“Say to the king your father, and to the queen your mother,” the fairy queen made answer, “that if at the next full moon they will deliver up their throne-room to us for an elfin bridal, we shall bear them ill-will no longer, for my people love nothing better than to feast and make merry in a human dwelling.” Then the queen made them sit down upon the steps of the throne, and commanded that the revels should begin.
“You have done me credit, Master Apprentice,” piped a voice at the cobbler’s elbow, as a train of fairies swept past, and looking round he caught sight of the little green man, who nodded and smiled at him. But when the cobbler and the princess had watched the dancing till the moon rode high in the heavens, the fairy queen laid a hand upon both their heads, and soon a great drowsiness overcame them. Soundly they slept, and when they woke it was to find themselves stretched upon a patch of heather, while all around them the brown bog country lay very still in the light of the paling stars. Then they rose and made haste homewards, and when they reached the palace there were great rejoicings to welcome them back; the king and queen received their daughter with much affection, and besought her pardon for the wrong they had done her, and when the cobbler made bold to ask her hand in marriage, she willingly consented.
So the wedding was celebrated with great pomp and splendour; the city saw nothing but festivities and illuminations for seven days and seven nights, and from far and near the crowds poured in to share in the merry-making. Amongst these came the shepherd and his wife, and the cobbler’s former master, and upon all three the bride and bridegroom showered gifts and benefits.
Now the night after the wedding it was full moon, so the throne-room was garlanded with fresh flowers, and left to the fairies till cock-crow. None saw them come nor go, but in the morning there was found a little golden casket, wrought by the dwarf goldsmiths of the elfin court, and inside the casket was a clump of four-leaved clover. This was the fairy queen’s wedding present, and the bridal couple planted it below their window, and it grew and throve, and brought them untold happiness and good fortune.
Philomène had some difficulty in making out the last word of the story, for Master Mustardseed had half turned it into a trill, and began singing at the top of his voice. The schoolroom door opened; the doctor had come home.
CHAPTER VIII
IN WHICH THE HEROINE MAKES THE FIRST USE OF HER LATCHKEY
It was about this time that Philomène first began to remark a change in her father. He was not at any time a man of many words, but he now became unusually silent even for him. He was not unkind to his little girl, but he saw less of her, and gave her only half his attention when she spoke to him. She suffered acutely from his altered manner, but was far too loyal to confide her trouble to either of her fairy friends, let alone to Nurse or Miss Mills. Once when writing to her godmother, who was abroad at the time, she put at the end of the letter; “P.S.—I wish I had a mother.” But she had no very clear idea as to how a mother would have mended matters, and Isolde in her answer did not refer to the postscript.
It was in these days, when her father called her “little Miss Muffet” less often than formerly, that Philomène grew doubly glad of the key in the savings-box and of the bird-cage in the schoolroom. Master Mustardseed was somewhat of a gossip, and told her many stories about the children to whom the fairy queen stands sponsor, for Titania is very fond of children, though she has none of her own. Then he would tell her all that he had seen in the course of his flight through the air astride of a shooting-star; he would sing to her, till she knew it by heart, the serenade piped by a bulrush who was fast fading for love of an ivory white moth that used to settle on a reed close by, but never came to him. Master Mustardseed had been asleep at the time, curled up inside a yellow waterlily on a pond, having asked a friendly frog to sway the stalk of the lily gently to and fro, so as to produce a drowsy rocking motion. The bulrush’s love-song, however, had waked him up, and having a good musical memory he had learnt it then and there.
The recent wet weather had altogether prevented Philomène from going into the garden, so that May with its lilac was gone, and June with its roses had come, before she had her first opportunity of letting herself into Sweet William’s house by means of her own latchkey. On entering she saw that the room was empty but for the tom-tit, who was trying, it must be confessed without much success, to reduce it to order. The catkin tapestry had to be taken down, shaken, beaten, and rehung; the tree-stump cupboard had been emptied, and its contents littered the mushroom table, while the tom-tit complained that the things had been so closely packed inside it, that it was far easier to take them out than to make them fit in again after they had been dusted.
“I wish he would have a sparrow in by the day,” wailed the tom-tit; “it’s more than I can manage single-handed.” So Philomène comforted and helped him as best she could, and by the time Sweet William returned, the room was as neat as a new pin, and a great deal bonnier. It was after the tom-tit had got leave to fly away, that Philomène asked if there had been any news of the grasshopper lately.