Fairies and Folk of Ireland Part 21

"What did you do all the year that you was inside the hill?" he said.

"I don't know," Kathleen answered; "it seemed only a day to me, and I can't remember and I can't think what it was that I did to fill all that time."

"And how did you like the fairies?" said Terence.

"The Good People? They were very kind to me and I liked them very much, but I wouldn't have let them keep me--I wouldn't have stayed--so long, if I had known."

"You wouldn't have let them? You wouldn't have stayed? And what would you have done?"

"I don't know," said Kathleen.

"And who was there besides the fairies?" Terence asked.

"Why, there was--oh, I don't want to talk to you about it, and I don't think you ought to make me."

"You don't need," said Terence. "I know who was there. I know who he is and what he is, and I know the kind of talk that he talked to you.

He made love to you. I know that well enough. That's what he would do.

But do you mind the promise that your father made to my father the day after we was born? I want you should remember that promise."

"It was no promise at all," Kathleen said, "and I won't let you talk to me that way, and I don't see that it matters to you what he--what anybody said to me anywhere, and I won't tell you any more."

"Ah!" said Terence; "he did make love to you. And you think you can talk any way you like to me and you won't let me talk any way I like to you. Do you know that his staying in that hill with the fairies depends on me? Do you know that--"

Terence turned to see if anybody else was listening and saw Mrs.

O'Brien looking straight at him. He stopped short in what he was saying, and then, speaking lower, he went on: "Don't dare to tell anybody what I was saying to you; you don't know what I can do, but I might show you if I took the notion."

For the rest of the time that he stayed Terence said not a word, but he sat and stared at Kathleen. And now she thought that there was something more terrible in his look than there had been before. It seemed to have a kind of spell about it. Kathleen had a feeling that she could not move while he looked at her, although when she tried it she found that she could.

The most natural thing in the world for Kathleen to do would have been to tell her grandmother about this and about all that Terence had said to her, but, whether it was because of the way that Terence had looked at her or for some other reason, she did not tell her. Sometimes after that, when she and Terence met, he reminded her again of what he called the promise, but oftener he said nothing, or next to nothing, and only looked at her in that same way, and then she felt as if she could do nothing of herself, and that if he told her to do anything, she would have to do it.

Kathleen did not forget the promise which she had made to the other Terence in the hill, that she would come back. She had said that she would come back to-morrow if she could. But when to-morrow came, so many people who had heard that she was at home again came to see her, that she was not left alone for a moment. It was several days before she could get away from the house to go where she pleased alone. Then she went straight to the little pool in the Park.

If you live in New York, perhaps you would like to know just where this pool was--and still is. Well, then--go to the northwest corner of Central Park and go in by the little gate at the right of the carriage-drive. Then you will have to go down a flight of steps. Keep to the right, along the west side of the Park, and you will have to go only a few steps till you come to the pool, which is a little way up the bank, on the left, with the rocks behind it and the trees around it, as I have described it to you before. Then go back to the path and keep on the way that you were going, till you have gone up two short flights of steps. Then, only a few feet farther on, you will see, on the left, the little, sh.e.l.l-shaped, gra.s.sy slope where Kathleen danced with the Good People. Seeing these places will prove to you that this whole story is true.

Kathleen went straight to the pool, as I said, never thinking but that, when she got there, she could walk into the hill as easily as she had done before. But there was no opening at all in the rocks.

They were just as they had always looked before she went through them with the Good People. Then she tried to step on the water, and instead of stepping on it she stepped into it and wet her foot. She almost concluded that everything had been a dream after all. She felt frightened about it, and she hurried home to look at the little box of green ointment. If she found it where she had left it, it would prove that she had really been inside the hill and that it was not a dream.

She ran to her room to look for it, and there it was just as she had left it. It was not a dream.

But how was she to keep her promise to Terence?--the Hill Terence, she called him now, when she thought of him, so as not to confuse him with Terence Sullivan. She went to the pool again and again and tried to find the door in the rocks open and the water so that she could walk on it, but she never found them so. Yet she could not think of any other way to get into the hill again. After a while it seemed so hopeless that she gave up going to the pool so often.

Then one day a thought came to her which made it all seem so simple that she was quite surprised at herself for not thinking of it before.

Terence had told her that he came out every day to go to school. He had said that the next year he was to go to the School of Engineering at the University. It was when she first came into the hill that he told her that, and so it was next year now. Now the University was not very far away, up on the hill, beyond the north end of the Park. She did not know whether there was any other way to get into the hill than this way through the rocks behind the pool, but if anybody were at the University and wanted to get into the hill, this would surely be the nearest way. Then she felt sure that if she went to the pool at the right time of the day she should meet Terence when he came out or when he went in.

When she thought again she decided that she would not do anything of the kind. If Terence wanted to see her, it was his business to find her, not hers to find him. After that she thought still more. Terence had no way of finding her. She had never told him where she lived, and he might spend the rest of his life searching for her and never find her. And then she had promised him that she would come back. She had tried so hard to keep that promise already that most people would have said it was right for her to give it up now, but she had a feeling that a promise which she had made to Terence must be kept. She said to herself that it was because he had been so kind to her when she was in the hill.

So she spent all the time she could near the pool, in the hope of seeing Terence. And what do you think happened? She did see him. One afternoon as she was walking along the same old path toward the gate at the corner of the Park, she saw Terence come through that gate and down the steps. And now you will never in the world guess what she did. I suppose you have believed this whole story till now, but I am afraid you will not believe this. I should not believe it myself, if I did not know that it was so. But there is no doubt about it. She turned and walked straight back along the path, and tried to get away without letting Terence see her. Don't expect me to explain it. I don't blame you for being surprised. It was the most wonderful thing I ever heard of. A sensible girl like Kathleen too!

But Terence had seen her and he walked swiftly along the path and overtook her. "What makes you try to get away from me?" he said.

"I don't know," said Kathleen.

"Didn't you want to see me?" he asked.

"Yes," said Kathleen, "I wanted--I don't know--oh, yes, I did want to see you! How is the little Prince?"

"The little Prince is very well," said Terence. "You promised that you would come back, you know."

"Yes," said Kathleen, "and didn't I try? But how could I get through those hard rocks? I don't suppose it was your fault about the rocks, though. How are they getting on with their triangles?"

"They are not getting on at all," Terence answered. "You promised that you would come back, and then, when you saw me you tried to run away.

What made you do that?"

"Oh, but I tried so hard to find you!" Kathleen said. "You don't know how hard I tried."

"But what made--?"

"I don't know; I just couldn't help it."

You notice how uninteresting Terence and Kathleen's conversation was getting. They kept on with it, however, dull as it was. They turned and went up over the hill to the blockhouse, and then down the steep path on the other side and back along the north end of the Park. "Do you come here often?" Terence asked.

"I have been here very often," Kathleen said, "trying to keep my promise to you."

"I am here," he said, "nearly every day, at about this time; will you come again?"

"Yes," Kathleen said, "if you would like me to."

They were close to the pool again now. "See that bright star up there in the west?" said Terence.

Kathleen turned to look at it. "It is Venus," she said. Then she turned back toward where Terence had stood. He was gone. She looked up and down the path and all around, but she could not find him. She went up to the pool. The rocks were just as usual--just as close, just as hard. She tried the water again to see if she could stand on it. She could not. Terence was gone and she went home to think about it.

She thought about it and she thought more about it, but she could not understand it at all. So she very sensibly gave up understanding it.

She kept her promise and met Terence again near the pool. And then she met him again and a few times more. Every time he would make her look away from him for a moment, or wait till she did look away, and when she looked back he would be gone. It did not take her long to find out that he did not want her to see him go, of course, and so one day, when she turned her head away she turned it back again quickly, and saw him standing close to the pool with his face toward the rocks. She watched him for a moment while he stood there, and neither of them moved. Then he said, without looking around: "Let me go, Kathleen; I can't go while you're looking."

So she turned away for another instant, and when she looked again he was gone.

I don't know how many times Terence and Kathleen strolled about the Park in this way, or what they talked about, or just how long a time went by, and I suppose that all these things interest you as little as they do me. But there is no doubt that one day, as they were walking together and talking together of whatever they found to talk about, they came face to face with Terence Sullivan. He pa.s.sed them as if he had not seen them, but his face was black.

The next day he came to see Kathleen, and he said to her: "Do you think I don't know who that was with you in the Park yesterday? And does your father know? He will, if I tell him, and what will he say, do you think, when he knows that you're meeting that fine boy without his knowledge? If I see the two of you there again I'll tell him, and I'll be watching for you too. What do you say to that now?"

"I say nothing to it," Kathleen answered; "what did you think I would say?"

"What did I think you would say? What did I think you could say?

Nothing, of course. And is that all you say?"

"That is all," said Kathleen.

And that was all. He tried his best to get her to say more, but she would not. But it did not take her a minute to think what to do. And it was so simple that she wondered why she had never thought of it before. It was a wonder, too, that Terence Sullivan did not think of it himself and know that she would do it. But he was not clever in some ways, though he was so clever in others.

The next day Kathleen met Terence in the Park, and she said to him: "Terence, we must not stay here for a single minute. You must come straight home with me. I want you to see my father and my grandmother."