Gnome and Fay.”
As a single drop of water contains things with life and being, which cannot be seen with the naked eye, so in space dwell the creatures of the imagination, both wise and beautiful, being full of love and sympathy for mankind and goodwill towards women and young children. Show me a selfish, disobedient boy, or a naughty girl, who ever saw a fairy. You can’t. I defy you to produce one. But many a bright youth and pretty maiden, who love truth and obedience better than play or lollies, can testify that the lovely persons who came to them in dreams were the same who now stood round the cradle of the dead baby.
How these wee people had loved it, and had [[262]]kept watch and ward over it, ever since they had espied it in its basket cradle downstairs! Fresh from the mysterious star-world, of which they knew nothing, they had marvelled at it, and had crowed and cooed and sung to it, until it had begun to know them, and answer after its fashion, and laugh, and shake its fat, dimpled fists and crow too.
How they had watched it when it slept, and filled its tiny brain with innocent visions pure as the setting sun! How they had caused their magic to mantle its slumber, and the little rosebud mouth to open out in smiles! How silent and still now! No smile parts the pale lips. Not all the witchcraft in Fairyland, nor all the songs sung by sprite or fay to fretful babyhood, can lift but even one slender hair from those drooping eyelids which shroud the dim, blue eyes.
“Baby’s dead,” said one, and “Dead, dead, dead,” repeated all the elfin circle.
“Let us bear it hence unto the open glade. The bright beams of the morning sun will bring back its look of gladness, and we shall hear its voice again.”
“Ay, bear it hence,” replied the chorus.
Cradled in the wild flowers they had spread around it, the elfins carried off their silent burden, and laid it gently within a scented grove, and as the glorious morn broke forth to life and gladness, [[263]]the birds gathered together in the fairy haunt and sang a requiem.
Up rose the sun and filled the dell with golden splendour. Its shining beams spread through the foliage in amber-coloured radiance, and played about the fair head of the dead baby until the creatures around shrank back in awe at the sight; but the sun brought no light to its eyes, nor smile to its lips. And so they carried the infant back again within its little room, and departed wondering.
Oh, weeping mother, whose bitter tears have drenched thy baby’s winding sheet, had’st thou faith even as a grain of mustard seed in the Master, thou couldst see above thee, beyond that cold, dead clay, the forms of angels bearing thy little one to eternal rest.