HAPPY RETURNS
BY the side of a great river, whose stream formed the boundary to two countries, lived an old ferryman and his wife. All the day, while she minded the house, he sat in his boat by the ferry, waiting to carry travellers across; or, when no travellers came, and he had his boat free, he would cast drag-nets along the bed of the river for fish. But for the food which he was able thus to procure at times, he and his wife might well have starved, for travellers were often few and far between, and often they grudged him the few pence he asked for ferrying them; and now he had grown so old and feeble that when the river was in flood he could scarcely ferry the boat across; and continually he feared lest a younger and stronger man should come and take his place, and the bread from his mouth.
But he had trust in Providence. "Will not God," he said, "who has given us no happiness in this life, save in each other's help and companionship, allow us to end our days in peace?"
And his wife answered, "Yes, surely, if we trust Him enough He will."
One morning, it being the first day of the year, the ferryman going down to his boat, found that during the night it had been loosed from its moorings and taken across the river, where it now lay fastened to the further bank.
"Wife," said he "I can remember this same thing happening a year ago, and the year before also. Who is this traveller who comes once a year, like a thief in the night, and crosses without asking me to ferry him over?"
"Perhaps it is the good folk," said his wife. "Go over and see if they have left no coin behind them in the boat."
The old man got on to a log and poled himself across, and found, down in the keel of the boat, the mark of a man's bare foot driven deep into the wood; but there was no coin or other trace to show who it might be.
Time went on; the old ferryman was all bowed down with age, and his body was racked with pains. So slow was he now in making the passage of the stream, that all travellers who knew those parts took a road higher up the bank, where a stronger ferryman plied.
Winter came; and hunger and want pressed hard at the old man's door. One day while he drew his net along the stream, he felt the shock of a great fish striking against the meshes down below, and presently, as the net came in, he saw a shape like living silver, leaping and darting to and fro to find some way of escape. Up to the bank he landed it, a great gasping fish.
When he was about to kill it, he saw, to his astonishment, tears running out of its eyes, that gazed at him and seemed to reproach him for his cruelty. As he drew back, the Fish said: "Why should you kill me, who wish to live?"
The old man, altogether bewildered at hearing himself thus addressed, answered: "Since I and my wife are hungry, and God gave you to be eaten, I have good reason for killing you."
"I could give you something worth far more than a meal," said the Fish, "if you would spare my life."
"We are old," said the ferryman, "and want only to end our days in peace. To-day we are hungry; what can be more good for us than a meal which will give us strength for the morrow, which is the new year?"
The Fish said: "To-night someone will come and unfasten your boat, and ferry himself over, and you know nothing of it till the morning, when you see the craft moored out yonder by the further bank."
The old man remembered how the thing had happened in previous years, directly the Fish spoke. "Ah, you know that then! How is it?" he asked.
"When you go back to your hut at night to sleep, I am here in the water," said the Fish. "I see what goes on."
"What goes on, then?" asked the old man, very curious to know who the strange traveller might be.
"Ah," said the Fish, "if you could only catch him in your boat, he could give you something you might wish for! I tell you this: do you and your wife keep watch in the boat all night, and when he comes, and you have ferried him into mid-stream, where he cannot escape, then throw your net over him and hold him till he pays you for all your ferryings."
"How shall he pay me? All my ferryings of a lifetime!"
"Make him take you to the land of Returning Time. There, at least, you can end your days in peace."
The old man said: "You have told me a strange thing; and since I mean to act on it, I suppose I must let you go. If you have deceived me, I trust you may yet die a cruel death."
The Fish answered: "Do as I tell you, and you shall die a happy one." And, saying this he slipped down into the water and disappeared.
The ferryman went back to his wife supperless, and said to her: "Wife, bring a net, and come down into the boat!" And he told her the story of the Fish and of the yearly traveller.
They sat long together under the dark bank, looking out over the quiet and cold moonlit waters, till the midnight hour. The air was chill, and to keep themselves warm they covered themselves over with the net and lay down in the bottom of the boat. It was the very hour when the old year dies and the new year is born.
Before they well knew that they had been asleep, they started to feel the rocking of the boat, and found themselves out upon the broad waters of the river. And there in the fore-part of the boat, clear and sparkling in the moonlight, stood a naked man of shining silver. He was bending upon the pole of the boat, and his long hair fell over it right down into the water.
The old couple rose up quietly, and unwinding themselves from the net, threw it over the Silver Man, over his head and hands and feet, and dragged him down into the bottom of the boat.
The old man caught the ferry pole, and heaved the boat still into the middle of the stream. As he did so a gentle shock came to the heart of each; feebly it fluttered and sank low. "Oh, wife!" sighed the old man, and reached out his hand for hers.
The Silver Man lay still in the folds of the net, and looked at them with a wise and quiet gaze. "What would you have of me?" he said, and his voice was far off and low.
They said, "Bring us into the land of Returning Time."
The Silver Man said: "Only once can you go there, and once return."
They both answered "We wish once to go there, and once return."
So he promised them that they should have the whole of their request; and they unloosed him from the net, and landed altogether on the further bank.
Up the hill they went, following the track of the Silver Man. Presently they reached its crest; and there before them lay all the howling winter of the world.
The Silver Man turned his face and looked back; and looking back it became all young, and ruddy, and bright. The ferryman and his wife gazed at him, both speechless at the wonderful change. He took their hands, making them turn the way by which they had come; below their feet was a deep black gulf, and beyond and away lay nothing but a dark starless hollow of air.
"Now," said their guide, "you have but to step forward one step, and you shall be in the land of Returning Time."
They loosed hold of his hands, joined clasp, husband with wife, and at one step upon what seemed gulf beneath their feet, found themselves in a green and flowery land. There were perfumed valleys and grassy hills, whose crops stretched down before the breeze; thick fleecy clouds crossed their tops, and overhead amid a blue air rang the shrill trilling of birds. Behind lay, fading mistily as a dream, the bare world they had left; and fast on his forward road, growing small to them from a distance, went the Silver Man, a shining point on the horizon.
The ferryman and his wife looked, and saw youth in each other's faces beginning to peep out through the furrows of age; each step they took made them grow younger and stronger; years fell from them like worn-out rags as they went down into the valleys of the land of Returning Time.
How fast Time returned! Each step made the change of a day, and every mile brought them five years back towards youth. When they came down to the streams that ran in the bed of each valley, the ferryman and his wife felt their prime return to them. He saw the gold come back into her locks, and she the brown into his. Their lips became open to laughter and song. "Oh, how good," they cried, "to have lived all our lives poor, to come at last to this!"
They drank water out of the streams, and tasted the fruit from the trees that grew over them; till presently, being tired for mere joy, they lay down in the grass to rest. They slept hand within hand and cheek against cheek, and, when they woke, found themselves quite young again, just at the age when they were first married in the years gone by.
The ferryman started up and felt the desire of life strong in his blood. "Come!" he said to his wife, "or we shall become too young with lingering here. Now we have regained our youth, let us go back into the world once more!"
His wife hung upon his hand, "Are we not happy enough," she asked, "as it is? Why should we return?"
"But," he cried, "we shall grow too young; now we have youth and life at its best let us return! Time goes too fast with us; we are in danger of it carrying us away."
She said no further word, but followed up towards the way by which they had entered. And yet, in spite of her wish to remain, as she went her young blood frisked. Presently coming to the top of a hill, they set off running and racing; at the bottom they looked at each other, and saw themselves boy and girl once more.
"We have stayed here too long!" said the ferryman, and pressed on.
"Oh, the birds," sighed she, "and the flowers, and the grassy hills to run on, we are leaving behind!" But still the boy had the wish for a man's life again, and urged her on; and still with every step they grew younger and younger. At length, two small children, they came to the border of that enchanted land, and saw beyond the world bleak and wintry and without leaf. Only a further step was wanted to bring them face to face once more with the hard battle of life.
Tears rose in the child-wife's eyes: "If we go," she said, "we can never return!" Her husband looked long at her wistful face; he, too, was more of a child now, and was forgetting his wish to be a man again.
He took hold of her hand and turned round with her, and together they faced once more the flowery orchards, and the happy watered valleys.
Away down there light streams tinkled, and birds called. Downwards they went, slowly at first, then with dancing feet, as with shoutings and laughter they ran.
Down into the level fields they ran; their running was turned to a toddling; their toddling to a tumbling; their tumbling to a slow crawl upon hands and feet among the high grass and flowers; till at last they were lying side by side, curled up into a cuddly ball, chuckling and dimpling and crowing to the insects and birds that passed over them.
Then they heard the sweet laughter of Father Time; and over the hill he came, young, ruddy, and shining, and gathered them up sound asleep on the old boat by the ferry.
Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld.,
London and Aylesbury.
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
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