The windfairies, and other tales

by Mary De Morgan

“Be at peace,” she said. “If it be that you must die, die with a quiet heart, for I will keep your little boy. What is enough for two is enough for three, and he shall call my little girl sister and me mother.”

The gipsy said nothing, but she looked at the potter’s wife for long, and then she said, “And my clothes are all in rags, and I have no garment in which you can wrap me for my grave.”

Then the potter’s wife began to cry. “Be at peace,” she said, “for I have a fine cloth made of flax and my own hair, and in it you can lie clad like a princess.”

Then again the gipsy woman cried out words that the potter’s wife did not understand, and again she beat her breast and lamented. But as evening drew nigh she turned to the potter’s wife, and told her all the truth about the charms in the cup, and wept for the evil she had done her, who was so good and kind.

The potter’s wife sat by her all that day, and into the dark hours of the night, but when it was drawing nigh to twelve o’clock the gipsy woman sat up, and stretched out her arms. “The wheel,” she cried, “bring me your husband’s wheel, and give me a piece of clay, that while there is yet time I may throw my last cup, and you may drink from it before the dawn and undo the harm I have worked.”

The potter’s wife wondered much, but she feared to disobey her, and she went out into her husband’s workshop, and she brought in his wheel and a piece of clay which stood there, and placed them beside the gipsy. The gipsy was so weak that she could scarcely sit up, but when she saw the wheel she staggered to her feet, and took the clay in her thin little brown hands, and moulded it as she had done years before; and then she set it on the wheel, and set the wheel spinning, and formed it into a little brown bowl, and bent her head over it, and whispered into it.

“Now drink,” she cried, “although the clay is still wet. Pour water into it and drink from my little bowl, and wish me God-speed as you did to my husband. And then dress me in white and gold like a princess, for I must start upon my journey. But keep my little boy always, and if my husband comes to search for me, give him my ring, but tell him that he shall never find me more.”

The potter’s wife poured some water into the little clay cup, and stooped her face and drank it, that the woman might be content, and when she had done so, the gipsy folded her hands and lay back and died. But when she had tasted the water out of the wet clay, the potter’s wife thought of her husband, and she called his name, and cried to him to come and help her with the poor gipsy woman. And then she thought of how long it was since he had been with her, and she began to cry, and wept bitterly as she leant over the dead woman.

“Oh, where is he gone? why did I drive him from me?” she said. “Have I been mad? Truly the poor gipsy spoke rightly, that if a woman has a husband who loves her and works for her, she should cherish him with all her might. Alas, alas! and now my husband is out in the wide world, and I am alone here with no one to help me; until this poor woman told me, I never knew how wrong I was.” Then she looked at the gipsy woman lying in all her rags, and she remembered her promise to her, and she took the fine linen cloth in which was woven the gold heart and the gilt cup, and she clothed her in it as if she were a princess, and the next day the poor woman was buried, and no one knew from whence she came nor to whom she belonged.

Then the potter’s wife sat down, and grieved bitterly, for she didn’t know what it would be best to do to find her husband again, and tell him that she loved him as at first. At first she thought she would go out and seek for him in the wide, wide world, but then she remembered how he bid her wait where she was till he came back, and she knew she ought to do what he had told her; but as now she had three to keep instead of two, she feared they would be very poor, and as she had buried the gipsy in the fine gold and white cloth woven with her hair, she had not got it to sell, and she had not any money left wherewith to buy more fine thread to weave. The gipsy’s little boy was a pretty boy, with dark eyes like his mother’s, and when she looked at him she said they would all three starve together, but she would keep him, as she had promised his mother, rather than turn him out into the cold streets. So she washed him, and mended his rags as best she might, and then she began to seek everywhere for something she might weave to sell, and keep them from starving. She wandered round the garden, and in and out of the house, and the gipsy boy, who was a clever, bright lad, went with her.