Chapter V: Part 5

She had now got it so fixed in her head that he had only been deceiving her, that she said the same thing several times—most days, in fact—during the year. And especially she would say it whenever he was in a state not of doing anything that she could find fault with, but just being himself. It was his quiet, contented character which most infuriated her. For, as she said to herself when she considered him in this sure setting which Heaven had bestowed on him: “There’s no getting at him! He’s so made you’ve just got to lump it or leave it.”

So when for the third time his birthday came round, and Mrs. Comely, waking as the alarm-clock went off, sat up in bed and looked at him still peacefully sleeping, in spite of the racket which her friend the alarm-clock was making—so like herself in its way, yet only doing its duty—as she sat up and looked at him lying there undisturbed by the noise, all her stored-up resentment against him broke out once more, and, “Goodness gracious!” she cried, “I wish I weren’t married to him!”

Now it so happened that on this particular birthday Goodness Gracious had come early, having a good many other things in the day that she wanted to do. So there she was already in the room when the alarm-clock sounded, sitting on the foot of the bed where Mrs. Comely’s hot-water bottle had not yet got cold, and Peter’s feet, which had no hot-water bottle to comfort them, were sticking out from under the coverlet.

So sitting there, unnoticed as yet by Mrs. Comely, who was too much occupied looking at her husband and hating him, she gave a sharp pinch to one of Peter’s toes which made him wake up.

“Yes, yes, my dear!” said Peter, thinking it was his wife giving him his birthday greeting. “The same to you, and more of them!”

“Peter,” said the fairy—and Mrs. Peter, starting up, stared at her in sudden hope and astonishment—“Peter, your wife says she wishes she wasn’t married to you. Do you wish it too?”

“I’ve no wish in the matter for myself,” said Peter. “It’s not for me to decide. But if she wishes it, then I do.”

“Then you shall have your wish, both of you,” said the fairy, while Mrs. Comely, seeing too late the mistake she had made, started screaming and protesting that that was not the thing she wished most, or first, or indeed at all, if the fairy would only wait and let her think a minute.

But fairies don’t wait, or only when it suits them in order to drive home a moral. And here the fairy was going to drive home a moral simply by not waiting—having it already up her sleeve, as you shall now hear.

“Very well, Mrs. Comely,” she said; “then as you wish it you shall not be married to him any longer. And as there are only three ways in which that can possibly be brought about I now give you your choice of them. Either he must die, or you must die, or you must have been married to somebody else before you married him, somebody about whom you may have entirely forgotten.”

“I never was married to anybody else!” exclaimed Mrs. Peter, fastening upon the last alternative with great indignation. “Of what wickedness are you accusing me?”

“Of none,” said the Fairy; “as I say, you may have entirely forgotten it.”

But this did not appease Mrs. Peter. “I’m not likely to forget a thing like that,” she protested. “I’m no fool like him; and if you think so, you’re the same, and nothing to choose between you! Goodness gracious! if you haven’t more sense than that, and you a fairy, I wish I’d never set waking eyes on you!”

“Have your wish!” said the fairy. “You never have.” And so saying, she vanished.

Mrs. Peter rubbed her eyes. It was hard to believe, but it was true. The meeting with the fairy had been a dream. And now she was gone—or the dream had gone—and there was nothing to be done for another year.

Mrs. Comely turned in bewilderment to her husband. “I’ve been having a dream,” she said.

“Have you, my dear?” replied Peter cautiously. “I hope it has done you good. What was it about?”

“It was about that fairy of yours. I don’t believe in her. She’s only a dream. I had my suspicions about it before; and now I know.”

“Very well then, my dear, we must do without,” said Peter. “It’s much easier to be contented with life if you don’t expect anything. Your believing that I had a fairy-godmother who could do things for me has made you discontented. Now you’ll feel better.”

Mrs. Peter would not admit it; but as a matter of fact it did. Having nothing miraculous to look forward to in her married life, she became resigned to it; and for a year was just an ordinary wife as other people’s wives are, only complaining of Peter twice as often as she had cause, which was not often, he being such a very easily contented and accommodating character.

And on Peter’s next birthday, having no curiosity or expectation left about the fairy, whom she no longer believed in, she left Peter, without instructions, to see the fairy alone. And alone he was when the fairy called on him.

“Well, Peter,” said the fairy, “is there anything you want this time?”

“Not that _I_ want,” said Peter; “but last year you gave my wife a disappointment. She doesn’t believe in you any more, she thinks you are only a dream. She’s been very good hiding it; but I can’t help thinking she feels it.”

“Well, what do you want for her?” enquired the fairy.

“If it isn’t too much to ask,” said Peter, “and if it isn’t too much trouble, can’t you make her contented like you’ve made me?”

“Of course I can,” said the fairy. “Why didn’t you ask that before.”

Peter thought awhile.

“She didn’t want it,” he said. “She’d got other ideas. Now that she’s got none left, I can think for her.”

“Very well,” said Goodness Gracious, “then from this moment your wife shall be as contented as you are.”

And just then, from outside came Mrs. Peter’s voice calling to him, as she mopped the kitchen floor.

“Goodness gracious, Peter, who’s that you’re talking to?”

The question embarrassed him. He felt it was so much better to let sleeping dogs lie.

“Never you mind!” he said roguishly.

“Oh, all right!” replied his wife, and went on with her mopping.

“There!” said the fairy.

“Goodness Gracious!” cried Peter. “_You’ve done it!_”

WILLIAM SHAND _By HILAIRE BELLOC_

There was a man called WILLIAM SHAND.
He had the habit of commănd,

And when subordinates would shout
He used to bang them all about.

It happened, by a turn of Fate,
Himself became sub-ordinate,
Through being passenger upon
A liner, going to Ceylon.

One day, as they were in the Red
(Or Libyan) Sea, the Captain said:

“I think it’s coming on to blow.
Let everybody go below!”

But William Shand said: “Not for me.
I’m going to stop on deck!” said he.

The Captain, wounded in his pride,
Summoned the Second Mate aside

And whispered: “Surely Mr. Shand
Must be extremely rich by land?”
“No,” said the mate; “when last ashore
I watched him.

He is rather poor.”

“Ho!” cried the Captain. “Stands it thus!
And shall the knave make mock of us?
I’ll teach him to respect his betters!

Here, Bo’swain! Put the man in fetters!”
In fetters therefore William lay
Until the liner reached Bombay,
When he was handed to the court
Which deals with cases of the sort

In that uncomfortable port;
Which promptly
hanged him out of hand.
Such was the fate of WILLIAM SHAND.

MORAL.

The Moral is that people must,
If they are poor, obey or bust.

THE CROCODILE _By ADRIAN MOTT_

Oh, do not rile the Crocodile,
His teeth are sharp and grim:
He’s full of guile, the Crocodile—
Oh, do not anger him!

The Crocodile with horrid smile
Will eat up anything;
The Crocodile devours in style
A Rabbit or a King!

Upon the Nile the Crocodile
Is waiting day and night—
And all the while the Crocodile
Is waiting for a bite.

THE HARE AND THE LIONS
A TIBETAN TALE _By VALERY CARRICK_

One day a lion met a hare, and was just going to eat him, when the hare began to beg and implore, saying:

“Now what good would I do you, I’m so small and so frail! If you are hungry, I’ll show you the way to a great big fat beast. Only, he has such terrible strength, you might get the worst of it!”

At that the lion got very angry, and said:

“WHAT? ME get the worst of it? Is there ANY beast stronger than I? Show me this beast at once!”

“Oh, I do BEG you to take care!” said the hare. “Don’t go and get killed! You don’t know what a fearsome beast he is! And he lives in a WELL!”

“Take me to him at once!” answered the lion.

So the hare led the lion to the well, and the lion began to look down into the well, and his own face looked out at him from the water, and the hare said:

“You see what a fearsome beast he is! You had really better stop where you are. Don’t jump into the well, or he’ll tear you in pieces!”

“WHAT?” said the lion. “Do you think I’m afraid of him? Then I just will jump!”

“Oh no! Don’t! PLEASE!” begged the hare. And almost before he had done speaking the lion had jumped down the well, and there he stopped.

And, meanwhile, at home the lioness was waiting and waiting in vain for the return of her husband. Every now and then she would come out of her cave and have a look round, but could see no sign of him.

All at once the hare appeared in front of the cave, and said:

“How do you do! I’ve brought you a message of greeting from your husband. He himself is ill and can’t get up. He and I had a bit of an argument, and in the end it came to blows. To put the matter in two words: I gave him a thorough good hiding.”

At that the lioness got very angry and said:

“You wretched, miserable little boaster!” and was just going to catch hold of him, when off he ran.

Now the hare knew of a place in the rock where it was broad on the outside and easy to get in, but narrow on the inside and very hard to get out of, and he dashed straight off there, with the lioness at his heels. And when they got to this cleft in the rock he jumped in.

The lioness, without further thought, jumped in after him, and got stuck in the narrow place. And she could neither move forward nor backward, and there

she
is
to
this
very
day.

THE COLOURED LANDS _By G. K. CHESTERTON_

Once upon a time there was a little boy whose name was Tommy. As a matter of fact, his name was Tobias Theodore; the former because it was an old name in the family, and the latter because it was an entirely new name in the neighbourhood. It is to be hoped that the parents who called him Tobias Theodore, moved by a natural desire to keep it quiet, agreed to call him Tommy; and anyhow we will agree to call him Tommy. It is always assumed in stories that Tommy is a common name for a boy; just as it is always assumed that Tomkins is a common name for a man. I do not really know very many boys named Tommy. I do not know any man named Tomkins. Do you? Does anybody? But this enquiry would lead us far.

Anyhow, Tommy was sitting one very hot afternoon on a green lawn outside the cottage that his father and mother had taken in the country. The cottage had a bare white-washed wall; and at that moment it seemed to Tommy very bare. The summer sky was of a blank blue, which at that moment seemed to him very blank. The dull yellow thatch looked very dull and rather dusty; and the row of flower-pots in front of him, with red flowers in them, looked irritatingly straight, so that he wanted to knock some of them over like ninepins. Even the grass around him moved him only to pluck it up in a vicious way; almost as if he were wicked enough to wish it was his sister’s hair. Only he had no sister and, indeed, no brothers. He was an only child and at that moment rather a lonely child, which is not necessarily the same thing. For Tommy, on that hot and empty afternoon, was in that state of mind in which grown-up people go away and write books about their view of the whole world, and stories about what it is like to be married, and plays about the important problems of modern times. Tommy, being only ten years old, was not able to do harm on this large and handsome scale. So he continued to pull out the grass like the green hair of an imaginary and irritating sister, when he was surprised to hear a stir and a step behind him, on the side of the garden far away from the garden gate.

He saw walking towards him a rather strange-looking young man wearing blue spectacles. He was clad in a suit of such very light grey that it looked almost white in the strong sunlight; and he had long loose hair of such very light or faint yellow that the hair might almost have been white as well as the clothes. He had a large limp straw hat to shade him from the sun; and, presumably for the same purpose, he flourished in his left hand a Japanese parasol of a bright peacock green. Tommy had no idea of how he had come on to that side of the garden; but it appeared most probable that he had jumped over the hedge.

All that he said was, with the most casual and familiar accent, “Got the blues?”

Tommy did not answer and perhaps did not understand; but the strange young man proceeded with great composure to take off his blue spectacles.

“Blue spectacles are a queer cure for the blues,” he said cheerfully; “but you just look through these for a minute.”

Tommy was moved to a mild curiosity and peered through the glasses; there certainly was something weird and quaint about the discoloration of everything—the red roses black and the white wall blue, and the grass a bluish green like the plumes of a peacock.

“Looks like a new world, doesn’t it?” said the stranger. “Wouldn’t you like to go wandering in a blue world once in a blue moon?”

“Yes,” said Tommy, and put the spectacles down with a rather puzzled air. Then his expression changed to surprise; for the extraordinary young man had put on another pair of spectacles, and this time they were red.

“Try these,” he said affably. “These, I suppose, are revolutionary glasses. Some people call it looking through rose-coloured spectacles. Others call it seeing red.”

Tommy tried the spectacles, and was quite startled by the effect; it looked as if the whole world were on fire. The sky was of a glowing or rather glaring purple, and the roses were not so much red as red-hot. He took off the glasses almost in alarm, only to note that the young man’s immovable countenance was now adorned with yellow spectacles. By the time that these had been followed by green spectacles, Tommy thought he had been looking at four totally different landscapes.

“And so,” said the young man, “you would like to travel in a country of your favourite colour. I did it once myself.”

Tommy was staring up at him with round eyes.

“Who are you?” he asked suddenly.

“I’m not sure,” replied the other. “I rather think I am your long-lost brother.”

“But I haven’t got a brother,” objected Tommy.

“It only shows how very long-lost I was,” replied his remarkable relative. “But I assure you that, before they managed to long-lose me, I used to live in this house myself.”

“When you were a little boy like me?” asked Tommy with some reviving interest.

“Yes,” said the stranger gravely. “When I was a little boy and very like you. I also used to sit on the grass and wonder what to do with myself. I also got tired of the blank white wall. I also got tired even of the beautiful blue sky. I also thought the thatch was just thatch and wished the roses did not stand in a row.”

“Why, how do you know I felt like that?” asked the little boy, who was rather frightened.

“Why, because I felt like that myself,” said the other with a smile.

Then after a pause he went on:

“And I also thought that everything might look different if the colours were different; if I could wander about on blue roads between blue fields and go on wandering till all was blue. And a wizard who was a friend of mine actually granted my wish; and I found myself walking in forests of great blue flowers like gigantic lupins and larkspurs, with only glimpses now and then of pale blue skies over a dark blue sea. The trees were inhabited by blue jays and bright blue kingfishers. Unfortunately they were also inhabited by blue baboons.”

“Were there any people in that country?” enquired Tommy.

The traveller had to reflect for a moment; then he nodded and said:

“Yes; but, of course, wherever there are people there are troubles. You couldn’t expect all the people in the Blue Country to get on with each other very well. Naturally there was a crack regiment called the Prussian Blues. Unfortunately there was also a very energetic semi-naval brigade called French Ultramarines. You can imagine the consequence.” He paused again for a moment and then said: “I met one person who made rather an impression on me. I came upon him in a place of great gardens shaped in a crescent like the moon, and in the centre above a fringe of blue-gum trees there rose a great blue lustrous dome, like the Mosque of Omar. And I heard a great and terrible voice that seemed to toss the trees to and fro, and there came out between them a tremendously tall man, with a crown of huge sapphires round his turban, and his beard was quite blue. I need not explain that he was Bluebeard.”

“You must have been frightened,” said the little boy.

“At first perhaps,” replied the stranger, “but I came to the conclusion that Bluebeard is not so black—or perhaps so blue—as he is painted. I had a little confidential talk with him, and really there was something to be said on his side of the case. Living where he did, he naturally married wives who were all blue-stockings.”

“What are blue-stockings?” asked Tommy.

“Naturally you don’t know,” replied the other; “if you did you would sympathize more with Bluebeard. They were ladies who were always reading books. They even read them aloud.”

“What sort of books were they?”

“Blue books, of course,” replied the traveller. “They are the only kind of book allowed there. That is why I decided to leave. With the assistance of my friend the Wizard, I obtained a passport to cross the frontier, which was a very vague and shadowy one, like the fine shade between two tints of the rainbow. I only felt that I was passing over peacockcoloured seas and meadows, and the world was growing greener and greener, till I knew I was in a Green Country. You would think that was more restful, and so it was, up to a point. The point was when I met the celebrated Green Man, who has given his name for so many excellent public houses. And then there is always a certain amount of limitation in the work and trade of these beautiful harmonious landscapes. Have you ever lived in a country where all the people were greengrocers? I think not. After all, I asked myself, why should all grocers be green? I felt myself longing to look at a yellow grocer. I saw rise up before me the glowing image of a red grocer. It was just about this time that I floated insensibly into the Yellow Country; but I did not stay there very long. At first it was very splendid, a radiant scene of sunflowers and golden crowns; but I soon found it was almost entirely filled with Yellow Fever and the Yellow Press discussing the Yellow Peril. Of the three I preferred the Yellow Fever; but I could not get any real peace or happiness even out of that. So I faded through an orange haze until I came to the Red Country, and it was there that I really found out the truth of the matter.”

“What did you find out?” asked Tommy, who was beginning to listen much more attentively.

“You may have heard,” said the young man, “a very vulgar expression about painting the town red. It is more probable that you have heard the same thought put in a more refined form by a very scholarly poet who wrote about a rose-red city, half as old as time. Well, do you know, it is a curious fact that in a rose-red city you cannot really see any roses. Everything is a great deal too red. Your eyes are tired until it might just as well all be brown. After I had been walking for ten minutes on scarlet grass under a scarlet sky and scarlet trees, I called out in a loud voice, ‘Oh, this is all a mistake.’ And the moment I had said that the whole red vision vanished, and I found myself standing in quite a different sort of place; and opposite me was my old friend the Wizard, whose face and long rolling beard were all one sort of colourless colour like ivory, but his eyes of a colourless blinding brilliance like diamonds.

“‘Well,’ he said, ‘you don’t seem very easy to please. If you can’t put up with any of these countries of any of these colours, you shall jolly well make a country of your own.’

“And then I looked round me at the place to which he had brought me; and a very curious place it was. It lay in great ranges of mountains, in layers of different colours; and it looked something like sunset clouds turned solid and something like those maps that mark geological soils grown gigantic. And all along the terraces of the hills, they were trenched and hollowed into great quarries; and I think I understood without being told that this was the great original place from which all the colours came, like the paint-box of creation. But the most curious thing of all was that right in front of me there was a huge chasm in the hills that opened into sheer blank daylight. At least, sometimes I thought it was a blank and sometimes a sort of wall made of frozen light or air and sometimes a sort of tank or tower of clear water; but anyhow the curious thing about it was that if you splashed some of the coloured earths upon it they remained where you had thrown them, as a bird hangs in the air. And there the Wizard told me, rather impatiently, to make what sort of world I liked for myself, for he was sick of my grumbling at everything.

“So I set to work very carefully; first blocking in a great deal of blue, because I thought it would throw up a sort of square of white in the middle; and then I thought a fringe of a sort of dead gold would look well along the top of the white; and I spilt some green at the bottom of it. As for red, I had already found out the secret about red. You have to have a very little of it to make a lot of it. So I just made a row of little blobs of bright red on the white just above the green; and as I went on working at the details, I slowly discovered what I was doing; which is what very few people ever discover in this world. I found I had put back, bit by bit, the whole of that picture over there in front of us. I had made that white cottage with the thatch and that summer sky behind it and that green lawn below, and the row of the red flowers just as you see them now. That is how they come to be there. I thought you might be interested to know it.”

And with that he turned so sharply that Tommy had not time to turn and see him jump over the hedge; for Tommy remained staring at the cottage, with a new look in his eyes.

EVENSONG _By KATHARINE TYNAN_

When sweet day is over
I creep into bed
Under my rosy cover,
My prayers all said.

My nice bath taken,
I lie cool and sweet,
Wrapped in sweet-smelling linen
From head to feet.

I watch Nanna’s candle
Through a chink in the door,—
Nanna, sitting and sewing,
Her shadow on the floor.

The Moon comes to see me
And the Evening Star;
All night long the Corncrake
Croaks near and far.

I think I’ve been sleeping
Just a minute or two
Before Cuckoo shouts beside me—
Wake up! Cuckoo!

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
BILLING AND SONS, LIMITED,
GUILDFORD AND ESHER

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

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