Ward C had suddenly become empty—empty except for a row of tumbled beds and nine little tired-out, cast-off bodies. They had been shed as easily as a boy slips out of his dusty, uncomfortable overalls on a late sultry afternoon, and leaves them behind him on a shady bank, while he plunges, head first, into the cool, dark waters of the swimming-pool just below him, which have been calling and calling and calling.
VII
AND BEYOND
What happened beyond the primrose ring is, perhaps, rather a crazy-quilt affair, having to be patched out of the squares and three-cornered bits of Fancy which the children remembered to bring back with them. I have tried to piece them together into a fairly substantial pattern; but, of course, it can be easily ripped out and raveled into nothing. So I beg of you, on the children's account, to handle it gently, for they believe implicitly in the durability of the fabric.
Sandy remembered the beginning of it—the plunge straight across the primrose ring into the River of Make-Believe; and how they paddled over like puppies—one after another. It was perfectly safe to swim, even if you had never swum before; and the only danger was for those who might stop in the middle of the river and say, or think, "A dinna believe i' faeries." Whoever should do this would sink like a stone, going down, down, down until he struck his bed with a thud and woke, crying.
It was starlight in Tir-na-n'Og—just as Bridget had said it would be—only the stars were far bigger and brighter. The children stood on the white, pebbly beach and shook themselves dry; while Bridget showed them how to pull down their nightshirts to keep them from shrinking, and how to wring out their faery caps to keep the wishes from growing musty or mildewed. After that they met the faery ferryman, who—according to Sandy—"wore a wee kiltie o' reeds, an' a tammie made frae a loch-lily pad wi' a cat-o'-nine-tail tossel, lukin' sae ilk the brae ye wad niver ken he was a mon glen ye dinna see his legs, walkin'." He told them how he ferried over all the "old bodies" who had grown feeble-hearted and were too afraid to swim.
It was Pancho who remembered best about the leprechaun—how they found him sitting cross-legged under the blackthorn-bush with a leather apron spread over his knees, and how he had called out—just as Bridget had said he would:
"Hello, Pancho and Susan and Sandy and all!"
"Have you any shoes got?" Pancho shouted.
The faery cobbler nodded and pointed with his awl to the branches above his head; there hung nine pairs of little green shoes, curled at the toes, with silver buckles, all stitched and soled and ready to wear.