The Primrose Ring Part 10

Sandy remembered the beginning of it--the plunge straight across the primrose ring into the River of Make-Believe; and how they paddled over like puppies--one after another. It was perfectly safe to swim, even if you had never swum before; and the only danger was for those who might stop in the middle of the river and say, or think, "A dinna believe i' faeries." Whoever should do this would sink like a stone, going down, down, down until he struck his bed with a thud and woke, crying.

It was starlight in Tir-na-n'Og--just as Bridget had said it would be--only the stars were far bigger and brighter. The children stood on the white, pebbly beach and shook themselves dry; while Bridget showed them how to pull down their nightshirts to keep them from shrinking, and how to wring out their faery caps to keep the wishes from growing musty or mildewed. After that they met the faery ferryman, who--according to Sandy--"wore a wee kiltie o' reeds, an' a tammie made frae a loch-lily pad wi' a cat-o'-nine-tail tossel, lukin' sae ilk the brae ye wad niver ken he was a mon glen ye dinna see his legs, walkin'." He told them how he ferried over all the "old bodies" who had grown feeble-hearted and were too afraid to swim.

It was Pancho who remembered best about the leprechaun--how they found him sitting cross-legged under the blackthorn-bush with a leather ap.r.o.n spread over his knees, and how he had called out--just as Bridget had said he would:

"h.e.l.lo, Pancho and Susan and Sandy and all!"

"Have you any shoes got?" Pancho shouted.

The faery cobbler nodded and pointed with his awl to the branches above his head; there hung nine pairs of little green shoes, curled at the toes, with silver buckles, all st.i.tched and soled and ready to wear.

"Will they fit?" asked Pancho, breathlessly.

"Faery shoes always fit. Now reach them down and hand them round."

This Pancho did with despatch. Nine pairs of little white feet were thrust joyously into the green shoes and buckled in tight. On looking back, Pancho was quite sure that this was the happiest moment of his life. The children squealed and clapped their hands and cried:

"They fit fine!"

"Shoes is grand to wear!"

"I feel skippy."

"I feel dancy."

Whereupon they all jumped to their feet and with arms wide-spread, hand clasping hand, they ringed about the cobbler and the thorn-bush. They danced until there was not a sc.r.a.p of breath left in their bodies; then they tumbled over and rolled about like a nest of young puppies, while the cobbler laughed and laughed until he held his sides with the aching.

It was here that everybody remembered about the faery penny; in fact, that was the one thing remembered by all. And this is hardly strange; if you or I ever possessed a faery penny--even in the confines of a primrose ring--we should never forget it.

It was Bridget, however, who reminded the leprechaun. "Ye haven't by any chance forgotten somethin' ye'd like to be rememberin', have ye?"

she asked, diplomatically.

"I don't know," and the cobbler pulled his thinking-lock. "What might it be?"

"Sure, it might be a faery penny," and Bridget eyed him anxiously.

The cobbler slapped his ap.r.o.n and laughed again. "To be sure it might--and I came near forgetting it."

He reached, over and pulled up a tuft of sod at his side; for all one could have told, it might have been growing there, neighbor to all the other sods. Underneath was a dark little hole in the ground; and out of this he brought a brown earthen crock.

"The crock o' gold!" everybody whispered, awesomely.

"Aye, the crock o' gold," agreed the cobbler. "But I keep it hidden, for there is naught that can make more throuble--sometimes." He raised the lid and took out a single shining piece. "Will one do ye?"

Nine heads nodded eloquently, while nine hands were stretched out eagerly to take it.

"Bide a bit. Ye can't all be carrying it at the one time. I think ye had best choose a treasurer."

Bridget was elected unanimously. She took the penny and deposited it in the heel of her faery shoe.

"Mind," said the leprechaun as they were turning to go, "ye mind a faery penny will buy but the one thing. See to it that ye are all agreed on the same thing."

The children chorused an a.s.sent and skipped merrily away. And here is where Peter's patch joins Pancho's.

They had not gone far over the silvery-green meadow--three shadow-lengths, perhaps--when they saw something coming toward them.

It was coming as fast as half-legs could carry it; and it was wagging a _long_, stand-up tail. Everybody guessed in an instant that it was Peter's "black dorg wiv yeller spots."

"Who der thunk it? Who der thunk it?" shouted Peter, jumping up and down; and then he knelt on the gra.s.s, his arms flung wide open, while he called: "Toby, Toby! Here's me!"

Of course Toby knew Peter--that goes without saying. He barked and wagged his tail and licked Peter's face; in fact, he did every dog-thing Peter had longed for since Peter's mind had first fashioned him.

"Well," and Bridget put both arms akimbo and smiled a smile of complete satisfaction, "what was I a-tellin' ye, anyways? Faith, don't it beat all how things come thrue--when ye think 'em pleasant an' hard enough?"

Peter remembered the wonderful way their feet skimmed over the ground--"'most like flyin'." Not a blade of gra.s.s bent under their weight, not a grain of sand was dislodged; and--more marvelous than all--there was no tiredness, no aching of joint or muscle. All of which was bound to happen when feet were shod with faery shoes.

"See me walk!" cried some one.

"See me run!" cried some one else.

"See me hop and jump!"

And Bridget added, "Faith, 'tis as easy as lyin' in bed."

They were no longer alone; hosts of Little People pa.s.sed them, going in the same direction. Peter said most of them rode "straddle-legs" on night birds or moths, while some flew along on a funny thing that was horse before and weeds behind. I judge this must have been the buchailin buidhe or benweed, which the faeries bewitch and ride the same as a witch mounts her broomstick.

And everybody who pa.s.sed always called out in the friendliest way, "h.e.l.lo, Peter!" or "h.e.l.lo, Bridget!" or "The luck rise with ye!" which is the most common of all greetings in Tir-na-n'Og.

"Gee!" was Peter's habitual comment after the telling, "maybe it wasn't swell havin' 'em know us--names an' all. Betcher life we wasn't cases to them--no, siree!"

It was Susan who remembered best how everything looked--Susan, who had never been to the country in all her starved little life--that is, if one excepts the times Margaret MacLean had taken her on the Ward C "special." She told so well how all the trees and flowers were fashioned that it was an easy matter putting names to them.

In the center of Tir-na-n'Og towered a great hill; but instead of its being capped with peak or rocks it was gently hollowed at the top, as though in the beginning, when it was thrown up molten from the depths of somewhere, a giant thumb had pressed it down and smoothed it round and even. All about the brim of it grew hawthorns and rowans and hazel-trees. In the gra.s.s, everywhere, were thousands and millions of primroses, heart's-ease, and morning-glories; all crowded together, so Susan said, like the patterns on the Persian carpet in the board-room.

It was all so beautiful and faeryish and heart-desired that "yer'd have said it wasn't real if yer hadn't ha' knowed it was."

The children stood on the brink of the giant hollow and clapped their hands for the very joy of seeing it all; and there--a little man stepped up to them and doffed his cap. The queen wanted them--she was waiting for them by the throne that very minute; and the little man was to bring them to her.

Now that throne--according to Susan--was nothing like the thrones one finds in stories or Journeys through palaces to see. It was not cold, hard, or forbidding; instead, it was as soft and green and pillowy as an inflated golf-bunker might be, and just high and comfortable enough for the baby faeries to discover it and go to sleep there whenever they felt tired. The throne was full of them when the children looked, and some one was tumbling them off like so many kittens.

"That is the queen," said the little man, pointing.

The children stood on tiptoes and craned their necks the better to see; but it was not until they had come quite close that they saw that her dress was gray, and her hair was gray, and she was small, and her face was like--

"Bless me if it ain't!" shouted Susan in amazement. "It's Sandy's wee creepity woman!"

The queen smiled when she saw them. She reached out her hands and patted theirs in turn, asking, "Now what is your name, dearie?"

"Are ye sure ye're the queen?" gasped Bridget.

"Maybe I am--and maybe I'm not," was the answer.