THE BEAUTIFUL LADY

THE woods were all white with the blossom of April and green with the coming of May. The larks were flying higher and higher watching for the swallows afar off—surely it was time they had started on their way?

The children went to the woods, but they were not singing for joy as usual; they followed the tall girl down the pathway.

“Janet,” the little one said, “see, that is where the rabbit-holes used to be”; but Janet only nodded, and did not turn her head. “We never saw the rabbits,” the little one added. “Do you think the lad ever saw them?”

“I don’t know,” the tall girl answered; “but I think he would have told me if he had.”

They filled their baskets with flowers and went out of the wood, and sauntered along the lane that led to the village.

“Janet,” the little one asked, as they passed two cottages that had been built just the year before, “is it there the crazy woman lives?” One of the boys laughed. “She’s such a funny mad woman.” But before he could say more Janet turned round quickly.

“It is only a bad heart that laughs,” she said; and the boy was ashamed in a moment. “Come,” she added, “let us cover her window-ledge with flowers.” And eagerly the children stopped and piled up the flowers on the window-still, and then they tapped at the window-pane.

“The fairies have been,” they cried; “see what they have left you;” and went on their way. They heard the window opened and the woman’s voice singing:—

“And oh, my heart is sad to-day,

And oh, ’tis full of sorrow,

For sweet my love is far away,

And won’t be home to-morrow.

And won’t be home to-morrow-day,

And won’t be home—”

Then she stopped with a little cry of joy, and the children knew she had found the flowers.

The tall girl’s heart gave a leap when she heard the woman’s cry, and she clasped the little one’s hand more tightly. “Ah, poor dear!” she thought, “the lad at the carpenter’s would have known how to comfort you with his talk of the strange lands your son’s eyes never saw, and the lad knew only in his heart.”

All down the lane the children went—past the lilac-trees just bursting into bloom, past the farmhouses,—they could hear the grunting of the pigs, and the rattle of the milking-pans the dairy-maid was washing as they passed by,—and on toward the village. But when they came in sight of their mother’s cottage they stopped suddenly, for there, waiting by the door, stood a grand carriage.

“Janet,” they whispered, afraid to speak aloud, “it must be the beautiful lady.” They stood still, not liking to go on and wondering what to do. But the little one looked up and said—

“I do want to see the beautiful lady.” So they gathered courage and went slowly on to the cottage, and one by one they shyly entered in at the door, curtseying as they did so, for the beautiful lady sat by the fireplace talking to the mother. The little one was glad the china dog she won off the Christmas-tree stood upon the mantelpiece, for half a dozen times did the beautiful lady look up at it; and for ever afterwards it seemed to have a remembrance of her, though it only told it to the little one.

Janet had learnt all manner of things from the carpenter’s lad—to love books and the histories of far-off lands, and all manner of strange stories; and in the evening she talked to the children of all she knew. So when they saw the beautiful lady they thought of the fairy-queen who loved a mortal man and took him off to fairyland, and they fell to wondering if this could be she. She had blue eyes and soft golden hair, which was twisted all round her head, till it looked just like a crown. She had surely listened while Thomas the Rhymer played upon his harp, they thought: and perchance she knew where the three roads met and one branched off to Elfinland. She had taken her gloves off, and they saw that on her little finger she wore a gold ring with a green stone set in it. Perhaps when she was tired of earth, they thought, she turned it round three times and found herself in fairyland once more. And while they thought all this, and stood in a group staring at her, they heard the clicking of the harness on the horses, and knew that really she was no fairy at all, but just the beautiful lady who had come to live in the big house beyond the bridge; but of course she might have been the fairy-queen—it seemed so odd that she was not. She turned and looked at the children with her sweet blue eyes, and then she said—it seemed a wonderful thing to hear her voice—

“I have come to ask your mother about a boy who lived in this village. He was a cobbler’s son; I know his sister.” Then all speaking together the children answered—

“The strange lad at the carpenter’s.”

“Did you know him?” the lady asked.

“Yes, we all knew him,” they answered, “but Janet knew him best. He used to take us to the woods to show us the rabbit-holes. They are not there now, and we never saw the rabbits. He used to tell us stories about the strange countries, and of all the things he meant to do.”

“And while he was thinking of all the great ends he would gain he forgot to make any beginning,” the mother said. She was a stern woman, but her voice was sad while she spoke. “He was always dreaming,” she added, “and while he was dreaming his hands were folded.”

Then the beautiful lady sighed but made no answer, for she thought how many of us are like the cobbler’s son, longing to climb great heights, looking up at the far-off light, yet standing still the while; and as for the things we see and do in dreams,—should we not most of us travel far and wide and achieve great things indeed, if we could but tack our hands and feet on to our fancies?

The tall girl who had known the boy so well, went forward a step.

“He worked hard all day,” she said gently; “he did all that was given him to do. It was only in the evening that he read books and thought of the strange countries and told us of his dreams and of all he meant to do. Once he made a little table,” she began, but before she could say more the beautiful lady interrupted her.

“I know,” she said, “it is my brother’s home far away in India. It was my mother’s, and because it was made so well she once sent it down to the schoolhouse, so that all the village boys might see it, and know how well a cobbler’s little son could work.”

“Yes, yes,” the children cried, eagerly crowding up close round the beautiful lady; “oh, go on and tell us more, we know he made a little table.”

“And as it was coming back from the schoolhouse,” she went on, “the man who carried it let it fall, and a little piece of wood that was not so firmly glued as the rest fell from the under part, and we saw that beneath it had been written: ‘Daddy’s lad made this table, and sent it into the world with his love,’ and we all thought much about these words, and how the cobbler’s little son had put one thing at least that was well done into the world. And when my brother went away to India, he asked my mother for the little table, and he took it with him; and in one of his letters he said it always seemed to him more like a living thing with a human voice than a bit of furniture.”

“He was a clever lad,” the mother sighed, her stern face relaxing a little.

“He used to tell us about all manner of things,” the children said; “we were never tired of hearing.”

“But it was all waste of time,” the mother said.

“No, dear mother,” the tall girl answered gently, “I do not think so, for we all loved him, and somehow after he came we all loved each other more.” Then the mother’s eyes suddenly filled with tears.

“His heart was stronger than his hands,” she said to the beautiful lady, “and what the girl says is true; he taught us to love better, but he never knew it. And he loved the children, and the birds, and the bats, and the bees, and the sunshine, and the flowers that grew in the woods. It was wonderful how he loved them all.”

“And they loved him back again!” the tall girl said eagerly.

Then the beautiful lady gently touched the mother’s arm that was brown and bare, and said softly—

“He did not only dream, dear woman, and there are some dreams far better and sweeter than any waking.”

“But the pity of it is that we live our lives awake,” the woman said. “But the poor lad,” she added sadly, “he sleeps on just by the pathway between the church and the schoolhouse.”

“Come and see,” the little one cried, “oh dear beautiful lady, come and see!” and almost before she knew it, the beautiful lady had risen from her seat and taken the little one by the hand and left the cottage; and tall girl walked by her side, and the children followed in a group. So they went on to the place where the carpenter’s lad slept well.

It was close by the pathway, just as the mother had said, so that if he did not sleep too soundly, he could hear the children’s voices singing in the schoolhouse, or the patter-patter of their feet when the church clock struck the hour, at which the schoolhouse door opened wide, and they came joyfully forth and hurried away to their homes.

“He is here,” said the children softly, and they stood still, while the beautiful lady looked down at the grass growing wild and tall above him.

“We told the man not to cut the grass often,” they whispered; “for when it grows up high it seems like the woods, and he was always so happy in the woods.”

“There are some wildflowers growing among the grass,” the beautiful lady said.

“Ah, yes,” the tall girl answered, “we don’t know how it is, but there are always flowers among the grass above him; we think sometimes that perhaps they are his little dreams coming through.”