Fairies Afield

His praise went far to reward the dame for the trouble she had given herself. She smiled, and catching Merran's eye, the smile was returned.

"She's growing a big girl now, you see," said the aunt. "Old enough to be always tidy, and beginning to be handy too, we'll hope."

"Yes," said the farmer, turning from the window where he had been standing looking out. "You can be useful in the hay-field now, child. If I did but know what the weather's like to be to-morrow, so as to begin!"

"Uncle," exclaimed Merran eagerly. "It's going to be fine, very fine all to-day, and I'm almost sure all to-morrow, and I think for a lot of days."

Her uncle glanced at her and gave a little laugh.

"I hope you're right, child," he said. "But how should you know? You can't be a weather prophet at your age!"

"I can't tell you how I know," began Merran, reddening a little, "but I feel – " and just then Dirk broke in, and what he said was very lucky, as, both then and afterwards, it served the good purpose of saving her from cross-questioning about her curious power.

"Don't be too sure of that, father," he said. "There's queer things we can't explain, but true for all that. I've seen a good many of them at sea, and in the far-off places I've been at. There was one old sailor who always dreamt before we put in at any port who'd find letters and who wouldn't, and he never was wrong. And away in the far East, as for prophets! – my! I could tell you stories as'd seem like magic. Over here we're thicker-headed, and maybe it's just as well. But for nature things, there needn't be much doubt but what some are far cuter than others, and maybe Merran's one who has the weather gift."

The little girl glanced at him gratefully, though she did not speak. In her heart she was saying to herself, "I shouldn't wonder if the dear Sunshine fairy hasn't put it into his head to say these things."

As for the farmer and his wife, they were both much impressed, and when an hour or two later the sun set in a glow of crimson and rose, the child's pleasant augury seemed still more trustworthy.

And the next morning proved its correctness.

Little did any one suspect that long before the rest of the household had begun to think of awaking, in the early summer dawn, Merran had crept up to her garret, and there, half trembling with excitement, though much more of hope than fear, had drawn out her magic gifts to test them afresh. Nor was she disappointed. The parasol flew open in her hands, almost before she touched it; the umbrella resisted every effort, though of course she avoided any rough force. It might have been glued or nailed together!

"Fine!" exclaimed Merran joyfully. "Of course it's going to be fine all day – as bright and sunshiny as any one could wish. And after to-day too, and for some time to come I am almost certain. There's something in the feeling of the dear things that I can't describe – I'm getting to understand them. The parasol seems to jump at me in a sort of assuring way that must mean even more than just for to-day, and the umbrella – you are a determined fellow, Mr. Umbrella!"

She laughed merrily in her delight and satisfaction, and the brightness in her face when she went downstairs to breakfast made the others smile at her.

Happily for us all, good spirits are quite as infectious as low ones, if not indeed more so.

"I'm glad I washed her frock for her yesterday," thought the dame, taking credit to herself for the girl's pleasant looks. "Children are easy up and easy down. Maybe I've been a bit too sharp with her now and then."

And Dirk thought to himself that poor little Merran had certainly greatly improved, and even the other brothers refrained, half unconsciously, from teasing or jeering at her, as they had too often done.

The farmer came in after they were all seated at table. He had been having a good look at the sky, and his eyes fell on the small prophetess, with approval.

"You've been right, Merran," he said. "It does look now as if we were in for a spell of real summer weather. And who'd have thought it this time yesterday. If only it lasts till we get the hay in."

"It will, uncle, it will. You'll see," said she. "Just you trust me a bit. I'll know, I'm sure, when it's going to change."

And strange to say, no one laughed at her or her predictions. On the contrary, all of the family seemed impressed. Dirk's remarks the evening before were not forgotten.

And for some time to come Merran had no reason for misgiving. Morning after morning the lovely fairy parasol flew open at her tiniest touch; morning after morning the umbrella refused to yield in even the faintest degree. So the Seaview Farm hay was mown, and dried, and stacked under the most favourable circumstances, and more than one of the neighbouring yeomen wished that they had been as quick about it as Mac and his sons, though at the first start most of the wiseacres had told them they would find it had been better to put off a while.

And once it was all safe, there came a change. One warm bright morning, Merran looked up at the sky silently and then turned to her uncle.

"It's going to rain," she said. "Before night it'll be raining heavily."

The farmer glanced in his turn at the blue, almost cloudless heavens.

"Not a bit of it," he said. "You're out for once, child. No sign whatever of rain. It's market-day, and I'm off. I've got a good bit of business to see to, to-day, at the town. No, no, the weather's all right. You'll see. I may be a trifle late, dame. Don't you be uneasy."

"You'll take your overcoat, anyway, father," said his wife, who was not so unbelieving in Merran's foresight as her husband.

He replied by a hearty laugh.

"Overcoat," he repeated. "Bless me, what are you thinking of? Overcoat in weather like this! Why, it's as settled as can be – warm and fine, like it's been for the last week or two. Couldn't be more settled."

"That's a new word to use for these parts," said Dirk quietly. Merran said nothing. The dame turned to her sons.

"Which of you's going with father?" she said, adding in a whisper to Dirk, who was next her at table, "You'll see to it if you go," she said, "see that he takes his coat. Think of his rheumatism if he gets soaked."

But Dirk shook his head, which was explained by the farmer's next words.

"None of 'em," he said, in reply to the goodwife's enquiry. "There's too much to do at home just now for more than me to be spared. You've all got your work cut out for you – eh, boys?"

Then followed some field and crops talk, and no more was said about the weather, and soon after Farmer Mac set off.

Merran felt sorry and a little anxious. She knew that there would have been no use in her saying anything more, for her uncle was one of the most obstinate of men, but several times that day she made her way up to the garret to test her strange barometers, half in hopes that the bad weather would hold off till the farmer was safe home again. The first time the result was much the same as it had been on her early morning visit. The parasol opened slowly and refused to spread out far. The umbrella responded to her touch as it had never before done – yet it did not spring apart, but gradually allowed itself to stretch a certain amount.

"That means," said Merran, "that the rain's not coming just yet," for she was growing curiously sensitive to the shades of forecast in the magic toys. It was almost as if they spoke to her. But the second trial, later in the day, told of nearer approach of the change, and an hour or two after that, when Merran's anxiety and in a sense, too, her curiosity lured her again to her garret window, the parasol was as if glued together, while the umbrella flew open in her hands, like a bird eager for flight.

Merran felt at the same time satisfied and yet distressed.

"It shows how true they are, and that I can correctly understand them," she said to herself. "Still I do wish poor uncle could get home safely before the rain begins, for evidently it will be very heavy indeed. I wish he had listened to me this morning, but I didn't like to be too certain, for if I had foretold it wrongly they'd have lost faith in me, and I couldn't feel quite sure if it meant that the weather would change so soon."

But even as she reached up to restore her treasures to their hiding-place in the deserted nest, something cold fell on her hand and made her start. The rain had begun!

She made her way downstairs feeling somewhat distressed, for she was by nature affectionate and most ready to sympathise, and of late her aunt had been so much kinder and gentler that the little maid's heart was quite won over.

She was standing by the window, gazing out at the fast increasing downpour, when the dame came in. "Supper-time, Merran," she said briskly, though there was no ill-temper in her tone. "We must be setting the table."

Merran turned with a little start.

"I'm so sorry – " she was beginning, when her aunt interrupted her. "Don't look so scared, child," she said, "I wasn't for scolding you."

"And I wasn't forgetting about supper, auntie," replied the little girl. "It's only that I was wishing poor uncle had got safe back before the rain began – "

"Why," exclaimed the dame, interrupting a second time, as she hurried to the window, "you don't mean to say it's started already? I was so busy in the laundry I hadn't noticed. Deary, deary," she went on, "but it is coming down! And the master without his coat – he'll be soaked through and through. I wish he'd listened to you, child, that I do, though I was hoping it'd hold off till night."

"I wish so too, auntie," said Merran. "I'd rather have been in the wrong than that poor uncle should suffer through me being in the right."

"I'm sure you would," said the dame heartily. Then she stood silent for a moment or two, gazing in distress at the rain, which by this time was indeed a case of "cats and dogs," really waterspouts. The anxious wife sighed deeply.

"He's in for it and no mistake," she said. "Men's that obstinate. Well, well, all we can do is to have hot water ready and make him change his things at once. I'll fetch some of his clothes down to air them – no, I'll do better still, we'll light a small fire upstairs, for, summer though it is, the evening's very chilly. And Merran, child, from now I'll stick to you as my weather-glass. It's a wonderful gift you've got, and we'll do well to believe in it."

"I think so too, auntie," said Merran. "I really can foretell about it," and her quiet tone impressed her hearers still more, for by this time Dirk and one of his brothers had hurried in.

Supper was an uncomfortable meal that evening. They were all anxious, for they all remembered the father's weary weeks of rheumatic fever the year before, and one or other of the "boys" kept running to the door to look out, or to listen for the sound of wheels, not easy to distinguish through the torrents of rain. And Merran was up and downstairs every few minutes to see that the fire was all right, and the clothes safely getting aired. And at last he came, poor man!