"I'm not so very cold," Myra declared bravely. "I took off the counterpane and wrapped it round me. You'll come, won't you, dear?"
Clem knew why he was summoned. Two days ago Susannah had told them of an old woman living at Market Jew who had mixed a pot of green ointment and touched her eyes with it, and ever afterwards seen the fairies. At once Myra, who was naught if not practical, had secreted Susannah's jar of cold cream (kept to preserve the children's skin from freckles) and a phial of angelica-water from the store-closet, had stirred these into a beautiful green paste, and had anointed her own eyes and Clem's with it, using incantations—
"Christ walked a little, a little
Before the sun did rise;
Christ mixed clay with spittle,
And cured a blind man's eyes;
This man, and that man,
And likewise Bartimee—
What Christ did for these poor men
I hope He'll do for me."
"Christ walked a little, a little
Before the sun did rise;
Christ mixed clay with spittle,
And cured a blind man's eyes;
This man, and that man,
And likewise Bartimee—
What Christ did for these poor men
I hope He'll do for me."
The charm, however, had not worked. Perhaps it needed time to operate, and the children had despaired too soon.
"Why didn't you come to me at once?" demanded Clem.
"I didn't dare." Myra trembled now, on the verge of putting her hopes to the touch. Though these were but pisky-lights, what bliss if Clem should behold them! "Besides, I saw a light across the yard in Archelaus Libby's garret. I believe he is awake there, with his telescope, and he can't have tried the ointment. You won't be terribly disappointed, dear, if—"
He slid out of bed and took her hand.
He was a brave boy; and when she led him to her window and he saw nothing, his first thought was for her disappointment, to soothe it as well as he might.
"Tell me about it," he whispered, nestling down on the window-seat and drawing her head close to his shoulder; for after the pause that destroyed hope she had broken down, her body shaking with muffled sobs, woeful to feel and to hear. Outside, the Northern Lights—the 'merry-dancers'—yet flickered over the snowy roof-ridges and the snowy uplands beyond.