Uncle Joe's Stories

The fairy queen waved a sprig of fern three times over her head, advancing nearer and nearer to Evelyn as she did so. At each wave of the hand, the child felt herself growing downwards and becoming smaller and smaller. Yes! there really was no doubt about it; down and down she grew, until the horrible thought crossed her mind that she might grow right down into the earth, and disappear altogether.

At the same time a strange drowsiness stole over her, everything appeared to grow less and less distinct, and gradually to fade quite away from sight; sounds grew fainter and fainter, and she seemed to be about to sink into a deep, fast, heavy sleep. Then, all of a sudden, she was as wide awake as ever again, and looked up, bright and lively, trying to remember where she was, and what had happened to her. There was very little doubt about that. She was a regular fairy like the rest of them. She was of the same height; she had the same kind of light dress (though what it was made of, she could never describe, although she was very often questioned on the subject,) and she felt such an extraordinary sensation of lightness and elasticity as quite surprised her. She knew in a moment that she could move about in a manner which had been quite impossible to her as a mortal child: that she could stand upon branches and plants and tufts of fern without causing them to bend or break, that she could tread upon the leaves and soft moss without leaving the impression of her tiny feet, and that she possessed new powers, new knowledge, and a new being altogether.

But more wonderful still, was the transformation which everything around her seemed to have undergone. The trees, the leaves, the fern, the moss – all appeared ten times as beautiful as they were before. The dewdrops that glistened upon the grass and fern sparkled with twenty-fold brilliancy; the green of the leaves was by far more tender and exquisite than before her change; the mighty trunks of the old trees were more majestic than ever, the whole glen was enriched with greater beauties, and the notes of the woodland birds possessed more melody than she had ever fancied in her old, childish wanderings through the forest.

It was as if all these beauties had been but imperfectly seen, and only feebly appreciated by the child of mortals, whose natural perceptions had been blunted by the sin and sorrow of her kind; but, that the moment the earthly nature and form had been shaken off, a purer and more intellectual state of being had brought with it the power to see, to know, and to appreciate in a higher degree the beauties of nature and of nature's God. Never had Evelyn experienced such a delicious sensation of entire pleasure as at that moment.

Curiously enough, no recollections of home, of parents, of relations, came across her; all seemed blotted out for the moment as if they had never existed. She only felt the intense pleasure of her present existence – a pleasure so pure and at the same time so utterly absorbing and engrossing that it seemed to leave room for no other thought or sensation, and the child stood as one in a trance – but a trance exquisitely delightful!

Presently the fairy queen turned aside, apparently about to occupy herself with other matters, and having no more to say to Evelyn. The latter, however, was not neglected. Two of the other fairies took her, each by one hand, and led her under the great spreading trees, beneath whose branches was a wide open space, where there was room enough for hundreds of such small creatures to sport and play. There they began to dance, lightly and gracefully, first joining hand in hand, then separating and dancing the most curious figures you can imagine, in and out of the hollow of the tree under which they were, round its trunk and its roots, and now and then catching hold of the lower branches and swinging themselves up. Such a dance it was! And the most extraordinary thing was that it all seemed to come quite as natural to Evelyn as if she had been at it all her life. She danced and skipped and swung in the branches with the best of them, and had not the slightest feeling of fatigue after the exertion. She felt, moreover, a lightness and buoyancy of spirit such as she had never felt before, and as to being shy or bashful in the presence of strangers, she experienced no such sensation for a single moment. On the contrary, she laughed and talked with the little elves as happily and merrily as if she had known them from her cradle, and there was no difficulty about learning their language, for they all spoke English as well as any English child could have done. Perhaps they were English children, which would in some measure account for it. However that may be, Evelyn never had a cheerier or more enjoyable dance than this one, and she thoroughly entered into it.

Presently they took to climbing. Up the trees they swarmed, ran out on the branches, and balanced themselves on the ends (roaring with laughter when one or other of them lost his balance and had a fall, which he always broke by cleverly catching hold of the next branch below), pelted each other with leaves, and chased one another wildly through the tops of the trees. Then they played at hide-and-seek in and around the trees. One hid in a rabbit-hole under the roots, another in a crevice on the top of one of the hornbeam pollards, and great was the laughter when one little scamp crept into an old magpie's nest, and lay hidden there for several minutes before he was found. But perhaps the best fun of all was when they chased a squirrel, who was thoroughly puzzled by the proceeding, and caused them immense merriment by his chattering, as well as by his various dodges to elude his pursuers. Sometimes he would climb to the very tops of the highest trees, and appear astonished beyond measure when the little elves followed him so high; then, again, he would throw himself off, and catch a branch in falling, as quickly and as cleverly as if he had been himself a fairy. Once more he would lie pressed up so close against the thick branch of a tree, that he would appear to be a part of the tree himself; and then he would betake himself to his nest, and occasionally peer out with his sparkling little eyes, as if to ascertain whether anyone would be daring enough to follow him there. But the fairies never attempted to hurt him, and Evelyn soon found that these woodland fairies were not of a sort which at all enjoyed making other people unhappy. She was certainly anything but unhappy, and enjoyed her afternoon amazingly. Nevertheless, as all things come to an end, so at last did these fairy gambols.

Suddenly there sounded through the forest a low, sweet, but thrilling whistle, like an unusually melodious railway whistle heard at a long distance off in a still evening. Every elf knew it at once to be the queen's signal, and accordingly they all hurried back to the spot where Evelyn had first seen them, from which they had been wandering right and left through the merry green wood in their sports. The queen graciously smiled as her obedient children flocked around her, and proceeded to give them her directions for the employment of their evening.

"Sprightly," said she, addressing one little fellow, whom Evelyn had observed to be particularly lively in the dancing and other games, "go you, with a couple more of your friends, to old Farmer Grubbins. He was very cross this morning to two poor boys who picked a couple of apples from one of his trees which overhung the footpath, and is going to take them before the magistrates to-morrow morning. He goes to bed early and will be asleep before nine. But you need not wait for that, for he is sure to doze heavily in his arm-chair after supper. Go and plague him well. Pinch his toe till he thinks it is gout; whisper to him that the rats are in his barn, and that a man with a lucifer matchbox has been seen in his rick-yard. And if that neither keeps him from sleep nor gives him uncomfortable dreams, tell him that wheat is down in the market ten shillings a quarter, American beef is coming into this country in such quantities, that homefed beef will never sell well again, and all his rates and taxes are going to be doubled directly. Give him a real bad night of it, and when he is lying awake, thoroughly uncomfortable, whisper to him a few words in favour of the poor lads in any way you think most likely to be useful.

"Mirthful, do you go off to poor old Mrs. Marshall at Nettlebush Cottage. She is down with the rheumatism, very bad, and in a good deal of pain. Cheer the old dame up a bit, whisper all kinds of pleasant things in her ear, gently rub her poor aching limbs, and keep the dust quiet so that her room may be kept cheerful and clean. Sweeten the taste of what food she has, and do what you can to lighten the time to her.

"Flittermouse, Childerkin, Gadaway, go to Doctor Backbrusher's school, and comfort the hearts of the youngsters there. The old fellow has flogged a lot of them as usual to-day. Go and cheer them up; and if you could put a few crumbs – good, hard, sleep-stopping crumbs – into the doctor's bed, so much the better. Do it just when he has put his candle out, and is going to step into bed, and one of you take away the box of matches he always has by his bedside, and hide it in his brown pitcher. He'll never find it there, and if he is once well in bed with those crumbs, he'll have a rough time of it.

"You, Pitiful and Hoverer, go to little Miss Wilson's room at The Priory, and teach her to remember her French verbs. Poor child! they are sadly too much for her, and it would be a real kindness to get rid of the grammar for her, only they would be sure to get another; so the better way will be to help her to remember.

"The rest of you go where you like; sleep or play, visit mortals, or remain unseen by them, only do nothing unkind to anyone, and be sure to be back here precisely at midnight for the ring dance."

As soon as the fairy queen had finished speaking, the little elves to whom she had given special directions set off without any delay to obey her orders, while the rest scattered themselves in every direction through the forest, each following the pursuit which seemed best to him.

As Evelyn felt herself not only at liberty to go where she pleased, but able to keep up with any of her companions and to go where they went and do as they did, she thought she should very much like to see how Sprightly performed the commission entrusted to him, and as the elf made no objection, off they tripped together, accompanied by another little being whose name I forget, but who was as lively and merry as the rest of them. They went at a pace at which our young friend Evelyn had never gone before, but which somehow or other seemed quite natural to her, and which very speedily brought them to the house of Farmer Grubbins.

Arrived there, they walked quietly up to the door, which opened to them without any of the people inside knowing that it had done so, although the fact of its having opened was proved to Evelyn not only by her passing through with the others, but by the remark which she heard the old farmer make as she and her companions entered, namely, that there was a terrible draught from that door.

The farmer was an old bachelor, and there was no one in the house with him but his niece and the servants. He and his niece were just finishing supper when the fairies entered, and on seeing this Sprightly winked knowingly at his companions, and they all stood quietly aside until the old man should be asleep and their duties would begin.

They had not long to wait. Farmer Grubbins pushed back his chair with a remark to his niece upon the supper, to the effect that the beefsteak pie had been uncommon good, to which she readily assented. The old man then settled himself in his own particular arm-chair by the fireside, drew a long breath, and quietly composed himself to sleep. In a very few moments, after a contented snort or two, much after the fashion of a grampus which found itself more than commonly comfortable, he quietly dozed off and was immediately in the land of dreams.

Then Evelyn's companions crept stealthily up to him and began their games. One climbed up on to the old man's shoulder, whilst the other seated himself upon the footstool upon which his feet rested, well encased in large and easy slippers. The first began to whisper in his ear, while the second tickled his feet with a lightness of touch which no one but a fairy could have done. Presently the sleeper suddenly twitched his foot, whereupon the elf waited until it was still again; and then resumed his tickling. Then the farmer moaned in his sleep, and uneasily turned his head upon one side, at which movement the other elf began to whisper more vigorously than ever. A snort, a start, and the sleeper awoke.

"Eh, Jane? Did you speak?" he asked his niece, who replied in a low voice that she had said nothing, and almost before she had answered, his head fell back again and once more he dozed. Still the tickling and the whispering continued, and the sleep of the old farmer appeared to be most uncomfortable.

Evelyn watched in great amusement, until at last she saw Sprightly, who had taken his place at the footstool, take out what appeared to be a pair of pincers, and, applying them to the great toe of the farmer's right foot, give it a nip with all his force. The old man instantly woke up with a roar.

"Oh, my toe!" he called out in evident pain. "Drat that gout, I've got it again!" and he began to groan sadly.

His niece got up, put her knitting down upon the table and came across the room to him, but after another groan or two, the pain seemed to subside, and he dozed off again. Presently he started once more and turned in his chair.

"Rats in the barn, did you say, Jane?" he muttered rather than said; "can't be – don't bother – keep quiet, there's a good girl," and all was silent again for a few moments, until Sprightly, again producing the pincers and applying them to the same toe, pressed them with both hands as hard as ever he could. The roar which now burst from the farmer's lips really frightened Evelyn, who fancied for the moment that he must discover that some hand, mortal or elfin, had inflicted the injury upon him.

Not a bit of it: the elves were certainly invisible, and the old man attributed everything to the gout, and vowed it was the worst pain he had ever had in the whole course of his life.

Meanwhile the two elves were laughing ready to split their sides, and, somehow or other, Evelyn felt very much inclined to do the same. It was no laughing matter, however, for Farmer Grubbins. He rose from his chair, not in the best of tempers, nor using the choicest language, and declared that he should go to bed and try if a good night would put matters right with him.

As he spoke, the two elves roared again with laughter, and made the most extraordinary grimaces at the old man, which seemed to Evelyn all the more ridiculous from the knowledge that he could not see and was perfectly unconscious of them.

Then he slowly ascended the stairs, upon which Sprightly and his companion beckoned to Evelyn, and they all followed the farmer, treading very lightly, and still laughing as he muttered expressions by no means complimentary to the gout.

When he reached his bedroom he speedily undressed and turned into bed, having first carefully placed upon his head an old red night-cap, in which he presented an appearance so ludicrous as greatly to increase the amusement of his unseen guests. His niece just looked in, and asked if he wanted anything, and being told that she need not trouble herself about him, quickly took the hint, and retired for the night.

Then began the real fun of the little fairies. As soon as the old man had made himself comfortable, and a drowsy comfortable feeling began to steal over him, they were at him again. First one of them tickled his nostrils with a feather until he was obliged to rub his nose violently, which woke him up at the critical moment when he was just about to go off into a quiet sleep. Then the same thing happened to his right ear; then it was his left, and then his nostrils again. Then they left him alone for a few moments until he was really just asleep, when Sprightly said in his ear, quite close, and in a voice that was almost above a whisper,

"That man has lighted the match – close to the stacks in the rick-yard. Fire!"

The old man started up as if he had been shot.

"Fire!" he cried out; "what the dickens was that? Who said fire?"

He sat up in his bed and listened, and then he grumbled to himself about the folly of eating dumplings for supper after beefsteak-pudding, and how it always made one dream such nonsense, and then back he sank upon his pillow, grumbling still until he gradually dropped off again. Then, softly uncovering his feet, the cruel Sprightly, before this sleep had lasted more than a minute, gave him a sharp and severe nip on the same toe as before, and again the unhappy man woke with a yell, or rather bellow, of pain, and said bitter words against that gout to which he firmly believed himself to be the victim. The pain kept him awake some minutes, but at last he dozed off again, and then came more tickling and whispering, so that he could by no possibility get any real or prolonged repose.

At last there was a long and careful whisper on the part of Sprightly's companion, during which the farmer did not indeed awake but turned over again and again, first on one side and then on the other, muttering to himself meanwhile:

"Wheat down again! Ruin – ruin – ruin! Markets awful bad;" and presently again he groaned out in his sleep, "Drat them Yankees and their beef!" all of which remarks, distinctly heard by Evelyn as she stood on a chair by the bedside, told her plainly enough that the little elves were fulfilling the commands of their queen with great and precise exactness. Still the old man dozed and woke, and woke and dozed, and ever and anon turned uneasily in his bed, as if passing a decidedly uncomfortable time of it, until at last, after another tremendous nip from Sprightly's pincers, he quite woke up and groaned audibly.

At that moment, to her great surprise (for there seemed no possibility of his thinking it a dream then) Sprightly and his companion seated themselves one on each side of the old man's head, and began to wave their hands gently over his eyes. He appeared to see nothing, and to be quite ignorant of what they were doing, or indeed that there was any one there, and presently he closed his eyes, though he did not breathe heavily, or snore, or give any palpable sign of being asleep.

Both the little elves now began to whisper eagerly in his ears, and Evelyn quite plainly heard the words, "poor boys!" "only a couple of apples," "honest parents," "no such great offence after all," and various other expressions calculated to appease the wrath of the old farmer against the culprits of whom the fairy queen had spoken. The old man soon began to mutter again, and from what he said it was evident to Evelyn that the words of the whisperers were not without their effect. Presently he seemed to be quite awake.

"Curious that I should dream about them lads," he said. "I hope the poor chaps haven't had such a bad night as I seem in for. Maybe they didn't know they was doing so wrong. I've took apples myself, before now, when I hadn't ought to have done so. I don't know as I'll go against them after all! Dash me if I will, either!"

Scarcely were the words out of his mouth when the faces of both the elves lighted up with the brightness of conscious triumph; they knew that their queen's commands had been obeyed, and her desire accomplished, and they lost no time in their next proceeding. Abandoning at once their previous endeavours at whispering, tickling, and tormenting, they made sundry passes over the old man's face, which had the effect of immediately plunging him into a profound sleep. Twice he snored heavily, but this time it was not the snore of restlessness or disgust, but the contented sound of a peaceful and happy sleeper.

At this moment the three-quarters past eleven sounded on the chimes of the neighbouring church clock. The little elves instantly started up, whispered to Evelyn that the queen would be shortly expecting them, and beckoning the little girl to follow them, crept quietly and stealthily from the farmer's bedroom, descended the stairs, and passing through the front door in the same manner by which they had entered it, hastily sped back to the forest.

In the glade they found the queen, standing among a group of elves who were positively convulsed with merriment. They were listening to the account which Flittermouse, Childerkin, and Gadaway were giving of the visit to Dr. Backbrusher, which they had lately paid, and from which they had but just returned, and they seemed to have given the worthy doctor rather a rough time of it, having bothered him with hard crumbs in his bed until he had lost all patience, and bounced out of bed for a light, in searching for which he had tumbled into his bath, and been made thoroughly uncomfortable for the night.

Whether this proceeding on the part of the elves was calculated to make the doctor more tender of his pupils' feelings was a question which Evelyn found herself unable to solve, but she hoped for the best when she heard the fairy queen, after expressing her entire approval of what had been done, publicly declare her intention of persevering, and giving orders that Dr. Backbrusher should be persistently and thoroughly plagued every night until he had been brought to a kinder and more satisfactory frame of mind.

When the fairies had laughed enough at the account of the schoolmaster's disasters, the queen asked the others to relate how they had fulfilled their several missions, and expressed herself very well satisfied with the manner in which her wishes with regard to Farmer Grubbins had been carried out. Nor was she less pleased with the conduct of the elves who had been sent upon errands of a more emphatically benevolent nature.

Tears stood in Evelyn's eyes as she heard little Mirthful relate the gratitude of the poor old woman whom she had been sent to comfort. To be sure, she had not exactly known whom to thank, having seen no one, but for all that she had shown a thankful disposition, and such a cheerful determination to look at the bright side of a life that seemed dark enough, poor thing! and to make the best of everything, come what might, that Evelyn felt quite touched at the narrative. She felt sincere sympathy, too, for and with little Miss Wilson, whom Pitiful and Hoverer had vastly assisted with her French verbs. They told of all her trouble in learning, and how, by their secret help, she had suddenly found herself able to remember, and had been quite astonished at finding that she could learn with such unusual and unexpected ease. She had not the least idea, they said, that she was being helped by fairies, and of course it was the best thing in the world for her to be thus deceived, because having once overcome her difficulties, as she thought, by her own patience and determination, she would always in future employ the same weapons, and that with an additional confidence which would go far to insure success.

From all these accounts Evelyn learned that which she had always hoped and believed to be true, namely, that it is the pleasure of good fairies – such as those who principally inhabit forest glades and mountain wilds – to help and comfort mortals who require it, and especially such mortals as love to help and comfort others, and have tender feeling hearts within their breasts. She could not but feel, moreover, that those mortals whom the elves delighted to plague and torment were generally, if not always, people who richly deserved it, and who were not over-scrupulous about hurting the feelings of their fellow-mortals.

Thus it appeared to Evelyn that the elfin race performed most useful functions, and were deserving to the utmost of the affection and respect which she had ever bestowed upon them.

While these thoughts passed through the child's mind, the messenger elves had all finished their accounts of their doings, and the queen now waved her hand solemnly, upon which they parted right and left, and she remained standing alone. Then she spoke thus:

"Midnight hour has struck again,
One more day is with the slain:
One more morn will soon be here,