Chapter Four.
The Story of the Three Wishes.
“And now for a story,” said Alix joyfully. “May we sit close beside you, Mrs—oh dear! Mayn’t we call you something?”
“Anything you like,” replied the old woman, smiling.
“I know,” cried Alix; “Mrs Caretaker—will that do? It’s rather a nice name when you come to think of it.”
“Yes,” agreed their old friend; “and it should be everybody’s name, more or less, if everybody did their duty. There’s no one without something to take care of.”
“No,” said Rafe thoughtfully; “I suppose not.”
“Draw the two little stools close beside me—one at the right, one at the left; and if you like, you may lean your heads on my knee, you’ll hear none the worse.”
“Oh, that’s beautiful,” said Alix; “it’s like the children and the white lady. Do you know about the white lady?” she went on, starting up suddenly.
Mrs Caretaker nodded. “Oh yes,” she said; “she’s a relation of mine. But we mustn’t chatter any more if you’re to have a story.”
And the children sat quite silent. Click, click, went the knitting-needles.
The Story of the Three Wishes.
That was the name of the first of Mrs Caretaker’s stories.
Once upon a time there lived two sisters in a cottage on the edge of a forest. It was rather a lonely place in some ways, though there was an old town not more than a mile off, where there were plenty of friendly people. But it was lonely in this way, that but seldom any of the townsfolk passed near the cottage, or cared to come to see the sisters, even though they were good and pretty girls, much esteemed by all who knew them.
For the forest had a bad name. Nobody seemed to know exactly why, or what the bad name meant, but there it was. Even in the bright long summer days the children of the town would walk twice as far on the other side to gather posies of the pretty wood-flowers in a little copse, not to be compared with the forest for beauty, rather than venture within its shade. And the young men and maidens of a summer evening, though occasionally they might come to its outskirts in their strolls, were never tempted to do more than stand for a moment or two glancing along its leafy glades. Only the sisters, Arminel and Chloe, had sometimes entered the forest, though but for a little way, and not without some fear and trembling.
But they had no misgiving as to living in its near neighbourhood. Custom does a great deal, and here in the cottage by the forest-side they had spent all their lives. And the grandmother, who had taken care of them since they had been left orphans in their babyhood, told them there was no need for fear so long as they loved each other and did their duty. All the same, she never denied that the great forest was an uncanny place.
This was the story of it, so far as any one knew. Long, long ago, when many things in the world were different from what they are now, a race of giants, powerful and strong, were the owners of the forest, and so long as they were just and kindly to their weaker neighbours, all went well. But after a while they grew proud and tyrannical, and did some very cruel things. Then their power was taken from them, and they became, as a punishment, as weak and puny as they had been the opposite. Now and then, so it was said about the countryside, one or two of them had been seen, miserable-looking little dwarfs. And the seeing of them was the great thing to be dreaded, for it was supposed to be a certain sign of bad luck.
But the grandmother had heard more than this, though where, or when, or how, she could not remember. The spell over the forest dwarfs was not to be for ever; something some day was to break it, though what she did not know.
“And who can tell,” she would say now and then, “how better things may come about for the poor creatures? There’s maybe a reason for your being here, children. Keep love and pity in your hearts, and never let any fear prevent you doing a kind action if it comes in your way.”
But till now, though they had gone on living in the old cottage since their grandmother’s death in the same way, never forgetting what she had said, Arminel and Chloe had never caught sight of their strange neighbours. True, once or twice they had seen a small figure scuttering away when they had ventured rather farther than usual along the forest paths, but then it might have been only some wild wood creature, of whom, no doubt, there were many who had their dwellings in the lonely gloom. Sometimes a strange curiosity really to see one of the dwarfs for themselves would come over them; they often talked about it in the long winter evenings when they had nothing to amuse them.
But it was only to each other that they talked in this way. To their friends in the town, for they had friends there whom they saw once a week on the market-day, they never chattered about the forest or the dwarfs; and when they were asked why they went on living in this strange and lonely place, they smiled and said it was their home, and they were happier there than anywhere else.
And so they were. They were very busy to begin with, for their butter and eggs and poultry were more prized than any to be had far or near. Arminel was the dairy-woman, and Chloe the hen-wife, and at the end of each week they would count up their earnings, eager to see which had made the more by their labours. Fortunately for their happy feelings to each other, up till now their gains had been pretty nearly equal, for there is no saying where jealousy will not creep in, even between the dearest of friends.
But quite lately, for the first time, things had not been going so well. It was late in the autumn, and there had been unusually heavy rains, and when they ceased the winter seemed to begin all at once, and before its time, and the animals suffered for it. The cow’s milk fell off before Arminel had looked for its doing so, and some great plans which she had been making for the future seemed likely to be disappointed. She had hoped to save enough through the winter to buy another cow in the spring, so that with the two she would have had a supply of butter for her customers in the town all the year round. And Chloe’s hens were not doing well either. One or two of them had even died, and she couldn’t get her autumn chickens to fatten. Worst of all, the eggs grew fewer day by day.
These misfortunes distressed the sisters very much. Sadder still, they grew irritable and short-tempered, each reproaching the other, and making out that she herself had managed better.
“It is all your want of foresight,” said Arminel to Chloe one market-day when the egg-basket looked but poorly filled.
“Everybody knows that hens stop laying with the first cold. You should have potted some eggs a few weeks ago when they were so plentiful.”
“My customers don’t care for potted eggs,” said Chloe. “Till now I have always had a pretty fair supply of fresh ones, except for a week or two about Christmas time. How should I have known that this year would be different from other years? If you are so wonderfully wise, why did you not bring Strawberry indoors a month sooner than usual? It is evident that she has caught cold. You need not sneer at my eggs when you count your pats of butter. Why, there are not above half what you had two months ago.”
“When you manage your own affairs properly, you may find fault with mine,” said Arminel snappishly.
And they felt so unamiable towards each other that all the way to market and back they walked on separate sides of the road without speaking a word.
Such a state of things had never been known before.
It was late when they got home that afternoon, and being a dull and cloudy day it was almost dark. The poor girls felt tired and unhappy, for each was sad with the double sadness of having to bear her troubles alone. And besides this, there is nothing more tiring than ill-temper.
Arminel sat down weariedly on a chair. The fire was out; the cottage felt very chilly; the one little candle which Chloe had lighted gave but a feeble ray. Arminel sighed deeply. Chloe, whose heart was very soft, felt sorry for her, and setting down her basket began to see to the fire.
“Leave it alone,” said her sister. “We may as well go to bed without any supper. I’m too tired to eat; and it’s just as well to get accustomed to scanty fare. It is what is before us, I suppose.”
“You need not be quite so downhearted,” said Chloe, persevering in her efforts. “Things may mend again. I sold my eggs for more than ever before. It seems that everybody’s hens are doing badly. I’ll have the fire burning in a minute, and some nice hot coffee ready, and then you’ll feel better.”
But Arminel was not to be so easily consoled.
“If you’ve done well with your eggs it’s more than I did with my butter,” she said. “Dame Margery, the housekeeper from the castle, says she’ll take no more from me if I can’t promise as much as last year. She doesn’t like to go changing about for her butter, she says; and mine was enough for the ladies.”
“I’m sure you’ve enough for two ladies still,” said Chloe.
“Yes; but if I don’t keep a little for my other customers, they won’t come back to me when I have plenty again,” answered her sister, who seemed determined to look on the black side of things.
Then, unluckily, in spite of Chloe’s care, the cold and the damp of the chimney made the fire smoke; great clouds puffed out, almost filling the kitchen.
“I wish you had let me go to bed,” said Arminel hastily; and Chloe’s patience being exhausted, she retorted by calling her sister unkind and ungrateful.
The smoke was very disagreeable, no doubt. Arminel opened the window wide to let it clear off. The wind was blowing from the forest which lay on this side of the house. All looked dark and gloomy, and Arminel gave a little shiver as she glanced out. Suddenly she started.
“Chloe,” she said, “did you hear that?”
“What?” said Chloe.
“A cry—yes, there it is again, as if some one was in great trouble.”
Chloe heard it too, but she was feeling rather sulky and contradictory.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “Only a hare or some wild creature; they often scream,” and she turned back to the table where she was preparing coffee.
But though the room was now pretty clear of smoke and the fire was behaving better, Arminel did not close the window. She still stood by it listening. And again there came the strange shrill yet feeble cry, telling unmistakably of anguish, or whether of beast or man no one could have told. And this time Chloe stood still with the kettle in her hand, more startled than she had been before.
“Sister,” said Arminel decidedly, “that is not the squeal of a hare; it is something worse. Perhaps some child from the town may have strayed into the forest and got benighted. It is possible at least. And the forest is not like other places. Who knows what might happen to one astray there?”
“What could we do in such a case?” said Chloe. “We’re not all-powerful.” She spoke more out of a little remaining temper than from cowardice or indifference, for like her sister she was both brave and kind.
“Remember what our grandmother said,” said Arminel, and she repeated the grandmother’s words: ”‘Never hang back from doing a kind action; no harm can come to you while you love each other and do your duty.’ I am going alone to the forest if you will not come,” she went on, and she turned towards the door as she spoke.
“Of course I will come with you,” said Chloe, reaching down her mantle and hood which she had hung up on a nail. “Close the window, Arminel,” she said. “I’ll leave the coffee on the hob. The fire is burning nicely now, and we shall find it bright and warm when we come back.”
As they stepped outside, closing the door behind them, the cry broke out again. Tired though they were with their long day at market, the sisters set off running. Two or three fields lay between them and the edge of the wood, and part of the way the ground was very rough, but they were nimble and sure-footed. And ever as they ran came the cries, feebler yet more distinct, and before long they could distinguish the words, “Help! comrades, help!”
“It is not a hare, you see,” said Arminel.
“No, indeed,” answered Chloe, and both felt a thrill of fear, though they only ran the faster.
The cries, though now they grew rarer, becoming indeed mingled with groans, still served to guide them. Soon they were in the midst of the trees, making their way more by a sort of instinct, for it was almost dark. Suddenly a ray of moonlight glimmered through the firs, and a few paces in front of them they saw lying on the ground a small dark object writhing and groaning.
Just here the trees were not so thick. It was like a little clearing. The girls stepped onwards cautiously, catching hold of each other.
“It is—” whispered Arminel—“Oh, Chloe, it is one of the dwarfs.”
“Courage,” murmured Chloe in return, though her own heart was beating very fast. “He seems in no state to hurt us now, if only it be not a trick.”
The groans had ceased, and when they got close to the strange figure on the ground it seemed quite motionless. The moonlight had grown stronger. They stooped down and examined the dwarf. His eyes were closed; his face was wrinkled and brown; he was brown all over. He wore a furry coat, much the same colour as his own skin.
Arminel lifted one of his queer clawlike hands; it fell down again by his side.
“I believe he is dead,” she said. “I didn’t know the dwarfs ever could die. What shall we do, Chloe? We cannot leave him here, in case he should be still living.”
“We must carry him home, I’m afraid,” said Chloe. “Yes, I’m afraid we must, for see, Arminel, he’s opening his eyes,” as two bright black beads suddenly glanced up at them.
“Nimbo, Hugo,” said a weak, hoarse little voice. “Are you there? No,” and the dwarf opened his eyes more widely, and tried to sit up. “No,” he went on, “it is not my comrades! Who are you?” and he shuddered as if with fear.