The Blue Moon | Page 4

THE CASTLE THE WHITE DOE
THE GENTLE COCKATRICE THE RAT-CATCHER'S DAUGHTER
WHITE BIRCH

The Blue Moon
Nillywill and Hands-pansy were the most unimportant and happy pair
of lovers the world has ever gained or lost.
With them it had been a case of love at first blindness since the day
when they had tumbled into each other's arms in the same cradle. And
Hands-pansy, when he first saw her, did not discover that Nillywill was
a real princess hiding her birthright in the home of a poor peasant; nor
did Nillywill, when she first saw Hands, see in him the
baby-beginnings of the most honest and good heart that ever sprang out
of poverty and humble parentage. So from her end of their little crib
she kicked him with her royal rosy toes, and he from his kicked back
and laughed: and thus, as you hear, at first blindness they fell head over
ears in love with one another.
Nothing could undo that; for day by day earth and sun and wind came
to rub it in deeper, and water could not wash it off. So when they had
been seven years together there could be no doubt that they felt as if
they had been made for each other in heaven. And then something very
big and sad came to pass; for one day Nillywill had to leave off being a
peasant child and become a princess once more. People very grand and
grown-up came to the woodside where she flowered so gaily, and
caught her by the golden hair of her head and pulled her up by her dear
little roots, and carried her quite away from Hands-pansy to a place she
had never been in before. They put her into a large palace, with woods
and terraces and landscape gardens on all sides of it; and there she sat
crying and pale, saying that she wanted to be taken back to Hands-
pansy and grow up and marry him, though he was but the poor peasant
boy he had always been.

Those that had charge of Nillywill in her high station talked wisely,
telling her to forget him. "For," said they, "such a thing as a princess
marrying a peasant boy can only happen once in a blue moon!"
When she heard that, Nillywill began every night to watch the moon
rise, hoping some evening to see it grow up like a blue flower against
the dusk and shake down her wish to her like a bee out of its deep
bosom.
But night by night, silver, or ruddy, or primrose, it lit a place for itself
in the heavens; and years went by, bringing the Princess no nearer to
her desire to find room for Hands-pansy amid the splendours of her
throne.
She knew that he was five thousand miles away and had only wooden
peasant shoes to walk in; and when she begged that she might once
more have sight of him, her whole court, with the greatest utterable
politeness, cried "No!"
The Princess's memory sang to her of him in a thousand tunes, like
woodland birds carolling; but it was within the cage which men call a
crown that her thoughts moved, fluttering to be out of it and free.
So time went on, and Nillywill had entered gently into sweet
womanhood--the comeliest princess that ever dropped a tear; and all
she could do for love was to fill her garden with dark-eyed pansies, and
walk among their humble upturned faces which reminded her so well of
her dear Hands--Hands who was a long five thousand miles away.
"And, oh !" she sighed, watching for the blue moon to rise, "when will
it come and make me at one with all my wish?"
Looking up, she used to wonder what went on there. She and Hands
had stolen into the woods, when children together, and watched the
small earth-fairies at play, and had seen them, when the moon was full,
lift up their arms to it, making, perhaps, signals of greeting to far-off
moon-brothers. So she thought to herself, "What kind are the fairies up
there, and who is the greatest moon-fairy of all who makes the blue
moon rise and bring good-will to the sad wishers of the human race? Is
it," thought Nillywill, "the moon-fairy who then opens its heart and
brings down healing therefrom to lovers upon earth?"
And now, as happens to all those who are captives of a crown,
Nillywill learned that she must wed with one of her own rank who was
a stranger to her save for his name and his renown as the lord of a

neighbouring country; there was no help for her, since she was a
princess, but she must wed according to the claims