Jean Ingelow

“ So the Lark lifted up one of his feet, which he had kept hidden in the long grass, lest any one should see it.
"It looks certainly very fierce," said the Fairy. "Your hind claw is at least an inch long, and all your toes have very dangerous-looking points. Are, you sure you never use them to fight with?"
"No, never!" said the Lark, earnestly; "I never fought a battle in my life; but yet these claws grow longer and longer, and I am so ashamed of their being seen that I very often lie in the grass instead of going up to sing, as I could wish." ”

“ But Hulda did not die. See what a good thing it is to be kind. The soft, warm air of the south revived her by degrees—so much, that by the end of the year she could walk in the public garden and delight in the warm sunshine; in another month she could ride with her father to see all the strange old castles in that neighborhood, and by the end of February she was as well as ever she had been in her life; and all this came from her desire to do good to the fairy by going to the south. ”

“ She had a white robe on, a little crown on her long yellow hair; there were two wings on her shoulders, just like the downy brown wings of a butterfly, and in her hand she had a little sceptre sparkling with precious stones.
"Only one wish," she said, jumping down on to the table, and speaking with the smallest little voice you ever heard. "Your fathers and mothers were always contented if we gave them one wish every year."
As she spoke, Hulda's mother gave a slice of cake to each child, and, when Hulda took hers, out dropped the ring, and fell clattering on her platter. ”

“ The old nurse came out to fetch Hulda. She had been looking all over the castle for her, and been wondering where she could have hidden herself.
In Norway, at midsummer, the nights are so short that the sun only dips under the hills time enough to let one or two stars peep out before he appears again. The people, therefore, go to bed in the broad sunlight.
"Child," said the old nurse, "look how late you are—it is nearly midnight. Come, it is full time for bed. This is Midsummer day."
"Midsummer day!" repeated Hulda. "Ah, how sorry I am! Then this is a day when I might have seen the fairy. ”

“ How is that quarrelsome Lark who found such a pretty brown mate the other day?"
"He is not a quarrelsome bird indeed," replied the Grasshopper. "I wish you would not say that he is."
"Oh, well, we need not quarrel about that," said the Fairy, laughing; "I have seen the world, Grasshopper, and I know a few things, depend upon it. Your friend the Lark does not wear those long spurs for nothing."
The Grasshopper did not choose to contend with the Fairy, who all this time was busily fitting yellow slippers to her tiny feet. ”

“ He looked up, and his fairy benefactress was at his side, standing on the arm of his chair.
"'O wonderful enchantress!' said the dreaming painter, 'do not vanish before I have had time to thank you for your magic gift. I have nothing to offer you but my gratitude in return; for the diamonds of this world are too heavy for such an ethereal being, and the gold of this world is useless to you who have no wants that it can supply. The fame I have acquired I cannot impart to you, for few of my race believe in the existence of yours. ”

“ She had no sooner laid her head on the pillow than she heard it again; and, turning round quickly to look at the bracelet, she saw the little bird fluttering its wings, and close to it, with her hands covering her face, the beautiful, long lost fairy.
"Oh, fairy, fairy! what have I done!" said Hulda. "You will never see your wand again. The gnome has got it, and he has carried it down under the ground, where he will hide it from us forever." ”

“ Little Hulda only remembered it, and she carefully enclosed the beautiful sceptre in a small box. But Midsummer day passed by, and several other Midsummer days, and still Hulda saw nothing and heard nothing of the fairy. She then began to fear that she must be dead, and it was a long time since she had looked at the wand, when one day in the middle of the Norway summer, as she was playing on one of the deep bay windows of the castle, she saw a pedlar with a pack on his back coming slowly up the avenue of pine-trees, and singing a merry song. ”

“ Kitty was very much bewildered at this; but how much more when she saw her husband seize the mayor—yes, the very mayor himself—and shake him so hard that he actually shook his head off, and it rolled under the dresser! "If I had not seen this with my own eyes," said Kitty, "I could not have believed it—even now it does not seem at all real."
All the aldermen wrung their hands.
"Murder! murder!" cried the maid.
"Yes," said the aldermen, "this woman and her husband must immediately be put to death, and the baby must be taken from them and made a slave." ”

“ If I were a goldfinch, and had yellow bars on my wings, or a robin, and had red feathers on my breast, I should not mind the defect which now I am afraid to show. But I am only a poor brown Lark, and I know I shall never get a wife."
"I never heard of such an unreasonable bird," said the Fairy. "You cannot expect to have everything."
"Oh, but you don't know," proceeded the Lark, "that if I fly up my feet will be seen; and no other bird has feet like mine. My claws are enough to frighten any one, they are so long; and yet I assure you, Fairy, I am not a cruel bird." ”

“ So the two dogs stood staring at him; but the pedlar was too cunning for them. He looked out of the window, and said, "I think I see the master coming," upon which they both turned to look across the heath, and the pedlar snatched up the opal ring, and hid it in his vest. When they turned around he was folding up his trinkets again as calmly as possible. "One cannot be too careful to count one's goods," he said, gravely. "Honest people often get cheated in houses like these, and honest as these two dogs look, I know where one of them hid that leg-of-mutton bone that he stole yesterday!" ”

“ Little Hulda watched her till her pretty wings were lost in the blue distance; then she turned and took her bracelet, and put it on her wrist, where, from that day forward, she always wore it night and day.
Hulda now grew tall, and became a fair young maiden, and she often wished for the day when she might go down to the south, that she might have a better chance of seeing the cruel gnome, and as she sat at work in her room alone she often asked the bird to sing to her, but he never sang any other songs than the two she had heard at first. ”

“ She had been several days wandering about in search of adventures, when one afternoon she came back to the old oak-tree, because she wanted a new pair of shoes, and there were none to be had so pretty as those made of the yellow snapdragon flower in the hedge hard by.
While she was fitting on her shoes, she saw the Lark's friend.
"WHILE SHE WAS FITTING ON HER SHOES, SHE SAW THE LARK'S FRIEND."
"How do you do, Grasshopper?" asked the Fairy.
"Thank you, I am very well and very happy," said the Grasshopper; "people are always so kind to me." ”

“ At length, one day, a venerable man of a noble presence was brought to the tower, with soldiers to guard him and slaves to attend him. The prince was glad of his presence, though at first he seldom opened his lips, and it was manifest that confinement made him miserable. With restless feet he would wander from window to window of the stone tower, and mount from story to story; but mount as high as he would there was still nothing to be seen but the vast, unvarying plain, clothed with scanty grass, and flooded with the glaring sunshine ”

“ The gold had disappeared from the water, and the forest was dense and gloomy. He arose with the lily in his hand, went slowly home, laid it in a casket to protect it from injury, and then proceeded to search for the palette, which he shortly found; and, lest he should break the spell, he began to use it that very night.
"Who would not like to have a fairy friend? Who would not like to work with a magic palette? Every day its virtues become more apparent. ”

“ Did I boast too much of their beauty?"
"Oh, no!" said Hulda, "I did not think there had been anything so beautiful in the world. I did not think even our queen had such fine jewels as these. Thank you, pedlar, for the sight of them."
"Will you buy something, then, of a poor man?" answered the pedlar. "I've travelled a great distance, and not sold anything this many a day."
"I should be very glad to buy," said little Hulda, "but I have scarcely any money; not half the price of one of these jewels, I am sure."
Now there was lying on the table an ancient signet-ring set with a large opal. ”

“ He was answered that the girdles were very tight and heavy, and being bound over the regions of the heart, were supposed to impede its action, and prevent it from beating high, and also to chill the wearer, as, being of opaque material, the warm sunshine of the earth could not get through to warm them.
"Why, then, do they, not break them asunder," exclaimed the prince, "and fling them away?"
"Break them asunder!" cried the man; "why, what a madman you must be; they are made of the purest gold!" ”

“ I hope he is not looking after my baby; he shall not have him, let him offer ever so much."
The more the wife talked, the more the husband laughed at her fears, till at length he fell asleep, whilst she lay awake, thinking and thinking, till by degrees she forgot her fears, and began to wonder what they might expect by way of reward. Hours appeared to pass away during these thoughts. At length, to her great surprise, while it was still quite dark, her husband called to her from below:
"Come down, Kitty; only come down to see what the Ouphe has left us." ”

“ No one in these parts cared at all for his pictures. His mother's friends told him he would never get his bread by painting; his mother herself was sorry that he chose to waste his leisure so; and the more because the pictures on her walls were brighter far than his, and had clouds and trees of far clearer color, not like the common clouds and misty hills that he was so fond of painting, and his faintly colored distant forest, with uncertain and variable hues, such as she could see any day when she looked out at her window. ”

“ Still the Lark looked at his spurs, and seemed to be very deep in thought.
"If I had only laid my eggs on the other side of the hedge," sighed the poor mother, "among the corn, there would have been plenty of time to rear my birds before harvest time."
"My dear," answered her mate, "don't be unhappy." And so saying, he hopped up to the eggs, and laying one foot upon the prettiest, he clasped it with his long spurs. Strange to say, it exactly fitted them. ”

“ Hulda's grandmother had also dropped a ring into this cake before it was put into the oven, and it is well known that whoever gets such a ring in his or her slice of cake has only to wish for something directly, and the fairies are bound to give it, if they possibly can. There have been cases known when the fairies could not give it, and then, of course, they were not to blame.
On this occasion the children said: "Let us all be ready with our wishes, because sometimes people have been known to lose them from being so long making up their minds when the ring has come to them." ”

“ The pedlar's hand trembled with anxiety as he held it out for the wand, but the moment he had got possession of it all his politeness vanished.
"There," he said, "you have got a very handsome bracelet in your hand. It is worth a great deal more than the wand. You may keep it. I have no time to waste; I must be gone." So saying, he hastily snatched up the rest of his jewels, thrust them into his pack, and slung it over his shoulder, leaving Hulda looking after him with the bracelet in her hand. ”

“ The woodman looked very pale and miserable, though he often said what a fine thing it was to be rich. He never thought of going to his work, and used generally to sit in the kitchen till dinner was ready, watching the spit. Kitty wished she could see him looking as well and cheerful as in old days, though she felt naturally proud that her husband should always be dressed like a gentleman, namely, in a blue coat, red waistcoat, and top-boots. ”

“ I am fain to believe that they can procure with it whatever they most desire, and yet that it cankers their hearts and dazzles their eyes; that it is their nature and their duty to gather it; and yet that, when once gathered, the best thing they can do is to scatter it! ”

“ I shall come here always in the middle of the day, when the sun is too hot, and count over my gains. How hard my mistress, the Lizard, makes me work! Who would have thought she would have wished to deck her green head with opals down there, where there are only a tribe of brown gnomes to see her? But I have not given her that one out of the ring which I stole, nor three others that I conjured out of the crozier of the priest as I knelt at the altar, and they thought I was rehearsing a prayer to the Virgin. ”

“ The pedlar was very much delighted to hear this. However, he pretended to be disappointed.
"It is very unfortunate," he said, "that your honored parents are not at home, for I have got some things here of such wonderful beauty that nothing could have given them so much pleasure as to have feasted their eyes with the sight of them—rings, bracelets, lockets, pictures—in short, there is nothing beautiful that I have not got in my pack, and if your parents could have seen them they would have given all the money they had in the world rather than not have bought some of them." ”

“ Kitty often cried herself to sleep—a thing she had never done when they were poor; she thought it was very strange that she should be a lady, and yet not be happy. Every morning when the woodman was sober they invented new plans for making themselves happy, yet, strange to say, none of them succeeded, and matters grew worse and worse. At last Kitty thought she should be happy if she had a coach; so she went to the place where the knapsack was buried, and began to dig ”

“ And sings to the Lizard a wonderful song.
And he gives the white stone to that Lizard fell,
For he fears it—and loves it passing well."
"What!" said Hulda, "did the pedlar steal my mother's ring—that old opal ring which I told him I could not let him have?"
"Child," replied the fairy, "be not sorry for his treachery; this theft I look to for my last hope for recovering the wand."
"How so?" asked Hulda.
"It is a common thing among mortals," replied the fairy, "to say the thing which is not true, and do the thing which is not honest ”

“ So the poor Lark moaned and lamented, and neither the Grasshopper nor the Fairy could do anything to help her. At last her mate dropped down from the white cloud where he had been singing, and when he saw her drooping, and the Grasshopper and the Fairy sitting silently before her, he inquired in a great fright what the matter was.
So they told him, and at first he was very much shocked; but presently he lifted first one and then the other of his feet, and examined his long spurs.
"He does not sympathize much with his poor mate," whispered the Fairy ”