THE BOG-WOOD BOX
“This is not a story,” Great-Aunt Hawthorne used to say, “it is just something that happened.”
Mr. Denis Duchesne first saw the box one evening in the shop window, behind a bowl of Japanese silver fish and a windflower blossoming in a blue china jug. It was a little box, quite plain, and by the look of it had lain long a-soaking in the black bog-water. He bought it for a shilling and threepence three farthings, and took it home to keep fiddle-strings in. And no sooner had he taken the lid off than out shone a little green light and a spark.
“ ’Tis glow worms in the box,” cried Denis, clapping it down. The little light went out quick as a blown candle at the word, and something skittered over his fingers like a flittermouse.
And that was the last leprechaun ever came out of Ireland.
Denis himself had come out of France as a bit of a boy. He taught music and dancing, and was little enough thought of, for all he was grown a fine young man with a wild brown eye and a way of wearing his clothes that set the Mayor’s sons by the ears. He had the lower floor of an old narrow house on the river, and at high tide the bowsprits of the barges used to knock the sandy cat off his window-sill. It was a queer cat, and it always swam ashore with no more fuss than a duck. There was more than one queer thing about that house, what with the Widow Macmurchison on the first floor and old Berry under the roof. And now there it was with a leprechaun loose in it and they not knowing.
Denis hunted for the jumping glow-worm all over the room on his hands and knees, and the sandy cat sat and smiled at him under its whiskers. Trust a sandy cat for knowing the ups and downs of things.
“The devil’s in the box,” cried young Denis, for he had hit his head against the table, “or maybe one of those luminous flies the mayor saw in the Indies.” And with that he coiled up all his spare fiddle-strings as neat as you please and put them in the box. Then he blew out his candle and sat in the window, with the tide fingering on the wet gray stone under him and the stars coming out above. He would sit there for an hour singing songs that he hoped Dorothy Macmurchison on the first floor might give an ear to. He had no more thought of leprechauns in his brown head than he had of sorrow; that was little enough.
And all the time there was the leprechaun hopping upstairs, and he not knowing.
While young Denis was at “Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,” with French flourishes, and little Mistress Dorothy was sighing in the room above, the leprechaun went hopping upstairs. By this and that he came to old Berry’s door and opened it and went in, like a little green flame along the dusty floor.
Old Berry was wanting. He always lived in his little room under the roof, and went with the house when it changed hands. He spent most of his time making verse he could never finish, and sometimes he went out and gathered ferns and the red sheep-sorrel that grows among buttercups. He was too old to be surprised at anything, and when he saw the leprechaun he just said “Good evening to you, and my thanks for shutting the door behind you, for the draught’s cruel.”
“Good-evening to ye,” said the leprechaun, all at home and friendly, “good-evening to ye, and a pleasant star to sleep under. And what may ye be doing with your time now?”
“Making songs,” said old Berry, “but they won’t come out right nor end on the good word.”
“Won’t they, now?” answered the leprechaun. “There’s nothing I like better than songs, and I know a many. What might that song be about that’s under the heel of your hand this living moment?”
“Tears and dew,” said old Berry, rubbing his head, “two things that look much alike but someway taste different.”
“I know nought of the first, but of the last, what could be sweeter? And what’s the chune of your song?”
“It was a long time ago, and I’ve forgotten why, but this is the tune of it:
“ ‘When I left the green hills and fared my feet away,
All my heart went down to earth on every falling leaf,
And in among the faded fern, the little dew was gray
As the gray tears of grief—’
tears and dew, sir, you see.”
“Go on with your chune,” says the leprechaun.
“ ‘Maybe when I’m older and it’s short from sun to sun,
Days I’ll dream of lying there with all the stars above,
While in among the sorrel bloom . . .”
“And it ends there,” said the old man, helpless, “which it shouldn’t, and it is in my mind that there is a fine bright word for it to end on, a word I’ve forgotten, and I can’t finish it.”
“I’m not here for long, but I’ll come back before I go and finish your chune for you,” and the leprechaun nodded very friendly and went out. What he did in the night Great-Aunt Hawthorne didn’t know. But while Denis was finishing breakfast in the morning, he came into the room with the sandy cat.
“Holy Saints!” said Denis, and sat with a spoon full of strawberry jam held half way to his mouth, and his mouth open.
“Whist with your staring,” cried the leprechaun, and he took Denis by the wrist very testy, and sent the spoon into his mouth with a clap. “I’ve but looked in for a minute to give you a hint with your affairs, and all you can do is to stare like a heifer in a fairy-ring.”
“Comment,” said Denis Duchesne, as well as he could for the spoon, “and what may you know of me and my affairs, for example?”
The leprechaun smiled, and the sandy cat smiled. “I saw your dreams go past me in the night,” said the leprechaun. “There were the silver dreams of youth, and the golden dreams that are dreams for ever, and there were dreams as red as the briar rose that grows under the green hill. And they were all of them beating and fluttering about the bright head of a girl. And a good girl she is, with a light foot on her and a skin like the new milk that creams at the lip of the pail on a frosty morning. But the Widow . . .” and the leprechaun winked.
“O, the Widow,” groaned Denis.
“Whist with your groaning.” The leprechaun began to waver and flicker like a little green flame before it goes out. “Take what’s given you and good may come of it. Denis, boy, take my word for it, you’ll find all your fiddle strings broken.”
And with that there was Denis, and nothing in front of him, but the sandy cat sitting with its tail round its paws, and the pot of strawberry jam.
Denis was in a great taking. The hair of his head stood up like gorse on a common, the way he tore at it, and he went all round and about the room hunting for the leprechaun. He thought he was mad, with the leprechaun and the talk of Dorothy and all. But by this and by that, and the sight of the sandy cat sleeping under the table, he quieted down and went to look at his fiddle. And there was every string, even the silver G, broken at the bridge.
Young Denis said, “The devil’s in everything,” and took out the broken strings and put in new ones from the bog-wood box. He had no more than tuned the fiddle than there was a knocking at the door. That was the quality come for the dancing lessons. And they knowing nothing about the leprechaun.
The first to come in was the mayor’s wife, a tall woman with a hard eye and a mouth so thin it puzzled Denis how his worship ever had the heart to kiss her. She had her three daughters, and they dropped three great round haughty curtseys to poor Denis bowing in the doorway with his fiddle under his arm and the jam spoon sticking out of his tail-coat pocket, where, in his hurry, he had thrust it. Then old Captain Vandeleur came in with his two nieces that he never let from under his eye, and they but plain girls, and they would have nothing to do with the Mayor’s daughters, but went past them in a rustle of lilac chintz and their noses in the air. Then there was the young man from the apothecary’s who was allowed in to open the door and practise his steps in the corner. And last there was the Widow Macmurchison, with a black front and an India shawl, watching young Denis with an eye like a fish’s, and Dorothy coming in behind her like the breath of the morning, and Denis’s heart kept time to the tune of her little feet on the floor.
But she went past him with her eyes hidden, and there was no more than a “Good-morning to you, Monsieur Duchesne,” and a “B’jour, Ma’amselle Dorothee,” and never a touch of her hand to put him in tune for his work. So it was with a long face that Denis tucked his fiddle under his chin. “Take your places for the new figure, mesdames, if you please,” he said, wearily.
When all the pretty feet were pointed and all the pretty eyes fixed on Denis, he counted: “One, two, three,” and began to play on his little fiddle. And at the first note it was as if a happy wind went through the room, and voices went with the wind.
“For the first note,” said Great-Aunt Hawthorne, “was memory, and the next love and the third laughter.” Never was such a tune. Denis played like a man in a dream, with flying fingers, but in truth the music came from the strings that had lain in the bog-wood box, whether he would or no. And presently the Widow Macmurchison clapped her hand to the India shawl, and “O, my heart,” she cried, “my heart and my youth!” Old Vandeleur put his hat under his chair at the word, and they went off footing it down the room like a pair possessed. The apothecary’s young man came out of the corner, his eyes all lost and shining, and he took the mayor’s youngest daughter and they danced too, light as the flame dances in the ling, she laughing low and the pride gone out of her face. The other girls were dancing together like wild-wood things, all a flutter of roses and ribbons, and their feet might have been shod with swallow’s wings. Their faces were bright and strange, and it was as if the music played in their hearts the tune of all happiness that had been, of all laughter that was to be. Never was such a tune.
For there was a more wonderful thing let loose in the room than ever the leprechaun was, and that was youth. The music was in their feet and the music was in their hearts. Little Mistress Dorothy danced up to Denis like a leaf in a warm wind, and her eyes were raised at last, and shone into his like stars in a merry heaven. She said no word, but she tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and they danced off together. The measure they danced was different, and the music they heard was different, for there was grief in it and a shadow, as there is in all great things. The sweet wind and the voices seemed to follow them.
“Is there a light shining on dove’s wings?” said Dorothy in a dreaming voice.
“I see nothing but the light in your eyes.”
“Do you hear a beat of tears in the music?”
“I hear nothing but the beat of your heart,” said Denis as he played.
“Do you see a falling of leaves?”
“I see nothing but the flowering of the rose that folds the world,” and they danced on.
“That’s a work well finished,” said the leprechaun, who had been listening at the keyhole. And he hopped upstairs thoughtfully to old Berry’s room.
Old Berry was lying very quietly on his bed in the bright morning sunlight, with sheep-sorrel in his hand, and his age was heavy on him.
“I’ve brought the bright word for the song,” said the leprechaun, sitting like a little green flame on the bed-post, “the song of the tears and the dew.”
“Have you, now?” whispered the old man. “Then I take it very neighbourly of you, for I have never come to finish it. And what’s the bright word that will be the end of it?”
“I’ll finish your chune for you,” said the leprechaun,
“ ‘Maybe when I’m older and it’s short from sun to sun,
Days I’ll dream of lying there with all the stars above,
While in among the sorrel bloom the little dew will run
Like the white tears of love.’
Love’s the bright word.”
“A good word, a bright word for the end of a song,” said old Berry, and he fingered the sheep-sorrel and slept, with the leprechaun watching him. Soon the leprechaun slipped from the room, for there was that in it he might not abide. He went down the stairs like a little flame and the sandy cat followed him. The pair of them went down the gray street together in the morning, and it’s a hard question which was the wiser. But they went, and no more was seen of them.
And in the room on the ground floor, said Great-Aunt Hawthorne, they were at their dancing all day long.