Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women
“And she was nearly dead.”
“To your hammock—off with you!”
“And swing alone.”
“No one will laugh with you.”
“No, not one.”
“Now let us moan.”
“And cover her o’er.”
“Primrose is gone.”
“All but the flower.”
“Here is a leaf.”
“Lay her upon it.”
“Follow in grief.”
“Pocket has done it.”
“Deeper, poor creature!
Winter may come.”
“He cannot reach her—
That is a hum.”
“She is buried, the beauty!”
“Now she is done.”
“That was the duty.”
“Now for the fun.”
And with a wild laugh they sprang away, most of them towards the
cottage. During the latter part of the song-talk, they had formed
themselves into a funeral procession, two of them bearing poor
Primrose, whose death Pocket had hastened by biting her stalk, upon one
of her own great leaves. They bore her solemnly along some distance,
and then buried her under a tree. Although I say _her_ I saw nothing
but the withered primrose-flower on its long stalk. Pocket, who had
been expelled from the company by common consent, went sulkily away
towards her hammock, for she was the fairy of the calceolaria, and
looked rather wicked. When she reached its stem, she stopped and looked
round. I could not help speaking to her, for I stood near her. I said,
“Pocket, how could you be so naughty?”
“I am never naughty,” she said, half-crossly, half-defiantly; “only if
you come near my hammock, I will bite you, and then you will go away.”
“Why did you bite poor Primrose?”
“Because she said we should never see Snowdrop; as if we were not good
enough to look at her, and she was, the proud thing!—served her right!”
“Oh, Pocket, Pocket,” said I; but by this time the party which had gone
towards the house, rushed out again, shouting and screaming with
laughter. Half of them were on the cat’s back, and half held on by her
fur and tail, or ran beside her; till, more coming to their help, the
furious cat was held fast; and they proceeded to pick the sparks out of
her with thorns and pins, which they handled like harpoons. Indeed,
there were more instruments at work about her than there could have
been sparks in her. One little fellow who held on hard by the tip of
the tail, with his feet planted on the ground at an angle of forty-five
degrees, helping to keep her fast, administered a continuous flow of
admonitions to Pussy.
“Now, Pussy, be patient. You know quite well it is all for your good.
You cannot be comfortable with all those sparks in you; and, indeed, I
am charitably disposed to believe” (here he became very pompous) “that
they are the cause of all your bad temper; so we must have them all
out, every one; else we shall be reduced to the painful necessity of
cutting your claws, and pulling out your eye-teeth. Quiet! Pussy,
quiet!”
But with a perfect hurricane of feline curses, the poor animal broke
loose, and dashed across the garden and through the hedge, faster than
even the fairies could follow. “Never mind, never mind, we shall find
her again; and by that time she will have laid in a fresh stock of
sparks. Hooray!” And off they set, after some new mischief.
But I will not linger to enlarge on the amusing display of these
frolicsome creatures. Their manners and habits are now so well known to
the world, having been so often described by eyewitnesses, that it
would be only indulging self-conceit, to add my account in full to the
rest. I cannot help wishing, however, that my readers could see them
for themselves. Especially do I desire that they should see the fairy
of the daisy; a little, chubby, round-eyed child, with such innocent
trust in his look! Even the most mischievous of the fairies would not
tease him, although he did not belong to their set at all, but was
quite a little country bumpkin. He wandered about alone, and looked at
everything, with his hands in his little pockets, and a white night-cap
on, the darling! He was not so beautiful as many other wild flowers I
saw afterwards, but so dear and loving in his looks and little
confident ways.
CHAPTER IV
“When bale is att hyest, boote is nyest.”
_Ballad of Sir Aldingar_.
By this time, my hostess was quite anxious that I should be gone. So,
with warm thanks for their hospitality, I took my leave, and went my
way through the little garden towards the forest. Some of the garden
flowers had wandered into the wood, and were growing here and there
along the path, but the trees soon became too thick and shadowy for
them. I particularly noticed some tall lilies, which grew on both sides
of the way, with large dazzlingly white flowers, set off by the
universal green. It was now dark enough for me to see that every flower
was shining with a light of its own. Indeed it was by this light that I
saw them, an internal, peculiar light, proceeding from each, and not
reflected from a common source of light as in the daytime. This light
sufficed only for the plant itself, and was not strong enough to cast
any but the faintest shadows around it, or to illuminate any of the
neighbouring objects with other than the faintest tinge of its own
individual hue. From the lilies above mentioned, from the campanulas,
from the foxgloves, and every bell-shaped flower, curious little
figures shot up their heads, peeped at me, and drew back. They seemed
to inhabit them, as snails their shells; but I was sure some of them
were intruders, and belonged to the gnomes or goblin-fairies, who
inhabit the ground and earthy creeping plants. From the cups of Arum
lilies, creatures with great heads and grotesque faces shot up like
Jack-in-the-box, and made grimaces at me; or rose slowly and slily over
the edge of the cup, and spouted water at me, slipping suddenly back,
like those little soldier-crabs that inhabit the shells of sea-snails.
Passing a row of tall thistles, I saw them crowded with little faces,
which peeped every one from behind its flower, and drew back as
quickly; and I heard them saying to each other, evidently intending me
to hear, but the speaker always hiding behind his tuft, when I looked
in his direction, “Look at him! Look at him! He has begun a story
without a beginning, and it will never have any end. He! he! he! Look
at him!”
But as I went further into the wood, these sights and sounds became
fewer, giving way to others of a different character. A little forest
of wild hyacinths was alive with exquisite creatures, who stood nearly
motionless, with drooping necks, holding each by the stem of her
flower, and swaying gently with it, whenever a low breath of wind swung
the crowded floral belfry. In like manner, though differing of course
in form and meaning, stood a group of harebells, like little angels
waiting, ready, till they were wanted to go on some yet unknown
message. In darker nooks, by the mossy roots of the trees, or in little
tufts of grass, each dwelling in a globe of its own green light,
weaving a network of grass and its shadows, glowed the glowworms.
They were just like the glowworms of our own land, for they are fairies
everywhere; worms in the day, and glowworms at night, when their own
can appear, and they can be themselves to others as well as themselves.
But they had their enemies here. For I saw great strong-armed beetles,
hurrying about with most unwieldy haste, awkward as elephant-calves,
looking apparently for glowworms; for the moment a beetle espied one,
through what to it was a forest of grass, or an underwood of moss, it
pounced upon it, and bore it away, in spite of its feeble resistance.
Wondering what their object could be, I watched one of the beetles, and
then I discovered a thing I could not account for. But it is no use
trying to account for things in Fairy Land; and one who travels there
soon learns to forget the very idea of doing so, and takes everything
as it comes; like a child, who, being in a chronic condition of wonder,
is surprised at nothing. What I saw was this. Everywhere, here and
there over the ground, lay little, dark-looking lumps of something more
like earth than anything else, and about the size of a chestnut. The
beetles hunted in couples for these; and having found one, one of them
stayed to watch it, while the other hurried to find a glowworm. By
signals, I presume, between them, the latter soon found his companion
again: they then took the glowworm and held its luminous tail to the
dark earthly pellet; when lo, it shot up into the air like a
sky-rocket, seldom, however, reaching the height of the highest tree.
Just like a rocket too, it burst in the air, and fell in a shower of
the most gorgeously coloured sparks of every variety of hue; golden and
red, and purple and green, and blue and rosy fires crossed and
inter-crossed each other, beneath the shadowy heads, and between the
columnar stems of the forest trees. They never used the same glowworm
twice, I observed; but let him go, apparently uninjured by the use they
had made of him.
In other parts, the whole of the immediately surrounding foliage was
illuminated by the interwoven dances in the air of splendidly coloured
fire-flies, which sped hither and thither, turned, twisted, crossed,
and recrossed, entwining every complexity of intervolved motion. Here
and there, whole mighty trees glowed with an emitted phosphorescent
light. You could trace the very course of the great roots in the earth
by the faint light that came through; and every twig, and every vein on
every leaf was a streak of pale fire.
All this time, as I went through the wood, I was haunted with the
feeling that other shapes, more like my own size and mien, were moving
about at a little distance on all sides of me. But as yet I could
discern none of them, although the moon was high enough to send a great
many of her rays down between the trees, and these rays were unusually
bright, and sight-giving, notwithstanding she was only a half-moon. I
constantly imagined, however, that forms were visible in all directions
except that to which my gaze was turned; and that they only became
invisible, or resolved themselves into other woodland shapes, the
moment my looks were directed towards them. However this may have been,
except for this feeling of presence, the woods seemed utterly bare of
anything like human companionship, although my glance often fell on
some object which I fancied to be a human form; for I soon found that I
was quite deceived; as, the moment I fixed my regard on it, it showed
plainly that it was a bush, or a tree, or a rock.
Soon a vague sense of discomfort possessed me. With variations of
relief, this gradually increased; as if some evil thing were wandering
about in my neighbourhood, sometimes nearer and sometimes further off,
but still approaching. The feeling continued and deepened, until all my
pleasure in the shows of various kinds that everywhere betokened the
presence of the merry fairies vanished by degrees, and left me full of
anxiety and fear, which I was unable to associate with any definite
object whatever. At length the thought crossed my mind with horror:
“Can it be possible that the Ash is looking for me? or that, in his
nightly wanderings, his path is gradually verging towards mine?” I
comforted myself, however, by remembering that he had started quite in
another direction; one that would lead him, if he kept it, far apart
from me; especially as, for the last two or three hours, I had been
diligently journeying eastward. I kept on my way, therefore, striving
by direct effort of the will against the encroaching fear; and to this
end occupying my mind, as much as I could, with other thoughts. I was
so far successful that, although I was conscious, if I yielded for a
moment, I should be almost overwhelmed with horror, I was yet able to
walk right on for an hour or more. What I feared I could not tell.