happened to like the idea well enough, for there was a house and a nice garden for anyone who would have her.So the first fine day they went off to the Parson and got married.

It was a very fine day, and well on in spring: and just as they were coming back from the church they heard the note of a cuckoo.

The widow-bride felt a cold shiver go down her marrow."It does make one feel queer," she said; "that sound gave me quite a turn.""Hullo!look at him up there!"cried the man.She stared up, and there was her husband sailing through the air, looking more of a shadow than ever, and very miserable with the voice of the cuckoo calling across the land from the inside of him.

The cuckoo deposited him at his own doorstep in front of the bridal couple.

"O you miserable scare-crow!"said his wife, "whatever brought you back?" The unhappy man pointed below the surface, and the shut-up cuckoo spoke for him.

"And here I find you marrying yourself to another!"cried her returned spouse: but the other man had shrunk away in disgust and disappeared, so there was no more trouble with him.

But the old trouble was as bad as ever, the cuckoo was just as industrious in his cuckooings, and just as untimely: and the man went on wearing himself to a shadow with vexation and grief.

So all the summer went by, till again the cuckoo was heard to break its note into a double sound.But this time, no glimmer of hope came to the man's mind."Tie me fast to the bed," he said sorrowfully to his wife, "and keep me there, lest this demon of a bird carry me away again as he did last year; a thing which I could never survive a second time.Nay, give me a sheath-knife to keep always with me, for if he carry me away again I am resolved that he or I shall die."

So his wife gave him the sheath-knife, and by-and-by the bird became very quiet, so that they almost hoped he was dead from old age.

But one night, at the dead of night, into the birds wings came the longing to be once more in lands oversea.He stretched out his wings, and the man woke with a loud cry.And behold, there were he and his wife, sailing along under the stars tied into the feather-bed together, all complete and compact; and inside him was the feeling of a great windmill going round and round and round.

Then in despair he drew out his sheath-knife and cut himself open like a haggis. And on a sudden out flew the cuckoo, all plucked and bald and ready to roast. At the very same moment the bed-ticking burst, and away went the cuckoo with his feathers trailing after him, uttering through the darkness that strange terrible cry of the lands oversea.

But the man and his wife and the empty bed-ticking, they fell and they fell and they fell right down, till they got to the bottom of the deep blue sea; and there was an end of them.

---

A CHINESE FAIRY TALE

TIKI-PU was a small grub of a thing; but he had a true love of Art deep down in his soul.There it hung mewing and complaining, struggling to work its way out through the raw exterior that bound it.

Tiki-pu's master professed to be an artist: he had apprentices and students, who came daily to work under him, and a large studio littered about with the performances of himself and his pupils.On the walls hung also a few real works by the older men, all long since dead.

This studio Tiki-pu swept; for those who worked in it he ground colours, washed brushes, and ran errands, bringing them their dog chops and bird's nest soup from the nearest eating-house whenever they were too busy to go out to it themselves.He himself had to feed mainly on the breadcrumbs which the students screwed into pellets for their drawings and then threw about upon the floor.It was on the floor, also, that he had to sleep at night.

Tiki-pu looked after the blinds, and mended the paper window-panes, which were often broken when the apprentices threw their brushes and mahl-sticks at him.Also he strained rice-paper over the linen-stretchers, ready for the painters to work on; and for a treat, now and then, a lazy one would allow him to mix a colour for him.Then it was that Tiki-pu's soul came down into his finger-tips, and his heart beat so that he gasped for joy.Oh, the yellows and the greens, and the lakes and the cobalts, and the purples which sprang from the blending of them! Sometimes it was all he could do to keep himself from crying out.

Tiki-pu, while he squatted and ground at the colour-powders, would listen to his master lecturing to the students.He knew by heart the names of all the painters and their schools, and the name of the great leader of them all who had lived and passed from their midst more than three hundred years ago; he knew that too, a name like the sound of the wind, Wio-wani: the big picture at the end of the studio was by him.

That picture!To Tiki-pu it seemed worth all the rest of the world put together.He knew, too, the story which was told of it, making it as holy to his eyes as the tombs of his own ancestors.The apprentices joked over it, calling it "Wio-wani's back-door," "Wio-wani's night-cap," and many other nicknames; but Tiki-pu was quite sure, since the picture was so beautiful, that the story must be true.

Wio-wani, at the end of a long life, had painted it; a garden full of trees and sunlight, with high-standing flowers and green paths, and in their midst a palace."The place where I would like to rest," said Wio-wani, when it was finished.

So beautiful was it then, that the Emperor himself had come to see it; and gazing enviously at those peaceful walks, and the palace nestling among the trees, had sighed and owned that he too would be glad of such a resting-place.Then Wio-wani stepped into the picture, and walked away along a path till he came, looking quite small and far-off, to a low door in the palace wall. Opening it, he turned and beckoned to the Emperor; but the Emperor did not follow; so Wio-wani went in by himself, and shut the door between himself and the world for ever.

That happened three hundred years ago; but for Tiki-pu the story was as fresh and true as if it had happened yesterday.When he was left to himself in the studio, all alone and locked up for the night, Tiki-pu used to go and stare at the picture till it was too dark to see, and at the little palace with the door in its wall by which Wio-wani had disappeared out of life.Then his soul would go down into his finger-tips, and he would knock softly and fearfully at the beautifully painted door, saying, "Wio-wani, are you there?"

Little by little in the long-thinking nights, and the slow early mornings when light began to creep back through the papered windows of the studio, Tiki-pu's soul became too much for him.He who could strain paper, and grind colours, and wash brushes, had everything within reach for becoming an artist, if it was the will of Fate that he should be one.

He began timidly at first, but in a little while he grew bold.With the first wash of light he was up from his couch on the hard floor and was daubing his soul out on scraps, and odds-and-ends, and stolen pieces of rice-paper.

Before long the short spell of daylight which lay between dawn and the arrival of the apprentices to their work did not suffice him.It took him so long to hide all traces of his doings, to wash out the brushes, and rinse clean the paint-pots he had used, and on the top of that to get the studio swept and dusted, that there was hardly time left him in which to indulge the itching of his fingers.

Driven by necessity, he became a pilferer of candle-ends, picking them from their sockets in the lanterns which the students carried on dark nights.Now and then one of these would remember that, when last used, his lantern had had a candle in it, and would accuse Tiki-pu of having stolen it."It is true," he would confess; "I was hungry—I have eaten it."The lie was so probable, he was believed easily, and was well beaten accordingly.Down in the ragged linings of his coat Tiki-pu could hear the candle-ends rattling as the buffeting and chastisement fell upon him, and often he trembled lest his hoard should be discovered.But the truth of the matter never leaked out; and at night, as soon as he guessed that all the world outside was in bed, Tiki-pu would mount one of his candles on a wooden stand and paint by the light of it, blinding himself over his task, till the dawn came and gave him a better and cheaper light to work by.

Tiki-pu quite hugged himself over the results; he believed he was doing very well."If only Wio-wani were here to teach me," thought he, "I would be in the way to becoming a great painter!"

The resolution came to him one night that Wio-wani should teach him. So he took a large piece of rice-paper and strained it, and sitting down opposite "Wio-wani's back-door," began painting. He had never set himself so big a task as this; by the dim stumbling light of his candle he strained his eyes nearly blind over the difficulties of it; and at last was almost driven to despair. How the trees stood row behind row, with air and sunlight between, and how the path went in and out, winding its way up to the little door in the palace-wall were mysteries he could not fathom. He peered and peered and dropped tears into his paint-pots; but the secret of the mystery of such painting was far beyond him.

The door in the palace-wall opened; out came a little old man and began walking down the pathway towards him.

The soul of Tiki-pu gave a sharp leap in his grubby little body."That must be Wio-wani himself and no other!"cried his soul.

Tiki-pu pulled off his cap and threw himself down on the floor with reverent grovellings.When he dared to look up again Wio-wani stood over him big and fine; just within the edge of his canvas he stood and reached out a hand.

"Come along with me, Tiki-pu!"said the great one."If you want to know how to paint I will teach you."

"Oh, Wio-wani, were you there all the while?"cried Tiki-pu ecstatically, leaping up and clutching with his smeary little puds the hand which the old man extended to him.

"I was there," said Wio-wani, "looking at you out of my little window.Come along in!"

Tiki-pu took a heave and swung himself into the picture, and fairly capered when he found his feet among the flowers of Wio-wani's beautiful garden.Wio-wani had turned, and was ambling gently back to the door of his palace, beckoning to the small one to follow him; and there stood Tiki-pu, opening his mouth like a fish to all the wonders that surrounded him. "Celestiality, may I speak?" he said suddenly.

"Speak," replied Wio-wani; "what is it?"

"The Emperor, was he not the very flower of fools not to follow when you told him?"

"I cannot say," answered Wio-wani, "but he certainly was no artist."

Then he opened the door, that door which he had so beautifully painted, and led Tiki-pu in.And outside the little candle-end sat and guttered by itself, till the wick fell overboard, and the flame kicked itself out, leaving the studio in darkness and solitude to wait for the growings of another dawn.

It was full day before Tiki-pu reappeared; he came running down the green path in great haste, jumped out of the frame on to the studio floor, and began tidying up his own messes of the night, and the apprentices' of the previous day.Only just in time did he have things ready by the hour when his master and the others returned to their work.

All that day they kept scratching their left ears, and could not think why; but Tiki-pu knew, for he was saying over to himself all the things that Wio-wani, the great painter, had been saying about them and their precious productions.And as he ground their colours for them and washed their brushes, and filled his famished little body with the breadcrumbs they threw away, little they guessed from what an immeasurable distance he looked down upon them all, and had Wio-wani's word for it tickling his right ear all the day long.

Now before long Tiki-pu's master noticed a change in him; and though he bullied him, and thrashed him, and did all that a careful master should do, he could not get the change out of him.So in a short while he grew suspicious."What is the boy up to?"he wondered."I have my eye on him all day: it must be at night that he gets into mischief."

It did not take Tiki-pu's master a night's watching to find that something surreptitious was certainly going on.When it was dark he took up his post outside the studio, to see whether by any chance Tiki-pu had some way of getting out; and before long he saw a faint light showing through the window.So he came and thrust his finger softly through one of the panes, and put his eye to the hole.

There inside was a candle burning on a stand, and Tiki-pu squatting with paint-pots and brush in front of Wio-wani's last masterpiece.

"What fine piece of burglary is this?"thought he; "what serpent have I been harbouring in my bosom?Is this beast of a grub of a boy thinking to make himself a painter and cut me out of my reputation and prosperity?"For even at that distance he could perceive plainly that the work of this boy went head and shoulders beyond his, or that of any painter then living.

Presently Wio-wani opened his door and came down the path, as was his habit now each night, to call Tiki-pu to his lesson.He advanced to the front of his picture and beckoned for Tiki-pu to come in with him; and Tiki-pu's master grew clammy at the knees as he beheld Tiki-pu catch hold of Wio-wani's hand and jump into the picture, and skip up the green path by Wio-wani's side, and in through the little door that Wio-wani had painted so beautifully in the end wall of his palace!

For a time Tiki-pu's master stood glued to the spot with grief and horror."Oh, you deadly little underling!Oh, you poisonous little caretaker, you parasite, you vampire, you fly in amber!"cried he, "is that where you get your training?Is it there that you dare to go trespassing; into a picture that I purchased for my own pleasure and profit, and not at all for yours?Very soon we will see whom it really belongs to!"

He ripped out the paper of the largest window-pane and pushed his way through into the studio.Then in great haste he took up paint-pot and brush, and sacrilegiously set himself to work upon Wio-wani's last masterpiece.In the place of the doorway by which Tiki-pu had entered he painted a solid brick wall; twice over he painted it, making it two bricks thick; brick by brick he painted it, and mortared every brick to its place.And when he had quite finished he laughed, and called "Good-night, Tiki-pu!"and went home to be quite happy.

The next day all the apprentices were wondering what had become of Tiki-pu; but as the master himself said nothing, and as another boy came to act as colour-grinder and brush-washer to the establishment, they very soon forgot all about him.

In the studio the master used to sit at work with his students all about him, and a mind full of ease and contentment.Now and then he would throw a glance across to the bricked-up doorway of Wio-wani's palace, and laugh to himself, thinking how well he had served out Tiki-pu for his treachery and presumption.

One day—it was five years after the disappearance of Tiki-pu—he was giving his apprentices a lecture on the glories and the beauties and the wonders of Wio-wani's painting—how nothing for colour could excel, or for mystery could equal it.To add point to his eloquence, he stood waving his hands before Wio-wani's last masterpiece, and all his students and apprentices sat round him and looked.

Suddenly he stopped at mid-word, and broke off in the full flight of his eloquence, as he saw something like a hand come and take down the top brick from the face of paint which he had laid over the little door in the palace-wall which Wio-wani had so beautifully painted.In another moment there was no doubt about it; brick by brick the wall was being pulled down, in spite of its double thickness.

The lecturer was altogether too dumbfounded and terrified to utter a word.He and all his apprentices stood round and stared while the demolition of the wall proceeded.Before long he recognised Wio-wani with his flowing white beard; it was his handiwork, this pulling down of the wall!He still had a brick in his hand when he stepped through the opening that he had made, and close after him stepped Tiki-pu!

Tiki-pu was grown tall and strong—he was even handsome; but for all that his old master recognised him, and saw with an envious foreboding that under his arms he carried many rolls and stretchers and portfolios, and other belongings of his craft. Clearly Tiki-pu was coming back into the world, and was going to be a great painter.

Down the garden path came Wio-wani, and Tiki-pu walked after him; Tiki-pu was so tall that his head stood well over Wio-wani's shoulders—old man and young man together made a handsome pair.

How big Wio-wani grew as he walked down the avenues of his garden and into the foreground of his picture!and how big the brick in his hand!and ah, how angry he seemed!

Wio-wani came right down to the edge of the picture-frame and held up the brick."What did you do that for?"he asked.

"I ...didn't!"Tiki-pu's old master was beginning to reply; and the lie was still rolling on his tongue when the weight of the brick-bat, hurled by the stout arm of Wio-wani, felled him.After that he never spoke again.That brick-bat, which he himself had reared, became his own tombstone.

Just inside the picture-frame stood Tiki-pu, kissing the wonderful hands of Wio-wani, which had taught him all their skill."Good-bye, Tiki-pu!"said Wio-wani, embracing him tenderly."Now I am sending my second self into the world.When you are tired and want rest come back to me: old Wio-wani will take you in."

Tiki-pu was sobbing and the tears were running down his cheeks as he stepped out of Wio-wani's wonderfully painted garden and stood once more upon earth.Turning, he saw the old man walking away along the path towards the little door under the palace-wall.At the door Wio-wani turned back and waved his hand for the last time.Tiki-pu still stood watching him. Then the door opened and shut, and Wio-wani was gone. Softly as a flower the picture seemed to have folded its leaves over him.

Tiki-pu leaned a wet face against the picture and kissed the door in the palace-wall which Wio-wani had painted so beautifully."O Wio-wani, dear master," he cried, "are you there?"

He waited, and called again, but no voice answered him.

---

HAPPY RETURNS

BY the side of a great river, whose stream formed the boundary to two countries, lived an old ferryman and his wife.All the day, while she minded the house, he sat in his boat by the ferry, waiting to carry travellers across; or, when no travellers came, and he had his boat free, he would cast drag-nets along the bed of the river for fish.But for the food which he was able thus to procure at times, he and his wife might well have starved, for travellers were often few and far between, and often they grudged him the few pence he asked for ferrying them; and now he had grown so old and feeble that when the river was in flood he could scarcely ferry the boat across; and continually he feared lest a younger and stronger man should come and take his place, and the bread from his mouth.

But he had trust in Providence."Will not God," he said, "who has given us no happiness in this life, save in each other's help and companionship, allow us to end our days in peace?"

And his wife answered, "Yes, surely, if we trust Him enough He will."

One morning, it being the first day of the year, the ferryman going down to his boat, found that during the night it had been loosed from its moorings and taken across the river, where it now lay fastened to the further bank.

"Wife," said he "I can remember this same thing happening a year ago, and the year before also.Who is this traveller who comes once a year, like a thief in the night, and crosses without asking me to ferry him over?"

"Perhaps it is the good folk," said his wife."Go over and see if they have left no coin behind them in the boat."

The old man got on to a log and poled himself across, and found, down in the keel of the boat, the mark of a man's bare foot driven deep into the wood; but there was no coin or other trace to show who it might be.

Time went on; the old ferryman was all bowed down with age, and his body was racked with pains.So slow was he now in making the passage of the stream, that all travellers who knew those parts took a road higher up the bank, where a stronger ferryman plied.

Winter came; and hunger and want pressed hard at the old man's door.One day while he drew his net along the stream, he felt the shock of a great fish striking against the meshes down below, and presently, as the net came in, he saw a shape like living silver, leaping and darting to and fro to find some way of escape.Up to the bank he landed it, a great gasping fish.

When he was about to kill it, he saw, to his astonishment, tears running out of its eyes, that gazed at him and seemed to reproach him for his cruelty.As he drew back, the Fish said: "Why should you kill me, who wish to live?"

The old man, altogether bewildered at hearing himself thus addressed, answered: "Since I and my wife are hungry, and God gave you to be eaten, I have good reason for killing you."

"I could give you something worth far more than a meal," said the Fish, "if you would spare my life."

"We are old," said the ferryman, "and want only to end our days in peace.To-day we are hungry; what can be more good for us than a meal which will give us strength for the morrow, which is the new year?"

The Fish said: "To-night someone will come and unfasten your boat, and ferry himself over, and you know nothing of it till the morning, when you see the craft moored out yonder by the further bank."

The old man remembered how the thing had happened in previous years, directly the Fish spoke."Ah, you know that then!How is it?"he asked.

"When you go back to your hut at night to sleep, I am here in the water," said the Fish."I see what goes on."

"What goes on, then?"asked the old man, very curious to know who the strange traveller might be.

"Ah," said the Fish, "if you could only catch him in your boat, he could give you something you might wish for!I tell you this: do you and your wife keep watch in the boat all night, and when he comes, and you have ferried him into mid-stream, where he cannot escape, then throw your net over him and hold him till he pays you for all your ferryings."

"How shall he pay me?All my ferryings of a lifetime!"

"Make him take you to the land of Returning Time. There, at least, you can end your days in peace."

The old man said: "You have told me a strange thing; and since I mean to act on it, I suppose I must let you go.If you have deceived me, I trust you may yet die a cruel death."

The Fish answered: "Do as I tell you, and you shall die a happy one."And, saying this he slipped down into the water and disappeared.

The ferryman went back to his wife supperless, and said to her: "Wife, bring a net, and come down into the boat!"And he told her the story of the Fish and of the yearly traveller.

They sat long together under the dark bank, looking out over the quiet and cold moonlit waters, till the midnight hour.The air was chill, and to keep themselves warm they covered themselves over with the net and lay down in the bottom of the boat.It was the very hour when the old year dies and the new year is born.

Before they well knew that they had been asleep, they started to feel the rocking of the boat, and found themselves out upon the broad waters of the river.And there in the fore-part of the boat, clear and sparkling in the moonlight, stood a naked man of shining silver.He was bending upon the pole of the boat, and his long hair fell over it right down into the water.

The old couple rose up quietly, and unwinding themselves from the net, threw it over the Silver Man, over his head and hands and feet, and dragged him down into the bottom of the boat.

The old man caught the ferry pole, and heaved the boat still into the middle of the stream. As he did so a gentle shock came to the heart of each; feebly it fluttered and sank low. "Oh, wife!" sighed the old man, and reached out his hand for hers.

The Silver Man lay still in the folds of the net, and looked at them with a wise and quiet gaze."What would you have of me?"he said, and his voice was far off and low.

They said, "Bring us into the land of Returning Time."

The Silver Man said: "Only once can you go there, and once return."

They both answered "We wish once to go there, and once return."

So he promised them that they should have the whole of their request; and they unloosed him from the net, and landed altogether on the further bank.

Up the hill they went, following the track of the Silver Man.Presently they reached its crest; and there before them lay all the howling winter of the world.

The Silver Man turned his face and looked back; and looking back it became all young, and ruddy, and bright.The ferryman and his wife gazed at him, both speechless at the wonderful change.He took their hands, making them turn the way by which they had come; below their feet was a deep black gulf, and beyond and away lay nothing but a dark starless hollow of air.

"Now," said their guide, "you have but to step forward one step, and you shall be in the land of Returning Time."

They loosed hold of his hands, joined clasp, husband with wife, and at one step upon what seemed gulf beneath their feet, found themselves in a green and flowery land.There were perfumed valleys and grassy hills, whose crops stretched down before the breeze; thick fleecy clouds crossed their tops, and overhead amid a blue air rang the shrill trilling of birds.Behind lay, fading mistily as a dream, the bare world they had left; and fast on his forward road, growing small to them from a distance, went the Silver Man, a shining point on the horizon.

The ferryman and his wife looked, and saw youth in each other's faces beginning to peep out through the furrows of age; each step they took made them grow younger and stronger; years fell from them like worn-out rags as they went down into the valleys of the land of Returning Time.

How fast Time returned!Each step made the change of a day, and every mile brought them five years back towards youth.When they came down to the streams that ran in the bed of each valley, the ferryman and his wife felt their prime return to them.He saw the gold come back into her locks, and she the brown into his.Their lips became open to laughter and song."Oh, how good," they cried, "to have lived all our lives poor, to come at last to this!"

They drank water out of the streams, and tasted the fruit from the trees that grew over them; till presently, being tired for mere joy, they lay down in the grass to rest.They slept hand within hand and cheek against cheek, and, when they woke, found themselves quite young again, just at the age when they were first married in the years gone by.

The ferryman started up and felt the desire of life strong in his blood."Come!"he said to his wife, "or we shall become too young with lingering here.Now we have regained our youth, let us go back into the world once more!"

His wife hung upon his hand, "Are we not happy enough," she asked, "as it is?Why should we return?"

"But," he cried, "we shall grow too young; now we have youth and life at its best let us return!Time goes too fast with us; we are in danger of it carrying us away."

She said no further word, but followed up towards the way by which they had entered.And yet, in spite of her wish to remain, as she went her young blood frisked.Presently coming to the top of a hill, they set off running and racing; at the bottom they looked at each other, and saw themselves boy and girl once more.

"We have stayed here too long!"said the ferryman, and pressed on.

"Oh, the birds," sighed she, "and the flowers, and the grassy hills to run on, we are leaving behind!"But still the boy had the wish for a man's life again, and urged her on; and still with every step they grew younger and younger.At length, two small children, they came to the border of that enchanted land, and saw beyond the world bleak and wintry and without leaf.Only a further step was wanted to bring them face to face once more with the hard battle of life.

Tears rose in the child-wife's eyes: "If we go," she said, "we can never return!"Her husband looked long at her wistful face; he, too, was more of a child now, and was forgetting his wish to be a man again.

He took hold of her hand and turned round with her, and together they faced once more the flowery orchards, and the happy watered valleys.

Away down there light streams tinkled, and birds called.Downwards they went, slowly at first, then with dancing feet, as with shoutings and laughter they ran.

Down into the level fields they ran; their running was turned to a toddling; their toddling to a tumbling; their tumbling to a slow crawl upon hands and feet among the high grass and flowers; till at last they were lying side by side, curled up into a cuddly ball, chuckling and dimpling and crowing to the insects and birds that passed over them.

Then they heard the sweet laughter of Father Time; and over the hill he came, young, ruddy, and shining, and gathered them up sound asleep on the old boat by the ferry.