There was no authorised village school. You must remember I am telling you of English village life, some three hundred years ago. Children of humble parents were brought up to learn to plough, and reap, and carpenter; they hardly ever were taught to read, or write. Such as could do so in those days were called “clerkes,” and some day, you will read a ballad that tells how Clark Saunders loved May Margaret, and you will find it one of the most sorrowful stories, ever written down.
So it came about that these children spent hours in the woodlands with the flowers, and animals, and insects for companions. And their books were the clouds and streams.
It was in the month of October when the acorns lie freshly fallen. There is something arresting about an acorn; the form is beautiful, the texture glossy, there is perfection in the cup, and completeness in the whole. Who could pass under an oak tree in autumn without picking up a fallen acorn, and turning it in the hand? Faith was threading these, and Martin wandered into the wood. He was away a long time, and Faith was telling herself stories, as she loved doing when she was alone.
“Now it happened the water was very crystal-clear at this part of the river,” she was saying, “and flowed between tall sedges, and forget-me-nots, like angels’ eyes. And the river was so clear because it was the home of a very beautiful Water Nixie who lived in it, and who sometimes could emerge from her home, and sit in woman’s form upon the bank. She had a dark green smock upon her, the colour of the water-weed that waves as the water wills it, deep, deep down. And in her long wet hair were the white flowers of the water-violet, and she held a reed mace in her hand. Her face was very sad, because she had lived a long life, and known so many adventures, ever since she was a baby, which was nearly a hundred years ago. For creatures of the streams, and trees, live a long, long time, and when they die they lose themselves in Nature. That means that they are for ever clouds, or trees, or rivers, and never have the form of men and women again.
“All water-creatures would live, if they might choose it, in the sea, where they are born. It is in the sea they float hand in hand upon the crested billows, and sink deep in the great troughs of the strong waves, that are green as jade. They follow the foam and lose themselves in the wide ocean—
‘Where great whales come sailing by,
Sail and sail with unshut eye,’
and they store in the Sea King’s palace the golden phosphor of the sea.
“But this Water Nixie had lost her happiness through not being good. She had forgotten many things that had been told her, and she had done many things that grieved others; she had stolen somebody else’s property—quite a large bundle of happiness—which belonged elsewhere and not to her. Happiness is generally made to fit the person who owns it, just as do your shoes, or clothes; so when you take some one else’s it’s very little good to you, for it fits badly, and you can never forget it isn’t yours.
“So what with one thing and another, this Water Nixie had to be punished, and the Queen of the Sea had banished her from the waves.