“I come from the court of King Oberon, sweet Titania,” answered the Elf, “and to-night I plait the manes and tails of Farmer Best’s grey horses. At early dawn I shall skim the cream off the milk in his good wife’s dairy, since yester-e’en she grudged a drink of it to an orphan child. ‘Robin Goodfellow has been here!’ she will cry when she sees what I have been after, and her greedy old eyes will fill with tears. That is one of my pet names, Wide-eyes,” he added, hopping on to my shoulder and pinching my ear. “I am also Pouke, Hobgoblin, and Robin Hood. But where are the Urchins, my merry play-fellows? It is high time that they were here, for the lady moon has hung her lamp i’ the sky.”
“The Fairy Ring was thronged with dancing Elves”
The clouds were all tinted a deep rose pink, and behind the trees, just where the moon had risen, was a haze of purple. I knew by this that it must be nearly tea-time, and I was just going to say that I must go, when Titania left the frond of bracken, and alighted in the centre of the Fairy Ring. Waving her wand, she summoned her “gladsome sprites,” and next moment the Fairy Ring was thronged with dancing Elves who wore red caps and silver shoes, with bright green mantles buttoned with bobs of silk. Puck flew to join them, but Peas-blossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustard-seed, who sprang from nowhere, danced in an inner circle round the Fairy Queen. They sang as they danced, and this is their song. I found it afterwards in a book of Father’s, which he said had in it more wonderful things than all books in the world but one:
“By the moon we sport and play,
With the night begins our day.
As we frisk the dew doth fall,
Trip it, little urchins all.
Lightly as the little bee,
Two by two and three by three,
And about goe wee, goe wee.”
“And about goe wee, goe wee!” echoed down the glade, and then the Elves suddenly disappeared, with Puck and Titania and her attendants.
The wood was growing darker every minute, but the sparkles of frost were glittering still, and lit my way. At the end of the scrub I saw Father coming to meet me, swinging down the road with such long steps that he looked like a kindly big giant. He had guessed where I had gone, and he was so pleased to find me that he forgot to say I mustn’t explore any more without him, as I was afraid he would. He took my hand, and we both ran; it was lovely at home by the fire.
I meant to have told him about Queen Titania while we were having tea, but Nancy had made such scrumptious cakes that there wasn’t time at first, and before I had finished he began to open the letters that had come just after he left that morning. They seemed to be all bills, and Father sighed as he looked them over, his forehead puckered into rucks and lines. Presently he came to a big blue envelope, and he turned this round and round as if he thought there might be something horrid inside. The paper crackled like anything as he drew it out, and when it was unfolded he sat looking at it for a long time, though there didn’t seem to be much writing. At last he gave an odd kind of gasp, and took my face between his hands. He pressed it so hard that he made me say “O!” though I didn’t want to do this, and I wondered what had happened.
“Your great-aunt Helen is dead, Chris,” he said at last, as he let me go. “I haven’t seen her for years and years.… She was not over kind to me when I was a lad, though I believe she meant well.… And now she’s left us all her money. We shan’t be poor any more.”