The Primrose Ring by Ruth Sawyer
R >>
Ruth Sawyer >> The Primrose Ring
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 | 6 |
7 |
8
When the song was finished Sandy turned to the queen again.
"Aighe--wull it do?"
"If the faeries like it, and think it good enough to send down to the
children, they will have it all learned by heart and will sing it back
to you in a minute. Listen! Can you hear anything?"
For a moment only the rustle of the trees could be heard. Sandy
strained his ears until he caught a low, sobbing sound coming through
the hazel-leaves.
"'Tis but the wind--greetin'," he said, wistfully.
"Listen again!"
The sound grew, breaking into a cadence and a counter-cadence, and
thence into a harmony. "'Tis verra ilk the grand pipe-organ i' the
kirk, hame in Aberdeen."
"Listen again!"
Mellow and sweet came the notes of the Jacobite air--a bar of it; and
then the faeries began to sing, sending the song back to Sandy like a
belated echo:
"Ye weave a bonny primrose ring;
Ye hear the River callin';
Ye ken the Land whaur faeries sing--
Whaur starlicht beams are fallin'."
"For the love o' Mike!" laughed Sandy. "A'm unco glad--a am." He
dropped to his knees beside the queen and nestled his cheek in the hand
that was resting in her lap. "'Tis aricht noo." And he sighed
contentedly.
And it was. The queen leaned over and lifted off the hump as easily as
you might take the cover from a box. Sandy stretched himself and
yawned--after the fashion of any one who has been sleeping a long time
in a cramped position; and without being in the least conscious of it,
he sidled up to the arm of the throne and rubbed his back up and
down--to test the perfect straightness of it.
"'Tis gone--guid! Wull it nae mair coom back?" And he eyed the queen
gravely.
"Never to be burdensome, little lad. Others may think they see it
there, but for you the back will be straight and strong."
Rosita came back--empty-handed; she was so busy holding tight to
Bridget's hand and getting ready to be afraid that she forgot
everything else. As for Michael, he gave his patch into Bridget's
keeping; which brings us to what Bridget remembered.
From the moment that the penny had been given over to her she had been
weighed down with a mighty responsibility. The financier of any large
syndicate is bound to feel harassed at times over the outcome of his
investments; and Bridget felt personally accountable for the
forthcoming happiness due the eight other stockholders in her company.
She was also mindful of what had happened in the past to other persons
who had speculated heedlessly or unwisely with faery gifts. There was
the case of the fisherman and his wife, and the aged couple and their
sausage, and the old soldier; on the other hand, there was the man from
Letterkenny who had hoarded his gold and had it turn to dry leaves as a
punishment. She must neither keep nor spend foolishly.
"Sure I'll think all round a thing twict afore I have my mind made to
anythin'; then I'll keep it made for a good bit afore I give over the
penny."
She repeated this advice while she considered all possible investments,
but she found nothing to her liking. The children made frequent
suggestions, such as bagpipes and clothes-chests, and contrivances for
feast-spreading and transportation; and Susan was strongly in favor of
a baby faery to take back to Miss Peggie. But to all of these Bridget
shook an emphatic negative.
"Sure ye'd be tired o' the lot afore ye'd gone half-way back. Like as
not we'll never have another penny to spend as long as we live, an' I'm
goin' to see that ye'll all get somethin' that will last."
She was beginning to fear that theirs would be the fate of the man from
Letterkenny, when she chanced upon Peter and Toby performing for the
benefit of the pipers.
"Them trusters will never be lettin' Pether take that dog back to the
horspital," she thought, mindful of the sign in Saint Margaret's yard
that dogs were not allowed. "He'd have to be changin' him back into a
make-believe dog to get him in at all; an' Pether'd never be satisfied
wi' him that way, now--afther havin' him real."
Her trouble took her to the queen. "Is there any way of buyin' a dog
into a horspital?" she asked, solemnly.
"I think it would be easier to buy a home to put him in."
"Could ye--could ye get one for the price of a penny?" Bridget
considered her own question, and coupled it with something she
remembered Sandy had been wishing for back in Ward C. "Wait a minute;
I'll ask ye another. Could ye be buyin' a home for childher an' dogs
for the price of a penny?"
The queen nodded.
"Would it be big enough for nine childher--an' one dog; an' would it be
afther havin' all improvements like Miss Peggie an' the House Surgeon?"
Again the queen nodded.
Bridget lowered her voice. "An' could we put up a sign furninst, 'No
Trusters Allowed'?"
"I shouldn't wonder."
"Then," said Bridget, with decision, "I've thought all round it twict
an' my mind's been made to stay; we'll buy a home."
She made a hollow of her two hands and called, "Whist--whist there, all
o' yez! Pether an' Pancho--Michael--Susan--do ye hear!" And when she
had them rounded up, she counted them twice to make sure they were all
present. "Now ye listen." Bridget raised a commanding finger to the
circle about her while she exhibited the golden penny. "Is there any
one objectin' to payin' this down for a home?"
"What kind of a home?" asked Susan, shrewdly.
"Sure the kind ye live in--same as other folks have that don't live in
horspitals or asylums."
"Hurrah!" chorused everybody, and Bridget sighed with relief.
"Faith, spendin' money's terrible easy."
She put the penny in the queen's out-stretched hand. "Do I get a piece
o' paper sayin' I paid the money on it?" she demanded, remembering her
responsibility.
This time the queen shook her head. "No; I give you only my promise;
but a promise made across a primrose ring is never broken."
"And Toby?" Peter asked it anxiously.
"You must leave him behind. You see, if you took him back over the
River of Make-Believe he would have to turn back into a make-believe
dog again; but--I promise he shall be waiting in the home for you."
The queen led them down the hill to the shore again; and there they
found the ferry-man ready, waiting. It is customary, I believe, for
every one to be ferried home. The river, that way, is treble as wide,
and the sandman is always wandering up and down the brink, scattering
his sand so that one is apt to get too drowsy to swim the whole
distance. The children piled into the boat--all but Michael; he stood
clinging fast to the queen's gray dress.
"Don't you want to go back?" she asked, gently.
"Nyet; the heart by me no longer to bump--here," and Michael pointed to
the pit of his stomach.
"Aw, come on," called Peter.
But Michael only shook his head and clung closer to the gray dress.
"All right, ferryman; he may stay," said the queen.
"Good-by!" shouted the children. "Don't forget us, Michael."
"Nyet; goo'-by," Michael shouted back; and then he laughed. "You tell
Mi' Peggie--I say--Go' blees you!"
And this was Michael's patch.
The ferryman stood in the stem and swung his great oar. Slowly the
boat moved, scrunching over the white pebbles, and slipped into the
water. The children saw Michael and the queen waving their hands until
they had dwindled to shadow-specks in the distance; they watched the
wake of starshine lengthen out behind them; they listened to the
ripples lapping at the keel. To and fro, to and fro, swayed the
ferryman to the swing of his oar. "Sleep--sleep--sleep," sang the
river, running with them. Bridget stretched her arms about as many
children as she could compass and held them close while eight pairs of
eyes slowly--slowly--shut.
VIII
IN WHICH A PART OF THE BOARD HAS DISTURBING DREAMS
It is a far cry from a primrose ring to a disbanded board meeting; but
Fancy bridged it in a twinkling and without an effort. She blew the
trustees off the door-step of Saint Margaret's, homeward, with an
insistent buzzing of "ifs" and "buts" in their ears, and the faint
woodsy odor of primroses under their noses.
To each member of the board entering his own home, unsupported by the
presence of his fellow-members and the scientific zeal of the Senior
Surgeon, the business of the afternoon began to change its aspect. For
some unaccountable reason--unless we take Fancy into the
reckoning--this sudden abandoning of Ward C did not seem the simple
matter of an hour previous; while in perspective even Margaret
MacLean's outspokenness became less heinous and more human.
As they settled themselves for the evening, each quietly and alone
after his or her particular fashion of comfort, the "ifs" and "buts"
were still buzzing riotously; while the primroses, although forgotten,
clung persistently to the frills or coat lapels where the Youngest and
Prettiest Trustee had put them. There it was that Fancy slipped
unnoticed over the threshold of library, den, and boudoir in turn; and
with a glint of mischief in her eyes she set the stage in each place to
her own liking, while she summoned whatever players she chose to do her
bidding.
Now the trustees were very different from the children in the matter of
telling what they remembered of that May Eve. Of course they were
hampered with all the self-consciousness and skepticism of grown-ups,
which would make them quite unwilling to own up to anything strange or
out of the conventional path, not in a hundred years. Therefore I am
forced to leave their part of the telling to Fancy, and you may believe
or discredit as much or as little as you choose; only I am hoping that
by this time you have acquired at least a sprinkling of fern-seed in
your eyes. You may have forgotten that fern-seed is the most subtle of
eye-openers known to Fancy; and that it enables you to see the things
that have existed only in your imagination. It is very scarce
nowadays, and hard to find, for the bird-fanciers no longer keep
it--and the nursery-gardeners have forgotten how to grow it. In the
light of what happened afterward, I think you will agree that Fancy has
not been far wrong concerning the trustees; she has a way of putting
things a little differently, that is all.
To be sure, you may argue that it was all chance, conscience, or even
indigestion; because the trustees dined late they must have dined
heavily. But if you do, you know very well that Fancy will answer:
"Poof! Nothing of the kind. It was a simple matter of primrose magic
and--faeries; nothing else." And she ought to know, for she was there.
The President began it.
He sat in his den, yawning over the annual report of the United
Charities; he had already yawned a score of times, and the type had
commenced running together in a zigzagging line that baffled
deciphering. The President inserted a finger in the report to mark his
place, making a mental note to consult his oculist the following day;
after which he leaned back and closed his eyes for the space of a
moment--to clear his vision.
When he opened his eyes again his vision had cleared to such an extent
that he was quite positive he was seeing things that were not in the
room. Little shadowy figures haunted the dark places: corners, and
curtained recesses, and the unlighted hall beyond. They peered at him
shyly, with such witching, happy faces and eyes that laughed coaxingly.
The President found himself peering back at them and scrutinizing the
faces closely. Oddly enough he could recognize many, not by name, of
course, but he could place them in the many institutions over which he
presided. It was very evident that they were expecting something of
him; they were looking at him that way. For once in his life he was at
loss for the correct thing to say. He tried closing his eyes two or
three times to see if he could not blink them into vanishing; but when
he looked again there they were, more eager-eyed than before.
"Well," he found himself saying at last--"well, what is it?"
That was all; but it brought the children like a Hamlin troop to the
piper's cry--flocking about him unafraid. Never in all his charitable
life had he ever had children gather about him and look up at him this
way. Little groping hands pulled at his cuffs or steadied themselves
on his knee; more venturesome ones slipped into his or hunted their way
into his coat pockets. They were such warm, friendly, trusting little
hands--and the faces; the President of Saint Margaret's Free Hospital
for Children caught himself wondering why in all his charitable
experience he had never had a child overstep a respectful distance
before, or look at him save with a strange, alien expression.
He sat very still for fear of frightening them off; he liked the warmth
and friendliness of their little bodies pressed close to him; there was
something pleasantly hypnotic in the feeling of small hands tugging at
him. Suddenly he became conscious of a change in the children's faces;
the gladness was fading out and in its place was creeping a perplexed,
questioning sorrow.
"Don't." And the President patted assuringly as many little backs as
he could reach. "What--what was it you expected?"
He was answered by a quivering of lips and more insistent tugs at his
pockets. It flashed upon him--out of some dim memory--that children
liked surprises discovered unexpectedly in some one's pockets. Was
this why they had searched him out? He found himself frantically
wishing that he had something stowed away somewhere for them. His
hands followed theirs into all the numerous pockets he possessed;
trousers, coat, and vest were searched twice over; they were even
turned inside out in the last hope of disclosing just one surprise.
"I should think," said the President, addressing himself, "that a man
might keep something pleasant in empty pockets. What are pockets for,
anyway?"
The children shook their heads sorrowfully.
"Wouldn't to-morrow do?" he suggested, hopefully; but there was no
response from the children, and the weight that had been settling down
upon him, in the region of his chest, noticeably increased. He tried
to shake it off, it was so depressing--like the accruing misfortune of
some pending event.
"Don't shake," said a voice behind him; "that isn't your misfortune.
You will only shake it off on the children, and it's time enough for
them to bear it when they wake up in the morning and find out--"
"Find out what?" The President asked it fearfully.
"Find out--find out--" droned the voice, monotonously.
The President sat up very straight in his chair. "The children--the
children." He remembered now--they were the children from the
incurable ward at Saint Margaret's.
He sank back with a feeling of great helplessness, and closed his eyes
again. And there he sat, immovable, his finger still marking his place
in the report of the United Charities.
The Oldest Trustee sat alone, knitting comforters for the Preventorium
patients. Like many another elderly person, her usual retiring hour
was later than that of the younger members of her household,
undoubtedly due to the frequent cat-naps snatched from the evening.
The Oldest Trustee had a habit of knitting the day's events in with her
yarn. What she had done and said and heard were all thought over again
to the rhythmic click of her needles. And the results at the end of
the evening were usually a finished comforter and a comfortable
feeling. This night, however, the knitting lagged and the thoughts
were unaccountably dissatisfying; she could not even settle down to a
cat-nap with the habitual serenity.
"I don't know why I should feel disturbed," and the Oldest Trustee
prodded her yarn ball with a disquieting needle, "but I certainly miss
the usual gratification of a day well spent."
She closed her eyes, hoping thereby to lose herself for the space of a
moment, but instead-- She was startled to hear voices at her very
elbow; a number of persons must have entered the room, but how they
could have done so without her knowing it she could not understand. Of
course they thought her asleep; it was just as well to let them think
so. She really felt too tired to talk.
"Mother's undoubtedly growing old. Have you noticed how much she naps
in the evening, now?" It was the voice of her youngest daughter.
"I heard her telling some one the other day she was five years younger
than she is. That's a sure sign," and her son laughed an amused little
chuckle.
"I can tell you a surer one." This time it was her oldest
daughter--her first-born. "Haven't you noticed how all mother's little
peculiarities are growing on her? She is getting so much more
dictatorial and preachy. Of course, we know that mother means to be
kind and helpful, but she has always been so--tactless--and blunt; and
it's growing worse and worse."
"I have often wondered how all her charity people take her; it must
come tough on them, sometimes. Gee! Can't you see her raising those
lorgnettes of hers and saying, 'My good boy, do you read your Bible?'
or, 'My little girl, I hope you remember to be grateful for all you
receive.' Say, wouldn't you hate to have charity stuffed down your
throat that way?" and the oldest and favorite grandson groaned out his
feelings.
"That isn't what I should mind the most." It was the youngest daughter
speaking again. "I've been with mother when she has made remarks about
the patients in the hospital, loud enough for them to hear, and I was
so mortified I wanted to sink through the floor, And you simply can't
shut mother up. Of course she doesn't realize how it sounds; she
doesn't believe they hear her, but I know they do. I wonder how mother
would like to have us stand around her--and we know her and love
her--and have us say she was getting deaf, or her hair was coming out,
or her memory was beginning to fail, or--"
The Oldest Trustee smiled grimly. "Oh, don't stop, my dear. If there
is any other failing you can think of--" She opened her eyes with a
start. "Goodness gracious!" she exclaimed. "My grandson is in college
five hundred miles away, and my daughter is abroad. Have I been
dreaming?"
The Meanest Trustee unlocked the drawer of his desk and took out a
cigar. He did not intend that his sons or his servants should smoke at
his expense; furthermore, it was well not to spread temptation before
others. He took up the evening paper and examined the creases
carefully. He wished to make sure it had not been unfolded before;
being the one to pay for the news in his house, he preferred to be the
first one to read it. The creases proved perfectly satisfactory; so he
lighted his cigar, crossed his feet, and settled himself--content in
his own comfort. The smoke spun into spirals about his head; and after
he had skimmed the cream of the day's events he read more leisurely,
stopping to watch the spirals with a certain lazy enjoyment. They
seemed to grow increasingly larger. They spun themselves about into
all kinds of shapes, wavering and illusive, that defied the somewhat
atrophied imagination of the Meanest Trustee.
"Hallucinations," he barked to himself. "I believe I understand now
what is implied when people are said to have them."
Suddenly the spirals commenced to lengthen downward instead of upward.
To the amazement of the Meanest Trustee he discovered them shifting
into human shapes: here was the form of a child, here a youth, here a
lover and his lass, here a little old dame, and scores more; while into
the corners of the room drifted others that turned into the drollest of
droll pipers--with kilt and brata and cap. It made him feel as if he
had been dropped into the center of a giant kaleidoscope, with
thousands of pieces of gray smoke turning, at the twist of a hand, into
form and color, motion and music. The pipers piped; the figures
danced, whirling and whirling about him, and their laughter could be
heard above the pipers' music.
"Stop!" barked the Meanest Trustee at last; but they only danced the
faster. "Stop!" And he shook his fist at the pipers, who played
louder and merrier. "Stop!" And he pounded the arms of his chair with
both hands. "I hate music! I hate children! I hate noise and
confusion! Stop! I say."
Still the pipers played and the figures danced on; and the Meanest
Trustee was compelled to hear and see. To him it seemed an
interminable time. He would have stopped his ears with his fingers and
shut his eyes, only, strangely enough, he could not. But at last it
all came to an end--the figures floated laughing away, and the pipers
came and stood about him, their caps in their hands out-stretched
before him.
He eyed them suspiciously. "What's that for?"
"It is time to pay the pipers," said one.
"Let those who dance pay; that's according to the adage," and he smiled
caustically at his own wit.
"It's a false adage," said a second, "like many another that you follow
in your world. It is not the ones who dance that should pay, but the
ones who keep others from dancing--the ones who help to rob the world
of some of its joy. And the ones who rob the most must pay the
heaviest. Come!" And he shook his cap significantly.
A sudden feeling of helplessness overpowered the Meanest Trustee.
Muttering something about "pickpockets" and "hold-ups," he ferreted
around in his pocket and brought out a single coin, which he dropped
ungraciously into the insistent cap.
"What's that?" asked the head piper, curiously.
"It looks to me like money--good money--and I'm throwing it away on a
parcel of rascals."
"Come, come, my good man," and the piper tapped him gently on the
shoulder, in the fashion of a professional philanthropist when he
remonstrates with a professional vagrant; "don't you see you are not
giving your soul any room to grow in? A great deal of joy might have
reached the world across your open palm. Instead, you have crushed it
in a hard, tight fist. You must pay now for all the souls you've kept
from dancing. Come--fill all our caps."
"Fill!" There was something akin to actual terror in the voice of the
Meanest Trustee. He could feel himself growing pale; his tongue seemed
to drop back in his throat, choking him. "That would take a great deal
of money," he managed to wheeze out at last; and then he braced
himself, his hands clutched deep in his pockets. "I will never pay;
never, never, never!"
"Oh yes, you will!" and the piper's smile was insultingly cheerful.
"It was a great deal of joy, you know," he reminded him. "Come,
lads"--to the other pipers--"hold out your caps, there."
The Meanest Trustee had the strange experience of feeling himself
worked by a force outside of his own will; it was as if he had been a
marionette with a master-hand pulling the wires. Quite mechanically he
found himself taking something out of his pocket and dropping it into
the caps thrust under his very nose, and at the same time his pockets
began to fill with money--his money. In and out, in and out, his hands
flew like wooden members, until there was not a coin left and the last
piper turned away satisfied. He closed his eyes, for he was feeling
very weak; then he became conscious of the touch of a warm, friendly
hand on his wrist and he heard the voice of the old family doctor--the
one who had set his leg when he was a little shaver and had fallen off
the banisters, sliding downstairs.
"You will recover," it was saying. "A good rest is all you need.
Sometimes there is nothing so beneficial and speedy as the
old-fashioned treatment of bleeding a patient."
Some warm ashes dropped across the wrist of the Meanest Trustee and
scattered on the floor; his cigar had gone out.
The Executive Trustee dozed at his study table. For months he had been
working his brain overtime; he had still more to demand of it, and he
was deliberately detaching it from immediate executive consciousness
for a few minutes that he might set it to work again all the harder.
The Executive Trustee knew that he was dozing; but for all that it was
unbearable--this feeling of being bound by coil after coil of rope
until he could not stir a finger. A terrifying numbness began to creep
over him--as if his body had died. The thought came to him like a
shock that he had an active, commanding intelligence, still alive, and
nothing for it to command. What did people do who had to live with
dead, paralyzed bodies, dependent upon others to execute the dictates
of their brains? Did not their brains go in the end, too, and leave
just a breathing husk behind? The thought became a horror to him.
And yet people did live, just so. Yes, even children.
Somewhere--somewhere--he knew of hundreds of them--or were there only a
few? He tried to remember, but he could not. He did remember,
however, that he had once heard them laughing; and he found himself
wondering now at the strangeness of it. He hoped there was some one
who would always keep them laughing--they deserved that much out of
life, anyway; and some one who could understand and could administer to
them lovingly--yes, that was the word--lovingly! As for himself, there
was no one who could supply for him that strength and power for action
that he had always worshiped; he must exist for the rest of his life
simply as a thinking, ineffective intelligence. The Executive Trustee
forgot that he was dozing. He wrestled with the ropes that bound him
like a crazed man; he called for help again and again, until his lips
could make no sound. For the first time in his remembrance he tasted
the bitterness of despair. Then it was that the door opened
noiselessly and Margaret MacLean entered, her finger to her lips. Coil
after coil she unwound until he was free once more and could feel the
marvelous response of muscle and nerve impulse. With a cry--half sob,
half thankfulness--he flung his arms across the table and buried his
face in them.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 | 6 |
7 |
8