W. W. Tarn

“ There are many worse things in the world than setting out to climb Heleval on a beautiful morning on the first of October, when the grass in unsunned corners is still pearly with the frost of the night, and the whole earth is touched with the wonderful caress of the cool autumn sunshine. Fiona's way lay along the shore road, past the bank of heather and fern which in August had been gay with flowers, napperd and potentilla, blue milkwort and starry eye-bright, and alive with butterflies, blues and small heaths and pearl-bordered fritillaries ”

“ THE HAUNTED CAVE
A sunlit sheet of sea, violet and azure, clothed in slender cloud shadows and heaving gently to the long Atlantic ground-swell. Up through the calm water, to meet the eye of the gazer, came the green clearness of stone, and blinks of unveined sand showing white between the brown tangled blades of the great oar-weed; and you might see a school of little cuddies, heads all one way, playing hide and seek in the sea forest, and caring no whit for the clumsy armored crab beneath them, who crawled sideways, a laborious patch of color in the shimmering transparency. ”

“ Near the water-line grew a little seaweed, and some white whelks clung; but as they went down the waterway these vanished, and gray cliff and green water alike began to turn black. Looking back, Fiona could see a bright patch, a patch of sky and sky-reflecting sea, framed in the narrow slit of the cave's mouth. The waterway was narrowing now; she shipped her oars and stood up, using one as a paddle, and instructing the Urchin how to fend off the boat's stern with his hands. ”

“ How old do you think I am?"
"You look about seventeen," said Fiona.
"I am exactly as old as Heleval," said the girl. "And that is more hundreds of thousands of years than you or I could ever count. I am older than any of the fishes or birds or beasts; far older than men or fairies. Look at that," and the Oread swept her arm over the glorious [Pg 107] prospect around her; the two great wings of the Isle of Mist stretched far out into the sea, the Atlantic throbbing and sparkling under the blue sky, and across the loch the jagged gray range of the Cuchullins, peak upon peak. ”

“ They balanced themselves against the gusts, and felt the tingling drops of salt spray rattle like hail off their coats, while they watched the cliff waterfalls, unable to fall for the wind, go straight up heavenward in clouds of smoke, and the sea foam and tear at the rocks below; and once for a moment the cloud-mist parted, and the hills started out, their dark sides all gashed and seamed with white streaks where every tiny runlet and burn was rushing in spate down toward the sea. ”

“ The two children had grounded their boat on a little pebble beach between the rocks, and were sitting on a big tuft of sea pinks, munching handfuls of the sweet dulse and watching the solan at his fishing. They were by way of fishing themselves, but the afternoon was as yet too early and too clear for them. The Urchin had a pile of stones beside him, and was apparently trying to see how many times in twenty he could miss a large and obvious spur of rock. Fiona had a book of poetry, and was making intermittent efforts to read; but the world was too full of things to give poetry a fair chance. ”

“ For to some of us the old house is full of dreams, that cling to the dark passages and the uneven floors, and play in and out of the little windows that are still propped open with wood, as they were a hundred years ago; dreams of the bright lights and the bright voices that greeted us, coming in out of the blinding rain; dreams of the dance and the song, songs of old lost causes from which all bitterness has died away, leaving to-day nothing but beauty behind them ”

“ Fiona felt that every atom of life and force in her was being concentrated on that one act of will; she did not think she could go through with it many seconds longer, or she would collapse. And then the Urchin turned his head toward her; his face was scarlet, and his eyes were wavering before the fixed gaze of her own; he must do as she wished. She flung everything into one supreme effort—the last reserves which no one thinks they possess till utter necessity teaches them the contrary ”

“ You can walk now through the crowded city and never know it, for the wind from the heather will be about you [Pg 191] where you go; you can stand in the tumult of men and never hear them, for round you will be the silence of your own sea. That is the treasure of the Isle of Mist; the island has given you of its soul. You have found greater things already; you will find greater things yet again. But such as it is, it is the best gift which we of the fairy world have to give. ”

“ And then the sea came up, and the river carved Heleval out as you see it, and shrank away, and my sisters the Naiads shrank away with it; and the island was covered with great forests, and my sisters the Hamadryads came out of the tree-trunks and taught us mountain spirits the tree dance, and we danced it all night in the forest glades, till one night men saw; and men felled the forests to capture my sisters of the trees and enslave them, but they vanished as the trees vanished. And to-day only the hills are left, and we, the Oreads, a people few and fading away ”

“ Black and white are only different aspects of the same thing, you know. And as soon as you begin to think about it, you see at once how sensible it is. Well, a treasure-hunt and a boy-hunt are only different aspects of a hunt, aren't they? Therefore they are the same thing. Therefore what does for one does for the other. Therefore you go up a hill. There's logic for you," and once more he swelled proudly.
"Thank you very much," said Fiona. "And now will you please tell me where the Urchin is?"
"Tell you!" exclaimed the centipede. ”

“ And on either side of the throne, on a stool, sat a strange creature, a little wizened elf with a large book on his knee. One wore a white cap, and he bore an inkhorn and a bundle of long quills; the other wore a black cap, and he bore a penknife.
Fiona edged herself as far forward as she could into the ring of strange beings, and found herself next an old Leprechaun with a face like a wrinkled apple, who seemed quite inclined to be friendly.
"A human!" he said. "We do not see as many as we used to. But they say there are two to be tried to-night. ”

“ Artemis shivered.
"To his own place, I hope," said Artemis severely. "Well brought up dogs should not be asked to associate with things like that."
"But it was only the new shepherd," said Fiona.
"There's the new shepherd," said Artemis, nodding toward a distant slope, where a figure with a brown collie could be seen gathering sheep.
"What were they, then?" asked Fiona.
"Two of the Little People, of course," said Apollo. "Oh dear, oh dear, I'm afraid you'll have trouble."
"One generally dies," said Artemis, with cheerful consolation. ”

“ Directly breakfast was over they launched the little boat, and started. The snow shone white in the sunshine, and the calm sea against the snow was as blue as a blue lotus; but the shadows on the snow were a wonder, and the woven complexity of their colorings would [Pg 187] have taxed every hue on an artist's palette. So they pulled down and into the cave, at whose mouth the great bluff looked barer and blacker than ever against the world's whiteness; and they grounded their boat and climbed the rock barrier. There the Student sat down and filled and lit his pipe. ”

“ Fiona managed to shout, with her clear young voice, "No one can really love this island who only knows it in summer;" and then they went home, out of the dusk and the lashing of the wet wind, to the quiet bookroom and tea things, and lamps, and books; for man may love Nature, but he loves still better the contrast between Nature and the things which he has fashioned for himself. ”

“ And then, just as it seemed impossible to fight a way farther through the dense jungle, she came to the open glade. Full of grass and flowers and sunshine it was, and across it ran a gurgling brook, crossed by a little plank bridge; a sweet breeze moved the grass, and beyond the brook two little spotted deer were feeding; far in the distance were tiny peaks of snow. The soft fingers were all tugging at Fiona's dress, impelling her down the glade; but she had had ample warning of those soft fingers, [Pg 137] and she saw that the feather pointed straight on through the tangled forest. ”

“ He dimly remembers that he began his evolution, not as a pair, but as a horde; and to the horde he still seeks, forming huge crowds during his working days, and on his holidays merely transferring the same crowds in their totality to some other place, accompanied by a great deal of purposeless noise. Apart from his crowd he apparently feels chilly, and without noise unhappy. Nothing is more striking to the reflective mind than the abdication of civilization in the face of meaningless noises."
"Daddy," said Fiona, "I want your advice on the matter of treasure hunting. ”

“ I suppose he invited them in some way; they could have no power otherwise."
"He said he would go anywhere to find his treasure," said Fiona.
"That would be quite sufficient for them to act on," said the Student.
"Then the stories about the cruelty of the Little People are true," asked Fiona.
"Only in part," said the Student. "I take it that they are all sorts, like ourselves. They are, as you know, the vanished débris of all the peoples that have helped to make this planet what it is. Good people, many of them. But they cannot altogether love those who have driven them under the ground." ”

“ If your people were [Pg 20] as bad shots as you, Urchin, it must have been quite easy. You can't hit a bird sitting."
"Can't I?" said the Urchin. "You watch." Another fling, and horrors! the shore lark rolled over, twittering helplessly and miserably.
Fiona was across the rocks like a young goat; and when the Urchin, contrite but defiant, arrived, she had the wounded bird in her hands and was holding it to her breast, feeling gently for its hurt. It lay quite still, panting, and watching her with quick bright eyes.
"Broken wing," she said. "I believe it will mend. Urchin, you are a mere beast. ”

“ She passed on through the lemon orchard, and out on to a bare hillside, rough with stones and dotted here and there with great oak trees; plants of asphodel were thrusting their blossoms up among the coarse tufts of grass, and far below, in all its laughing splendor, lay the sea. ”

“ Fiona's will let go with a snap; she felt so dizzy that she had to lean against one of the great toadstools or she would have fallen. Round the assemblage ran a sound like the wind through the tree tops, the noise of [Pg 170] thousands drawing in breath at once; and the Chancellor started a war dance on his stack of books, and nearly fell off on his head. The King rose from his throne, but he took no notice of the Urchin; he turned straight to Fiona and bowed to her. ”

“ Fiona nodded and called the setters to heel; the shepherd waved his hand, and the black collie came racing to him. Some collies will work a ground like a spaniel, and some will even do a little pointing, but the black collie troubled himself neither with one nor the other. When the shepherd spoke to him, he just cantered straight forward to a small patch of heather on the sunless side of a rock, where the frost still lingered, and there sat [Pg 122] down quite unconcerned, as though the matter in hand were altogether beneath the scope of his talents. ”

“ But Fiona had learnt her lesson, and she looked at her feather; and the feather pointed straight along the hillside. So she passed on without a look or a word; and as she passed came a noise as of the earth opening; and the pillars of the temple bowed themselves, and the middle of the building collapsed stone by stone, till only the outer columns remained among a mass of fallen blocks, and triglyph and metope and sculptured frieze lay in fragments about them. And among the ruins a red fox with two cubs sat and snarled, as she watched a company of toads crawling in the dust ”

“ It is probably simpler for the Urchin to become a fairy than for an egg to become a bird, or a caterpillar a butterfly. It would not be nearly as strange as it is that there is a water beast which can shed its gills and become a land beast, or that Uranus moons go round the [Pg 95] wrong way. You can't knock it out by any reasoning of that kind, Fiona. It's merely a matter of fact; and if we have found a case we have found a case."
"Then you knew yesterday, daddy?" she said.
"I had a very fair idea," he answered. "That is why I was tapping in the cave with a hammer. Can you guess why?" ”

“ The light came down a sort of short passage [Pg 133] between rocks, with a well-trodden floor; and at the end of it, not twenty yards from where she stood, she could see the fairy grotto. One grand white carbuncle, as big as an arc lamp, hung from the roof, filling the grotto with dazzling white light; and the radiance of the carbuncle was flung back in a million points of new splendor from the walls of the grotto, shifting and shimmering like the rainbow across a waterfall, ruby and orange, yellow and emerald, sapphire and violet, changing as each new facet came into play ”

“ But they made the end of Scargill in time, and then Fiona took both the oars and coasted, while the Urchin got out a couple of bamboo poles, garnished with white flies, and let the casts trail, occasionally getting one of the beautiful little scarlet lythe, that came at the fly with the spring and dash of a sea trout. For even adventurers need supper. And so they came, past many a smaller cave mouth in the black side of the island, to the huge bluff that fronts the full Atlantic, and the great west cave. ”

“ And as a sign to the world above that we have treated you liberally, you will find that you will be unable to attend to business until you have told your nephew a fairy tale. Urchin! A doubt exists as to whether you have had your wish or not. You shall have the benefit of the doubt, so far as is good for you. You will find that you will get your gun."
And then the King turned to Fiona.
"Young lady," he said, "you have given us a display of courage which we are not likely to forget. You have rescued your friend; you have, which is much more to the point, rescued your enemy. ”