Phantastes, A Faerie Romance | Page 8

find out some trace of it in your countenance. I think I see
it."
"What do you see?"
"Oh, never mind: I may be mistaken in that."
"But how then do you come to live here?"
"Because I too have fairy blood in me."
Here I, in my turn, looked hard at her, and thought I could perceive,
notwithstanding the coarseness of her features, and especially the
heaviness of her eyebrows, a something unusual--I could hardly call it
grace, and yet it was an expression that strangely contrasted with the
form of her features. I noticed too that her hands were delicately
formed, though brown with work and exposure.
"I should be ill," she continued, "if I did not live on the borders of the
fairies' country, and now and then eat of their food. And I see by your
eyes that you are not quite free of the same need; though, from your
education and the activity of your mind, you have felt it less than I.
You may be further removed too from the fairy race."

I remembered what the lady had said about my grandmothers.
Here she placed some bread and some milk before me, with a kindly
apology for the homeliness of the fare, with which, however, I was in
no humour to quarrel. I now thought it time to try to get some
explanation of the strange words both of her daughter and herself.
"What did you mean by speaking so about the Ash?"
She rose and looked out of the little window. My eyes followed her; but
as the window was too small to allow anything to be seen from where I
was sitting, I rose and looked over her shoulder. I had just time to see,
across the open space, on the edge of the denser forest, a single large
ash-tree, whose foliage showed bluish, amidst the truer green of the
other trees around it; when she pushed me back with an expression of
impatience and terror, and then almost shut out the light from the
window by setting up a large old book in it.
"In general," said she, recovering her composure, "there is no danger in
the daytime, for then he is sound asleep; but there is something unusual
going on in the woods; there must be some solemnity among the fairies
to-night, for all the trees are restless, and although they cannot come
awake, they see and hear in their sleep."
"But what danger is to be dreaded from him?"
Instead of answering the question, she went again to the window and
looked out, saying she feared the fairies would be interrupted by foul
weather, for a storm was brewing in the west.
"And the sooner it grows dark, the sooner the Ash will be awake,"
added she.
I asked her how she knew that there was any unusual excitement in the
woods. She replied--
"Besides the look of the trees, the dog there is unhappy; and the eyes
and ears of the white rabbit are redder than usual, and he frisks about as

if he expected some fun. If the cat were at home, she would have her
back up; for the young fairies pull the sparks out of her tail with
bramble thorns, and she knows when they are coming. So do I, in
another way."
At this instant, a grey cat rushed in like a demon, and disappeared in a
hole in the wall.
"There, I told you!" said the woman.
"But what of the ash-tree?" said I, returning once more to the subject.
Here, however, the young woman, whom I had met in the morning,
entered. A smile passed between the mother and daughter; and then the
latter began to help her mother in little household duties.
"I should like to stay here till the evening," I said; "and then go on my
journey, if you will allow me."
"You are welcome to do as you please; only it might be better to stay
all night, than risk the dangers of the wood then. Where are you
going?"
"Nay, that I do not know," I replied, "but I wish to see all that is to be
seen, and therefore I should like to start just at sundown." "You are a
bold youth, if you have any idea of what you are daring; but a rash one,
if you know nothing about it; and, excuse me, you do not seem very
well informed about the country and its manners. However, no one
comes here but for some reason, either known to himself or to those
who have charge of him; so you shall do just as you wish."
Accordingly I sat down, and feeling rather tired, and disinclined for
further talk, I asked leave to look at the old