THE LAMMIE.
A MODERN FAIRY TALE.
BY MISS A. A. GRAY.
Rosa went to bed weeping. It was a rainy night, and while the rain-drops pelted the window frames, Rosa’s tears fell upon her pillow. She had been a disobedient girl, and her mother had reproved her more severely than usual, and so Rosa wept, not in penitence because she had done wrong, but in displeasure and impatience because she had been punished, and she said to herself, “It is too bad! Mother is cruel, I am sure she is, and she does not love me, I know she does not.” Pitiable feelings and thoughts were these to go to sleep upon—bad stuff for dreams to be woven of; but Rosa did fall asleep while her breast was thus disquieted. She dreamed, and in her dream she stood by the border of a pond. She bent over, and looked into the water; but the water reproved her, by showing her the distorted features of a weeping girl. She started back, and in anger threw a stone into the face of the reprover, for presuming to speak so plainly to her. “There,” said she, “you cannot show me such a picture of myself now, if you would; I have wrinkled your own face well, for giving me such a portrait of mine.” The honest reprover only smiled; and while Rosa was watching the dimples which she chose to call “wrinkles,” she heard, behind her, a sound as of rustling leaves, or of rain-drops pattering on the leaves. Was it the rain beating on the window, or the curtain fluttering,—was it the grasshoppers leaping about over the blackberry bushes? “Rosa,” whispered a voice close behind her, which sounded as soft as the crunching of a crust of bread. Rosa turned her head around, and oh! there were the black elves, close beside her; those elves that dwell (if I say truly) in the hollow of the earth. Spider-like little creatures they were, very black, and with long slender limbs, which they threw about in a most fantastic manner, and with large owlish eyes, which they seemed to think were made on purpose to be rolled from side to side. “Rosa,” said one of the elves, which seemed to be the king, “do not believe what that pond says; I know his tricks. He always was given to telling falsehoods; believe me, he is a wrinkled sinner. You are a good child, and your face is a pretty one. Come, we love you; come with us; we have a fine home.” And he reached out his claw-hand, and took hold of Rosa’s hand, and it felt to Rosa as if she had clasped a branch of a rough-barked shrub. And with the spider-like troop she swept along, over hills, plains, rivers, and seas; and then they all dashed headlong down into a deep dell, at the bottom of which was a bed of dry leaves. The elf-king scratched the leaves away with his claw-feet, throwing them up till the air was full. When he had scratched them away, a hole was discovered in the earth, not much larger than a squirrel’s hole. “There,” said the elf, “is our stair-way; go down, Rosa; here we will feast you well, and give you a mirror, which shall tell you the truth.” And he went down the spiral staircase, drawing Rosa after him, and the whole troop followed, with a sound like an army of cockroaches, making a more hasty than dignified retreat from the store-room. Down, down, down they wound and wound till it seemed to Rosa they must be near the other side of the earth—millions of miles—many days, it seemed. Oh, that wearying staircase! Yet they went swiftly, for it is easy to go down stairs, every one knows. Before they had reached the bottom, Rosa’s brain was in such a whirl that she was scarcely conscious of anything. Suddenly she felt an electric shock, which seemed to bring her to consciousness. It was the floor of the great elfin hall which her feet had touched. And now she was whirled around in a dance with the band of elves, and it seemed as if she could not help dancing on the electric floor. In the midst of the hall burned a smoky fire, and over the fire a caldron hung from the ceiling, and the smoke from the fire, and the steam from the caldron hung in heavy clouds around.
“Supper is not ready yet,” said the elf-king, who still held Rosa’s hand clasped in one of his claws, while he ran the other up through his hair, which was as sleek and soft as the down of a porcupine. “We shall have time for a little conversation before supper. Now tell me your offence. I heard your mother’s voice scolding you; but I do not know what it was for.”
“I went away secretly,” said Rosa, “to see one of my schoolmates, when my mother had forbidden it, and when she punished me I was angry, and I am now, for mother is cruel to me.”
“Never mind what your mother says to you, my dear,” said the elf; and he went on and gave a long lecture, which thoroughly persuaded Rosa that she was nothing more or less than an innocent and injured child. “Come now, the soup is ready,” said the elf. And all the elves stood round the caldron, each with his ladle. And Rosa had a ladle too, and she feasted with the elves.
The soup tasted good; but shortly she began to feel faint and sick, and so dizzy that she could not stand; and at length went into convulsions, of which she was all the time conscious; presently it seemed as if she could no longer use her limbs, nor could she sit up nor stand, neither lie in any way except upon her face, and at last it was as if she had no limbs; but she could move her body very easily, and it seemed to grow longer and longer, as she lay upon the floor, and she loved to move about, this side and that; but still she could not stand erect. “What has happened to me,” thought she, and she asked the elf-king to show her the truth-telling mirror. “Come,” said he; and she followed him, moving along on the smooth floor with the most delightful ease.