‘Bowed like a courtier.’
The Small People saw the child, and seemed quite pleased to see her, for they smiled most graciously, and one of the little musicians took off his three-cornered hat and bowed like a courtier, and said he hoped she did not mind their singing, as it was their custom to sing a little impromptu song to their cousins—the sea-fairies—every beautiful morning in May, that being, he told her, the month of flowers and music.
Bessie Jane did not mind in the least. Indeed, she was delighted to think she had come in time to hear one of their little songs, only she was far too shy to say so.
She sat on the cliff where she could see the Wee Folk and Harlyn Bay at the same time. The sea was coming in, and was already under the cliff where she was sitting; as she looked down into the water she saw it was full of lovely little creatures, who were gazing up at her with all the eyes in their heads. They were sea-fairies, she could tell, by their resemblance to the dear little thing she had caught in her shrimping-net. They all wore little green shifts or shirts, through which their tiny pink bodies glowed like a rose, and all had sun-beamed hair and deep-blue eyes. Some of the sea-fairies were riding on the backs of the waves and tossing tiny spray-balls when she first saw them; others were darting in and out the sea-ripples as quick as sun-flashes, and playing over the inner bay in waves of light. A short distance out were a hundred or more little female sea-fairies dancing, and as they danced and held each other’s hands they looked like tiny garlands of sunbeams. They were dancing to a sweet tune of their own, or perhaps to the music of the sea, which was full of lovely sounds to-day, and colour too—that wonderful ethereal blue which is only seen in a summer’s dawn.
Whilst Bessie Jane was watching the sea-fairies, and wondering if the little friend she had put back into the sea were amongst them, and if she could see her without eyes, the Wee Folk on the cliff suddenly broke into music and song. The song was so wild and free and the music so sweet that the sea-fairies far out in the bay came close under the cliff and listened with the utmost joy, their tiny faces shining with pleasure, and their small bodies swaying in time to the rhythm of the song. As for the child, she thought it was the loveliest music she had ever heard. The song, which was accompanied by lutes, flutes, and reeds, and by the tapping of tiny feet and clapping of hands, was as follows:
‘Sing, sing, sea-fairies, sing!
For the dark has fled
At the dawn’s soft tread;
And the moon grows cold