Read Ebook: How the Fairy Violet Lost and Won Her Wings by Ker Marianne L B Martin J A Illustrator

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Ebook has 131 lines and 9525 words, and 3 pages

But Violet was very happy; "I shall see fairy-land again; bright, beautiful fairy-land!" she sang softly to herself over and over.

But when the frozen seas were past, and she was hovering once more above the land, the sun shone full upon her, the snow-wings melted away, and she fell helplessly to the ground.

"Dear Violet, are you hurt?" asked the Fairy Anenome, by whose side she had fallen. But Violet could not speak. She hid her face in Anenome's white robe, and wept bitterly.

"Dear sister Violet," said Anenome, winding her arms lovingly round the weeping fairy, "be comforted. This night we will go together and seek an audience of the Owl. Perhaps he will give us wiser counsel this time."

"The Owl only mocks me," said Violet; "I will not ask counsel from him again."

Then Anenome was silent, for she knew not what else to advise, and only tried to show her pity by tender words and caresses. But Fairy Kingcup lifted up her bright face, and said, cheerily:--

"Why not try the Wizard of the Black Rock? He lives a long way off, but he is the wisest magician that ever lived; and if any one can help our sister Violet, it is he."

Violet shook her head sorrowfully.

"I do not know the way," she said.

"I will lead you," hummed a bee, from the deep cup of a cowslip.

"And I will sing you my merriest songs to cheer you by the way," warbled a thrush, circling lovingly round her head.

"And I," cried the glowworm, "will light you at night with my golden lamp."

"We all love you, Fairy Violet, because you are so gentle and good," they sang in chorus; and Violet lifted her head, comforted, and smiled a sweet, joyous smile, as she bade farewell to her sister fairies.

It was a long journey that she undertook, for the Wizard of the Black Rock lived quite at the other end of the earth.

Sometimes a benighted traveller, hurrying homewards, fancied he saw a golden light flash like lightning past his dazzled eyes, or heard a warbling of sweet music, delighting for an instant his bewildered ears; but light and music were gone in a moment, and he never guessed that it was the Fairy Violet who had passed him as she glided onward with her three faithful attendants to seek the Wizard of the Black Rock.

At length they reached the great Black Rock, which rose up, grim and forbidding, from a wide, desolate plain. The bee sank down humming cheerfully, at the base, the thrush perched himself on a projecting ridge, and the glowworm hid himself behind a tuft of withered grass.

Violet advanced boldly to the small black door, studded with iron nails, which was standing open, guarded only by a black dwarf of preternatural ugliness. He turned as the beautiful fairy came floating towards him, and led the way silently through dark long passages, and up narrow winding stairs to his master's chamber. It was a small dark room, lighted only by a silver lamp of great brilliancy, which stood on a table by the fire-place, where, though the month was May, and the weather bright and sunny, there burned a dim, smouldering fire. The Wizard, whose silvery locks contrasted strangely with the surrounding gloom, bent over a book; its jewelled clasps were rusted with age, each page was enriched with coloured tracery. He was very old. More than a hundred years had elapsed since it was first rumoured that a famous magician had taken up his abode in the Black Rock, and all that time he had spent in studying the great black book of magic spells that lay open before him. No wonder he was wise and learned!

The dwarf shut the door with a sullen resentful clang, and Violet was left alone with the great magician.

She glided to his side, and knelt down meekly before him.

But the Wizard, deep in his abstruse studies, did not hear her; and Violet felt a sensation of awe creeping over her as she noted his abstracted gaze, and looked on the high, arched forehead wrinkled with centuries of years and study. Suddenly the magician turned, muttering some strange words in an unknown tongue, and, as he did so, his eyes fell upon Violet.

A remembrance of some by-gone spell of grace and beauty seemed to stir the Wizard as he looked upon the bright-haired fairy, to whose upturned face the light of the silver lamp had lent a fairer radiance, for his deep voice softened as he spoke to her, and he laid his hand gently on her head while she told her story.

When she had finished, he remained musing for some time in silence.

"I know no spells that will serve where the Spirits of Snow and of Fire have failed," he said at length, with unwonted gentleness. "No one can help thee here but thine own loving heart. Kind words, gentle deeds, faithful service, patient waiting--from these alone can be wrought the wings, which will be slight enough for thy delicate frame to bear, and yet powerful enough to withstand every trial. Go forth then, gentle fairy, to thy daily tasks, and wait patiently till the great Mother Nature herself give thee thy reward."

"Thanks, kind magician," said Violet, with a bright smile; "you have given me a pleasant task to do."

Then kissing gratefully his withered hand, she went on her way, and the aged Magician thought his silver lamp burned dimly, and his cell grew dark when she had left.

"Could not the great wizard help you?" cried her three friends, sorrowfully, as, gliding past the black dwarf that guarded the entrance, she stepped out into the open air.

"Could he not help you?" echoed her sister fairies, when she re-entered once more the old forest.

"Alas! is there no help for you, sweet Violet?" wept the wind, wandering in and out among the lofty trees, rocking and swaying them like slender bulrushes in his fierce sorrow.

But to each and all Violet replied only by a glad quiet smile.

"Patience!" she said, gently; "Mother Nature will help me in her own time."

So she returned to her work among the violets; and when they had all died, and the spring had gone, and her sister fairies flew away to fairy-land, she still smiled, though a little sadly, and bade them farewell without a shade of discontent in her brave, gentle voice.

"Now, I must find some work," she said to herself, when her wistful eyes could no longer discern the flutter of their wings in the azure sky.

And she soon found plenty to do.

Now it was binding up the wound of some stricken bird, or raising some crushed flower, and sprinkling its drooping leaves with cooling dew, and now it was closing the eyelids of a tired child who had thrown himself down to rest beneath the forest shade, and singing softly in his ear a fairy lullaby, till he fell asleep. Sometimes she would perch herself on the shoulder of some sleeping wayfarer by the roadside, and whisper in his ear sweet and tender words that made him dream of his home, and of the mother sleeping so peacefully in the churchyard far away, till he started from his sleep and went on his way with a touched and softened heart. Every day Fairy Violet found some kindly deed to do, and every day Mother Nature, looking lovingly on her child, saw the time was drawing nearer when she should receive her reward.

One day as she was wandering through one of the by-streets of a crowded city, she was attracted by a plaintive voice that proceeded from one of the low-roofed, badly built houses.

"Put the geranium where I can see it, mother," the voice was saying, "I love to lie back and watch it."

A woman came forward at these words and altered the position of the plant, which Fairy Violet had already noticed as being rather faded, and in want of her skill to brighten the colours.

"It is very washy-like," she said regretfully, "I doubt this stuffy air is killing it."

"Will it live as long as I shall?" asked the plaintive voice.

There was no answer, but Violet saw that the mother's hands shook as they busied themselves with the flower.

"I hope it will," the voice continued, with a sort of wistful eagerness, "for it is such a pleasure to me to watch it. It seems to comfort me, when the pain is very bad, and I lie awake through the long weary night, to look at it and wonder what the little garden is looking like in the old home you have told me of so often, mother, and whether the moon is shining as sweetly there as over our poor house here. I sometimes wonder, too, whether the flowers there are so very much more beautiful than my poor sickly geranium, and whether if I saw them I should care for it no longer; and then I think no, that no flower could ever be so beautiful to me as my flower, and that I love it far better, rearing its pretty head so bravely in this dull stuffy room, than if it bloomed in the loveliest garden that was ever planted. And many a time when I have felt a little downhearted, with being a burden to you, mother, and the pain seeming as if it was more than I could bear, it has seemed to say; 'Patience! poor little Faith, it will be over soon.' Do you think there will be flowers in heaven, mother?"

"Like enough, child," said the woman, dreamily; "there will be everything that is beautiful there, I expect," and she heaved a deep sigh. Poor woman! there was little of beauty in her present life, and the country home of which her child had spoken was but a far off recollection to her now.

"I should like to have it near me when I die," the sick girl went on, "I have never had a friend you know, mother, but my flower has seemed to stand in the place of one to me, and I should like to look at it just at the last."

"Lord love you, child! don't talk of dying; unless you want to break my heart," said the mother, with a tone of sharp impatience in which there was more of grief than of anger.

While she was speaking, Fairy Violet glided in at the open door.

The room was poor, but scrupulously clean, and the scanty furniture was as bright as diligent rubbing could make it. On a rude couch, opposite the open window, lay a girl of about sixteen years of age, but with a wan-pinched face that made her look ten years older. Constant pain had blanched all the colour she might once have possessed, and the blue veins showed clearly through the thin transparent skin. She turned her head as Violet entered, and a faint flush of pleasure rose on her pale cheeks.

"Mother! do you smell the violets?" she exclaimed, eagerly, "the room seems filled with fragrance."

"It must be your fancy, child," said the woman wearily; "I smell nought."

"Look, look, mother!" cried the sick girl again, "this at least is no fancy;" and mother and daughter gazed at the flower in amazement as the faded colour grew bright under the fairy's magic touch. "'Tis the moving it to a sunnier spot, or mayhap 'twas the water I gave it this morning," said the woman, recovering herself with a start. "I'll give it a drop more," and she bustled off to get some, while her daughter lay back and watched the flower with a quiet, restful smile on her patient lips.

"There is work for me to do here," said Violet to herself, feeling quite happy as she glided from blossom to blossom, touching and re-touching with her delicate brush. So she stayed, and day by day the flower grew more radiantly beautiful beneath her loving hands, sweetest fragrance filled the room, and softest murmuring of fairy music floated on the air, which, though the dull senses of mother and daughter failed to interpret rightly, yet stole into their hearts and gave them comfort. Sometimes a vision would come before her of the radiant fairy-land from which she was banished, or of her beautiful forest-home where fragrant flowers had wrapt her in their dewy leaves, where birds had sung to her from the leafy bower above her head, and the bright sun had shone upon her with genial warmth. But she would quickly banish such thoughts, and gliding round the room would touch every dull corner with her fairy wand till it shone and brightened with a magic charm, would cast a spell upon the smouldering fire, so that it burned and crackled cheerily, would lay her cool hand upon the sick girl's throbbing brow till the pain abated, and would cast a fairy haze before her languid eyes, so that they saw beautiful visions in the changeful sky.

So day by day passed by, till one morning, bending over a glass that stood beneath the flower she was painting, Fairy Violet saw her own reflection in the clear water. But she saw something more! A pair of wings of the most delicate gossamer, tipped with silver and sparkling with a marvellous radiance, had sprung from her shoulders and rose almost on a level with her tiny head! Fairy Violet had won her wings at last, and the golden gates of Fairy-land, where the woods and forests were always green, and the valleys ever radiant with beautiful flowers, were open to her once more.

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