The Mid-day Rock

: The Diamond Fairy Book

FROM THE FRENCH of J. JARRY.





ONCE upon a time there was a poor man, who lived somewhere in the middle

of the woods near a place called Gatines de Treigny. Everybody called

him Father Rameau. Not that he had any children--he had not even ever

been married; nor that he was very old, for he was barely fifty; but he

had always had such a hard time of it that his hair had grown grey very

early, a d his back had been bent and bowed long before its time.



He was generally to be seen toiling along under a big bundle of brooms,

which he made with the greatest skill from young birch branches, selling

them on market days to the housewives of Saint-Amand or Saint-Sauveur.



Father Rameau was not ambitious, far from it; if he had been alone in

the world, without relations depending on him, he would have been quite

content to live on black bread every day of the week, with an occasional

glass of wine from the charitable folk of the neighbourhood. But Father

Rameau had a younger sister married to a vine-dresser of Perreuse, and

he was god-father to their daughter; she was just growing up into a

woman, and was so pretty and modest and intelligent, that every one had

a good word for her, and now she was engaged to be married to a young

man called George, a capital worker, but without a penny in the world.

The wedding was to take place as soon as she was twenty; and they had

given each other engagement rings--common leaden rings, bought from one

of the pedlars who visit the hamlets of the district.



Humble as he was where he himself only was concerned, Father Rameau was

proud indeed in matters connected with his niece.



"A leaden ring," he murmured, "when so many other girls, not half as

good as my god-daughter, have a gold one! How I wish Madeleine could

choose the one she liked best from the jeweller's shop in Saint-Sauveur!

Ah, it's not much use wishing. If I put by every penny I could spare for

years and years I could never afford it. Madeleine's poor, George is

poor, I am poor, and always shall be. Well, we're honest, that's one

comfort, and we needn't be jealous, at any rate."



As the old broomseller was thinking all this, he met George, who was

driving a pair of oxen, their nostrils steaming in the first rays of the

morning sun. "Good-day, lad," said he.



"Good-day, Father Rameau."



"Off to work already?"



"Yes, father. I'm just going over the master's fields for the last time

before seed sowing; we shall begin next week. We're rather behind hand

you know."



"So you are; October's nearly over."



"Can you guess what I was thinking of as I came along?"



"What you were thinking of? You mean who," said Father Rameau,

rather crossly.



"Well, yes, you're right. Madeleine is never out of my mind," answered

George thoughtfully. "I was saying to myself that, if there are plenty

of weeds over there" (and he pointed to the uncultivated moor with his

goad), "there is good soil as well, and that any one who had time to

clear even a corner of it might buy the girl he was engaged to----"



"A gold ring!"



"How did you guess what I meant? You don't come from Cheneau, where

all the wizards live," laughed George.



"No witchcraft in that, nephew. The other day I saw how unhappy you were

that you could only give Madeleine a leaden ring, and I was just as

sorry myself that I couldn't buy her a better one ... and ever since

I've been trying to think of a way...."



"And have you found one, father?"



"You've found it for me, lad. I shall make a clearing of a bit of the

moor."



Even at the risk of offending his future uncle, the young labourer could

not help smiling.



"That's a task for stronger arms than yours, father," he said. "No one

can beat you at cutting birch branches and making them into brooms. But

that doesn't need so much muscle as digging up soil like this, pulling

up the great roots out of it, or smashing and carrying away huge

boulders of rock. Ah, if only I had not given my word to stay with my

master till I am married!"



"You may laugh at me, lad, but I won't bear malice," said the old man.

"If the old are not so strong as the young, they are more persevering. I

shall clear a bit of the moor, and with the money from my first harvest

we will go and buy the ring. Good-bye, lad."



"Good-bye, father; we shall see you doing wonders before long, I know."



"I shall be working for Madeleine," he said, "and your patron saint

(George means cultivator of the soil) will help me."



At twelve precisely, Father Rameau came back to the moor with a heavy

pick on his shoulder; he meant to set to work without delay.



Bang went the first stroke of the pick, accompanied with the significant

grunt diggers, woodmen, and such folk give over their work. But just as

he was raising his arm for another try, he stood suddenly stock-still,

with eyes staring wide in a white, terrified face.



From the midst of the boulders scattered about, which were trembling

like Celtic monuments, had arisen an apparition, which the old man knew

was supernatural and divine, though its form was human.



Imagine a tiny little lady, ethereal rather than thin, youthfully lovely

and dainty, a kind of dream beauty, attired in a silvery tunic

embroidered with gorse blossoms. On her head a wreath of heather; in her

hand a wand of the broom plant in blossom; all around the holly, ferns,

and junipers, all the wild plants and shrubs, were bowing down as if in

homage to a Sovereign. A ray of sunlight was playing round her head like

an aureole. She was the Fairy of the Moor.



"You are a bold man," she said to the old workman, "to dare thus to

encroach on my domains." There was a thrill of anger in her clear voice,

and her blue eyes sparkled.






"Lady Fairy," stammered the old man, "be merciful to a wretched labourer

who never meant to wrong you. Your domains are so vast, I hoped there

would be no harm if I took the liberty of borrowing just a little corner

from you."



"What do you want it for?"



"To cultivate it," answered old Rameau, who was beginning to feel less

frightened.



"To cultivate it!" cried the fairy. "You mean to dig it up, turn it

over, and upset it all round! Do you not see how lovely it is now, and

are you so presumptuous as to think you can do better for it than Nature

has done already?" Her voice grew softer as she went on: "What could you

find anywhere that is as beautiful as this spot in spring-time, when,

under a sky of the tenderest blue, the little leaves are beginning to

bud on the branches, the tufts of narcissus are opening among the

marshes, and everywhere in the woods around the blackbirds are beginning

to whistle their first notes, the doves keep up a gentle cooing, and the

jays are chattering like parrots?"



"A couple of partridges calling to each other," answered the old man, "a

quail uttering its three sonorous cries, or a lark soaring into the sky

with its breathless melody, make a pleasanter sound, to my way of

thinking. But these are birds that like to build their nests among the

corn. They are not found near your kingdom."



"In summer," went on the fairy, "when the moors are flooded with

sunshine, and the heat brings out a delicious odour of resin from my

favourite shrubs, I love to look on the purple of the heather, and the

gold of gorse and broom."



"I prefer the pink clover with the drowsy bees humming over it,"

answered the old man, "and the ripening harvest, yellow like your

beautiful hair, Lady Fairy."



Fairy as she was, the queen of the moors was not displeased at the

compliment. Father Rameau saw this from her face, and said to himself

his cause was half won.



"In autumn," she retorted, though, "even here, there comes to me, out

of the depths of the thickets near, the baying of the pack when the hunt

is out, and often they traverse my domains to get from one part of the

forest to another. The poor, hunted stag, whose tongue is hanging out of

his mouth with weariness, makes for this very heap of rocks sometimes;

then I help him to elude his cruel foes and to get away safely."



"Yes," said the old man, as if he liked this idea, "the dogs get their

noses pricked on the thorn-bushes and lose trace of their prey. That is

indeed a kind action. I, too, like to put the pack on a wrong scent. The

stags are such dear things, with their soft brown eyes. Those in this

neighbourhood know me, and when I sit down to make my brooms right in

the middle of a copse, as I do sometimes, they come quite close up to

me. If only there were wheat growing on your moor, you would be able to

protect the hares, too, for they would then take refuge in the shelter

of your park."



"But when you have pulled up my holly and junipers and broom-bushes, how

shall I be able to make fires for the long winter evenings? I shall die,

pierced by the cruel breath of the keen north wind, and be buried under

a shroud of white snow."



"Oh, gracious fay, if you fear the cold, will there not always be the

place of honour kept for you by our chimney-corner, in the little home I

mean to build on the moor? You will come and get warm whenever you like

by our fireside. My god-daughter, Madeleine, will keep you company, and

some day, perhaps, I shall entreat you to be god-mother to her first

baby."



Thus Father Rameau had his answer ready for all her objections. These

last words of his touched the fairy, and the expression of her face

became very soft and kind. "I know Madeleine well," she said; "I know

how fair she is to see, in her snowy white caps. I know how her goodness

is spoken of far and wide; and I have even heard that she is to marry

that hard-working lad I saw talking with you this morning. They will be

a charming pair, and their home will be a delightful place. And you,

dear old man, who have no ambition for yourself, but only care for your

dear ones, you will have your reward for your cheerful faith in the

future. Take up your pick and have courage over your digging. I grant

you this corner of my domain. The rest I am sure you will respect, for

you are not greedy; will the others who come after you spare it, too?

Alas, when once the moor has been cleared all over and cultivated, I

shall have to die! But we will only think of the happiness of your young

folk; and, silence! not a word of all this to any one!"



And with a finger on her lips, she vanished.



By the end of October Father Rameau had dug over, cleared, and prepared

two acres of ground. All by himself? With his pickaxe and spade? Yes,

quite by himself, and with his pickaxe and spade. He had worked as if by

magic, for the fairy, always present and always invisible, had endowed

him with some of her magic power. She helped him to split the hardest

boulders, to haul up the most tenacious roots, to collect in bundles the

old tree-stumps and weeds, and every kind of rubbish, and set fire to

it, and so make the very first dressing the soil had ever had on it.

Will you believe it? By seed-sowing time the ground was ready, and was

sown with oats, which began to grow in no time, came well through all

the frosts, and by the following April was waving abroad in a luxuriant

mass of green. A lark built its nest in it, and every morning nodded its

little tufted head at Father Rameau, who was watching over its nest, as

if out of gratitude for what he had done.






The harvest was splendid, and fetched a high price.



George could no longer smile at Father Rameau's old arms, and had to

confess he had found his master: Father Rameau smiled slily when he

said, "After all, nephew, we shall have a gold ring for Madeleine." But

when the time came for getting it, Madeleine would not allow it. "No,

father," she said, "you have toiled and moiled this year at your

digging; buy a plough: any one will lend you a plough-horse for a few

days, and it won't be nearly such hard work for you."



So when autumn came again, the old man cleared another two acres, and

next summer his harvest was twice as big--and so were his profits.



Madeleine still refused the precious ring. "Buy a pair of oxen," she

said; "you will be independent then of every one."



Next year the old man's field was bigger than ever; and Madeleine

advised him to use the profit of his harvest for building a little

house. Her modest, sensible advice was acted upon every time, and, in

fact, when the wedding-day arrived, the gold ring had still not been

bought and at the marriage ceremony, in the church at Treigny, it was

over the old leaden rings of their betrothal that the cure pronounced

his blessing. "We have given our hearts to each other," said the young

wife; "what do we want with gold rings after that? What do you think,

George?"



"I mean to spend the money on a christening robe, then," said Father

Rameau gaily. "Bless me, things'll have to be just so then, if ever they

are! If you only knew what kind of a god-mother----"



But he stopped short just in time, remembering the fairy's injunction

about silence; and Madeleine, whom he had made very inquisitive, could

not get another word out of him. She never found out what he meant till

her first baby was born, when on the day of the christening there

stepped into the cottage, surrounded by a circle of bright light, the

marvellous god-mother, the Fairy of the Moor.






Many tried to follow Father Rameau's example and cultivate a portion of

the moor; but very few succeeded, because the fairy could see into the

very bottom of their hearts, and would only help the true-hearted--rare

folk, alas! in this world. There is much left still to be cleared. And

she yet lives on, the little fairy of the silvery tunic embroidered with

gorse blossoms, with her crown of heather bells, and her wand a verdant

broom branch. But if ever you want to see her, as old Father Rameau did,

you must arrive at the Mid-day Rock on the first stroke of twelve, and

have a conscience perfectly clear; two conditions which seem easy

enough, and which are really very difficult of fulfilment.