A Christmas Child: A Sketch of a Boy-Life

The tea of course was a great success – when was a gipsy tea, unless people are very cross-tempered and fidgety and difficult to please, anything else? The kettle did its duty well, for the water boiled in it beautifully on the fire of dry sticks and leaves which Percy and Mabel, and busy Ted of course, had collected. The tea tasted very good – "not 'moky at all," said Ted; the slices of bread and butter and cake disappeared in a wonderful way, till at last everybody said "No, thank you, not any more," when the boys handed round the few disconsolate-looking pieces that remained.

And after this there was the fun of washing up and packing away, in which Ted greatly distinguished himself. He would not leave the least shred of paper or even crumbs about, for the fairies would be angry, he said, if their pretty house wasn't left "kite tidy." And Percy and Mabel were amused at his fancy, and naturally enough it set them talking about fairies and such like. For the children were by themselves now – the ladies had gone on a little farther to a place where Ted's mother wanted to sketch, and the gentlemen had set off to climb to the nearest peak, from whence there was a beautiful view of the sea. It would have been too much for Ted, and indeed when his father had asked him if he would like to go part of the way with them, both his mother and Percy noticed that a troubled look came over his happy face, as he said he would rather stay where he was, which was strange for him, for though such a little boy, he was always eager for a climb and anxious to do whatever he saw any one else doing. So kind Percy, mindful of Ted's mother's words, said he would not go either, and stayed with the others, helping them to tidy up the fairies' house.

"Now," said Ted at last, sitting down on the grass at Mabel's feet, "now I sink the fairies will be p'eased. It's all kite tidy. Fairies is always angry if peoples is untidy."

"I thought fairies were always in a good humour," said Percy. "I didn't know they were ever angry."

"Oh, I think Ted's right," said Mabel. "They are angry with people who are dirty or untidy. Don't you remember a story about them coming to work in a house where the kitchen was always left tidy at night? And they never would come to the next house because it was always in a mess."

"P'ease tell me that story, Mabel," said Ted.

"I'm afraid I don't remember it very well," she replied.

"Do you remember," said Percy, who was lying on the ground staring up at the sky and the bit of brown mountain peak that could be seen from where he was, "do you remember, Mab, the story of a little boy that fell asleep on the top of a mountain, and the fairies spirited him away, and took him down to their country, down inside the mountain? And he thought he had only been away – when he came home again, I mean, for they had to let him out again after a while – he thought he had only been away a day or two, and, fancy, it had been twenty years! All the children had grown big, and the young people middle-aged, and the middle-aged people quite old, and none of them knew him again. He had lost all his childhood. Wasn't it sad?"

"Yes, very" said Mabel; "I remember the story."

"I think it's dedful," said Ted. "I don't like mountains, and I don't like diants. I'll never go up a mountain, never."

"But it wasn't the mountain's fault, Ted," said Percy. "And it wasn't giants, it was fairies."

"I sink p'raps it was diants," persisted Ted. "I don't like zem. Mr. Brand is a diant," he added mysteriously, in a low voice.

Percy had been thinking of what Ted's mother had said. Now he felt sure that it was something to do with Mr. Brand that had frightened the little fellow. But Mabel did not know about it.

"I like mountains," she said. "Indeed I love them. I am always so glad to live where I can see their high peaks reaching up into the sky."

"But it wouldn't be nice to be alone, kite alone, on the top of one of zem, would it?" said Ted.

"No, it wouldn't be nice to be alone in any far-off place like that," said Percy, "but of course nobody would ever stay up on the top of a mountain alone."

"But if zem was made to," said Ted doubtfully. "I wouldn't mind so much if I had Chevie," he added, putting his arm round the dear doggie's neck and leaning his little fair head on him, for of course Chevie was of the party.

"Poor Ted," said Percy, laughing. "No one would ever make you live up all alone on the top of a mountain. Mabel, I wish you'd tell us a story," he said to his sister. "It's so nice here. I shall go to sleep if somebody doesn't do something to keep me awake."

He was lying at full length on the soft mossy grass, in the same place still, and gazing up at the blue sky and brown mountain peak. "Tell us a story, Mab," he repeated lazily.

"I haven't got any very nice ones just now," said Mabel. "I have been so busy with my lessons, you know, Percy, that I haven't had time for any stories."

"Can't you make them up yourself?" said Percy.

"Sometimes I do, a little," she replied. "But I can't make them all quite myself. Sometimes in our German reading-books there are funny little bits of stories, and I add on to them. There was one – oh yes, I'll tell you one about a giant who lived on the top of a mountain."

Ted drew nearer to Mabel, and nestled in to her side.

"A diant on the top of a mountain," he repeated. "Is it very f'ightening, Mabel?"

"Oh no. Listen and I'll tell you. Once, a long time ago, there was, a long way off, a strange country. There were lots and lots of forests in it, and at the side of the biggest forest of all there rose a chain of high mountains. The people who lived in this forest were poor, simple sort of people – they hadn't much time for anything but work, for it was difficult to gain enough to live on. Most of them were charcoal-burners, and there were not very many of them altogether. Of course in a forest there wouldn't be much room for cottages and houses, would there? And their cottages were none of them near together. Each family had its own hut, quite separated from the others, and unless you belonged to the forest you could hardly find your way from one part of it to the other. The poor people, too, were so busy that they had not much time for going to see each other, or for amusing themselves in any way. They all had a pale sad look, something like the look that I have heard papa say the poor people in some parts of England have – the people in those parts where they work so awfully hard in dark smoky towns and never see the sun, or the green fields, or anything fresh and pretty. Of course the forest people were not as badly off as that– for their work any way was in the open air, and the forest was clean – not like dirty factories, even though it was so dark. It was the want of sunshine that was their worst trouble, and that gave them that white, dull, half-frightened look. The forest was too thick and dense for the sun to get really into it, even in winter, and then, of course, the rays are so thin and pale that they aren't much good if they do come. And the mountains at the side came so close down to the edge of the forest that there was no getting any sunshine there either, for it was the north side there, the side that the sunshine couldn't get to. So for these reasons the place had come to be called 'the sunless country.'"

"What was there at the other side of the forest?" said Percy; "couldn't they have got into the sunshine at that side?"

"No," said Mabel. "I think there was a river or something. Or else it was that the forest was so very, very big that it would have been quite a journey to get out at any other side. I think that was it. Any way they couldn't. And they just had to live on without sunshine as well as they could. Their fathers had done so before them, and there was no help for it, they thought. They were too poor and too hard-worked to move away to another country, or to do anything but just go through each day as it came in a dull sad way, seldom speaking even to each other.

"But do you know, it had not always been so in the sunless forest, though the better times were so long ago that hardly any of the poor people knew it had ever been different. There had, once upon a time, been a way into the sunshine on the other side of the mountain, and this way lay right through the great hill itself. But the mountain belonged to a great and very powerful giant" – at this Ted edged still closer to Mabel – "who lived in it quite alone. Sometimes he used to come out at a hole in the top, which was his door, and stay up there for a while looking about him, staring at the black forest down at his feet, and smiling grimly to himself at the thought of how dark and dull it must be for the people who lived in it. For he was not a kind giant at all. It was he that had shut up the passage through which the poor forest people used to pass to their bright cottages on the other side, for in those days they didn't live in the forest, they only went there for their work, and on Sundays and holidays they were all happy and merry together, and the little children grew up rosy and bright, quite different from the poor little wan-faced creatures that now hung sadly about at the hut doors in the forest, looking as if they didn't know how to laugh or play."

"Why did the naughty diant shut up the way?" asked Ted.

"Because he had a quarrel with the forest people. He wanted them to let their little boys and girls, or some of them, come to him to be his servants, but they wouldn't, and so he was so angry that he shut up the door. But that was so long ago now that the people had almost forgotten about it – the children that the giant had wanted to be his servants were old grandfathers and grandmothers now, and some of them were dead, I daresay, so that the real history of their troubles was forgotten by them but not by the giant, for whenever he came out at the top of the mountain to take some air, he used to look down at the forest and think how dull and miserable they must be there."

"Nasty diant," said Ted.

"Yes, he was very unkind, but still I think you would have been rather sorry for him too. He was old and all alone, and of course nobody loved him. The people in the forest hardly ever spoke of him. They knew he was there, or that he used to be there, and now and then some of the children who had heard about him used to feel afraid of him and whisper to each other that he would eat them up if he could catch them, but that was about all the notice they took of him. They seemed to have forgotten that he was the cause of their sad, gloomy lives, and indeed I am not sure that any except some very old people really knew. Among these very old people there were a man and his wife who were almost the poorest of all in the forest. They were so poor because they were almost past work, and they had no children to work for them. All that they had was a little granddaughter, who lived with them because her father and mother were dead. And it was a queer thing that she was quite different from the other poor children in the forest. They were all pale and sad and crushed-looking like their parents. This little girl was bright-haired and bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked. She was the one merry happy creature in the forest, and all the poor people used to stand and look at her as she flitted about, and wish that their children were the same. I don't know what her real name was; the story didn't tell, but the name she got to have among the forest people was Sunshine – at least it was Sunshine in German, but I think 'Sunny' is a nicer name, don't you?"

"Yes," said Percy; and

"Ses," said Ted, "'Sunny' is nicest."

"Well, we'll call her 'Sunny.' The reason that she was so different was partly that she hadn't been born in the forest. Her father, who was the son of these old people, had gone away, as some few of the forest people did, to another country, and there he had married a bright-haired, pretty girl. But she had died, and he himself got very ill, and he had only strength to bring his baby girl back to the forest to his parents when he too died. So Sunny's history had been rather sad, you see, but still it hadn't made her sad – it seemed as if the sunshine was in her somehow, and that nothing could send it away."

Mabel stopped. Voices and steps were heard coming near.

"They're coming back," she said. "I'll have to finish the story another time. I didn't think it would take so long to tell."

"Oh do go on now, dear, dear Mabel, oh do!" cried Ted beseechingly.

But Mabel's fair face grew red.

"I couldn't, Ted, dear," she said, "not before big people," and Percy sympathised with her.

"We'll hear the rest in the garden at home," he said.

"Thoo won't tell it without me, not without Ted, p'ease," asked the little fellow.

"No, no, of course not, darling," said Mabel as she kissed his eager face.

Just then a ray of bright evening sunshine fell on Ted's brown hair, lighting it up and deepening it to gold, and as the little fellow caught it in his eyes, he looked up laughing.

"There's Sunny kissing Ted too," he said merrily.

CHAPTER V

THE STORY OF SUNNY (Concluded)

"A child of light, a radiant lass,And cheerful as the morning air."

They were all three laughing at Ted's wit when his mother and the other ladies came upon them.

"You seem very happy, children," said she.

"Oh ses," said Ted. "Mabel has been telling us such a lovely story. It's not finnied yet. She's going to tell the rest in the garden at home. Oh, I am so happy. It's been such a sprendid day."

He began half humming to himself in the excess of his delight.

"Ted wishes somebody would sing a song," he said.

His mother glanced at Mabel. Poor Mabel's face grew very red again. It would be worse than telling a story.

"If we all sang together," she said timidly, "I wouldn't mind trying to begin."

So in a minute or two her clear young voice sang out – like a lark's it seemed to mount higher and still higher, gathering strength and courage as it grew, and then softly dropping again as if to fetch the others, who joined her in the old familiar chorus of the simple song she had chosen – "Home, sweet home."

Ted listened entranced, and his little voice here and there could be distinguished. But suddenly, as Mabel stopped and a momentary silence fell on them all, he turned to his mother, and throwing himself into her arms, burst into tears.

"Muzzer," he said, "I can't bear it. It's too pitty," and though his mother and Mabel soothed the excited little fellow with gentle words and caresses, there were tears in more eyes than Ted's as they all thanked Mabel for her singing.

It was the next day that they had the rest of the story. The children were all in the garden together, not far from Ted's favourite "bridge." They could hear the babble of the little brook as it chattered past in the sunshine, and now and then the distant cry of a sea-bird would sound through the clear air, making Cheviott prick up his ears and look very wide-awake all of a sudden, though in reality, being no longer in the first bloom of youth, he was apt to get rather drowsy on a hot afternoon.

"We'se all ready, Mabel," said Ted, settling himself down comfortably in his favourite rest at her side. "Now go on p'ease. I can see the top of the mountain kite nice from here, and zen I can sink I'll see the old diant poking his head out," evidently the child's fear of the mountain was fast becoming a thing of the past, and Percy felt quite pleased.

"Well," began Mabel, "I was telling you that Sunny had lived with her old grandfather and grandmother since she was quite little. They were very kind to her, but they were very poor, almost the poorest of all in the forest. And yet their cottage never seemed quite so dull and sad as the others. How could it, when there was always Sunny's bright head flitting about, and her merry voice sounding like a bird's?

"The old people looked at her half with pleasure and half sadly.

"'It can't last,' the old man said one day, when the little girl was running and jumping about in her usual happy way.

"The old woman knew what he meant without his explaining, and she nodded her head sadly, and just then Sunny came flying into the cottage to show them some flowers she had actually found in the forest, which, you see, was the greatest wonder possible, for there were almost never any flowers to be seen. And Sunny told them how she had found them in a little corner where the trees did not grow quite so thick, so that more light could get in. And when she saw how surprised the old people were, she looked at them rather strangely, and some new thoughts seemed to be awaking in her mind, and she said, 'Grandfather, why aren't there more flowers in the forest, and why am I the only little girl that laughs and sings? Why does everybody look sad here? I can remember a little, just a little, about the other country I lived in before I came here. People used to laugh and smile there, and my mother had bright hair like mine, and father too was not sad till after mother had gone away and we came to this dark land. Why is it so dark, and why do you all look so sad?'

"The old man told her it was all for want of the sun, 'the blessed sun,' he called it, and Sunny thought about his words a great deal. And bit by bit she got the whole story from him, for he was one of the few remaining old people who knew the reason of their misfortunes. And Sunny thought and thought it over so much that she began to leave off dancing and laughing and singing as she used, so that her poor grandfather and grandmother began to be afraid that the sadness of the forest was at last spoiling her happy nature, and for a while they were very sorry about her. But one day she told them what she had in her mind. This was what she said to them —

"'Dear grandfather and grandmother, I cannot bear to see the sadness of the poor people here, and I have been thinking if nothing can be done. And a few nights ago I had a strange dream. I dreamt that a beautiful lady stood beside me and said, 'Go, Sunny, and have no fear. The giant will not harm you.' And since then it has come into my mind that I might win back the sunshine for our poor neighbours, and for you too, dear grandfather and grandmother, for you are not so very old yet, if you will let me go to see if I can melt the giant's hard heart.'

"Sunny was standing in front of the old couple, and as she spoke, to their amazement, a sudden ray of sunshine crept in through the little rough window of the cottage and fell softly on her bright head. Her grandfather looked at her grandmother, and her grandmother looked at her grandfather. They didn't know how to speak – they were so surprised. Never, since they were quite, quite little children had they seen such a thing. And they whispered to each other that it must be a magic sign, they must let the child go. I think it was very good and kind of them to let her go, the only thing they had to cheer them. The tears rolled down their poor old faces as they said good-bye to her, not knowing if they would live to see her return. But they said to each other, 'We have not very many years to live. It would be very wrong of us to lose the chance of life and happiness for all the poor forest people just to keep our bit of sunshine to ourselves.' And so they let her go, for they were good old people."

"Ses," said Ted, "zem was very kind. But how dedful for Sunny to have to go to the diant. Did her go all alone, Mabel?"

"Yes, all alone. But she wasn't frightened. And somehow her grandfather and grandmother weren't frightened for her either. They had a feeling that she had to go, and so she did. She set off the very next morning. Her grandfather explained the way to her, for old as he was he had never forgotten the days when the passage through the giant's mountain was left free and open, so that there was no need for the forest people to spend all their lives in the gloom and shade.

"Sunny walked quietly along the dark paths among the trees. She didn't dance and skip as usual, for she felt as if all of a sudden she had grown almost into a woman, with the thought of what she had to do for her poor neighbours. And as she looked about her, she felt as if she had never before quite noticed how dark and chill and gloomy it was. She had a good way to walk, for since the closing of the passage the people had moved farther and farther into the forest. They had grown afraid of the giant, and were glad to get as far from him as they could, for there was no good to be got by staying near him. So Sunny walked on, past the cottages she knew, where she nodded to the people she saw, but without speaking to them, which was so unlike her usual merry way that they all looked after her in surprise and wondered what had come over the little girl. And one or two of them shook their heads and said sadly that she was getting to be like the rest of them. But Sunny walked on, farther and farther, now and then smiling quietly to herself, and her bright little head shining in the darkness almost as if the sun was lighting it up. She went a good way, but there was nothing new or different. It was always the dark forest and the gloomy trees. But at last she saw, close to her, behind the trees, the dark sides of the great mountain, and she knew that she must be near the closed-up door."

"Oh!" said Ted, "wasn't her afraid of bears?"

"No," said Mabel, "she wasn't afraid of anything. She went quietly up to the door and stood before it. It was barred and barred with iron, and it was so long since it had been opened that the ivy and those sorts of plants had grown all over it, creeping round the iron bars. It looked as if it hadn't been opened for a hundred years, and I daresay it hadn't been. But Sunny knew what to do. She hunted about among the leaves and branches till she found a little silver knob – her grandfather had told her about it; and the queer thing was that though the iron bars were quite rusted over so that you wouldn't have known what they were, the little silver knob was still bright and shining as if it had been cleaned every day always."

"Wif plate-powder," said Ted, who was very learned about such matters, as he was very fond of watching the servants at their work.

"Yes," said Mabel, "just as if it had been cleaned with plate-powder. Well, Sunny pressed this little knob, and a minute or two after she heard a clear tinkling bell. That was just what her grandfather had told her she would hear, so she stood quite still and waited. In a little while she seemed to hear a sound as of something coming along the passage, and suddenly the top part of the door – at least it was more like a window cut in the door – opened, and a voice, though she could not see anybody, called out, 'Have you come to stay?' This too was what her grandfather had told her she would hear, so she knew what to say, and she answered 'Yes.' Then the voice said again, 'At what price?' and Sunny answered, 'Sunshine for the forest.' But her heart began to beat faster when the door slowly opened and she saw that she must enter the dark passage. There was no one to be seen, even though the voice had sounded quite near, so Sunny just walked on, looking about her, for gradually as she went farther, either her eyes grew used to the darkness, or a slight light began to come, and in a few minutes she saw before her a very, very high staircase. It went straight up, without turnings or landings, and the steps were quite white, so she saw them plainly though the light was dim, and as there was nowhere else to go, she just went straight on. I can't tell you what a long time she seemed to keep going upstairs, but at last the steps stopped, and before her she saw another door. It wasn't a door like the one down below, it was more like a gate, for it was a sort of a grating that you could see through. Sunny pressed her face against it and peeped in. She saw a large dark room, with a rounded roof something like a church, and in one corner a very old, grim-looking man was sitting. He had a very long beard, but he didn't look so awfully big as Sunny had expected, for she knew he must be the giant. He was sitting quite still, and it seemed to Sunny that he was shivering. Any way he looked very old and very lonely and sad, and instead of feeling frightened of him the little girl felt very sorry for him. She stood there quite still, but though she didn't make the least noise he found out she was there. He waved his hand, and the barred door opened and Sunny walked in. She walked right up to the giant and made him a curtsey. Rather to her surprise he made her a bow, then he waved his hands about and moved his lips as if he were speaking, but no sound came, and Sunny stared at him in surprise. She began to wonder if he was deaf and dumb, and if so how could she explain to him what she had come for?