"And it's to-night we'd better be doing it, if we're to do it at all,"

said the King. "Now, who'll be the ones to go and be put in the place of the children?"

n.o.body seemed to care about going to play the part of a baby with the Sullivans, or even with the O'Briens. Everybody was trying to get out of the King's sight behind the others. "We'ld have to be lyin' still all day," one whispered, "with never a dance to rest ourselves with."

"They might be puttin' holy water on us," said another, and all who heard him shivered.

"There'll be all sorts of unpleasantness, anyway," said a third.

"Maybe they'ld find us out," said a fourth, "and then they'ld be puttin' all sorts of horrible charms on us to be rid of us."

But the King called one of the women and told her that she must go and stay in the place of the baby at the O'Briens. She whimpered a little, but she knew that what the King said must be done. Then the King looked around him and said, "Where's Naggeneen got to at all now?"

"Here I am to the fore," said Naggeneen.

"You'll go," said the King, "and you'll be put in the place of the boy that's at the Sullivans."

"I go!" said Naggeneen. "Never a step. Didn't I tell you of the plan?

And that's enough. Now do it for yourself. I don't belong to you and you know it. Do your own work."

"I'll not be disputin' with you," said the King. "Whether you belong to me or no, you're in my palace along with my tribe, and you'll do what I tell you. It's tired of you I've been this great while, and now I've a chance to be rid of you. You'll go to the Sullivans and you'll stay there and you'll grow up like their child. And mind you play your part well and don't let them know what you are. If you do, they'll work some charm on you and be rid of you, and then we'll have to send back the real child, and all your own plan will be lost."

"And how will you carry out my plan without me?" Naggeneen asked.

"Don't I always tell you what to do? You'll want me a dozen times a day."

"We'll not want you at all. You do tell us what to do and we do it when we like, and it's small good ever came of it. And then, if we do want anything of you, we know where to find you, and we'll easily come to you. It's been done before. You was left in the place of a young man that was taken away once before, and when the tribe that you was with then wanted to talk to you they came to you, and we can do the same if we like, but I don't think we shall like."

"That's just it," Naggeneen cried; "did you know about that time? This time would be just like it. Do you know how they drove me off? I couldn't help it then and I couldn't help it again. There's times when it seems like there's a charm on me, and so there is, belike, and I have to do a thing that it's bad for me to do. Do you know the whole of it, how it was that time?

"It was a man that time, as you say, and not a child. Rickard the Rake he was called, I remember, and a fine rake he was. Never a bit of work would he do, but he'ld always be at every fair or wake or the like of that. And so little good there was in him that the fairies in the rath where I was then said: 'It's an easy thing it'll be stealing him away, and serve him right, too, and he'll be handy for us, he's so good a dancer.'

"I was ordered to be the one to be left in his place, though I knew no good would come of it. And so one night, when he was dancing, we struck him with a dart in the hip, and he fell down where he was. And then, in all the bother and the noise that there was, it was easy to get him away and to leave me in the place of him. So they took me up and put me in bed and nursed me and did all they could think of for me, and me all the time squirming and squealing, like it was dying I was.

"They gave me everything I could think of to eat, and that was not so bad, for I never lived better in my life; but it was worn out I was getting, with lying there all the time and playing sick, and never a chance to stir about or get any air or a minute to myself. And the thing I was spoiling for was a tune out of the pipes or the fiddle.

Then they brought a fairy-man to look at me, and he said it was a fairy and not Rickard at all that was in it, and I couldn't be telling you all the bad names he put on me and the things he said about me.

And he said: 'Leave a pair of bagpipes near him, and maybe he'll play them. You know well Rickard never could play at all, and so if he plays them we'll know that it's not Rickard, but a fairy changeling, and then we'll know what to do.'"

Just here I must stop Naggeneen in his story for a minute, to tell you that when people in Ireland speak of a "fairy-man" they do not mean a man fairy. They mean a man who knows all about fairies. The fairy-men know all that the fairies can do, and they know the charms against them and the ways to cure a sickness that the fairies have brought upon anyone, and the ways to keep them from stealing the cream from the milk and the milk from the cow. So the people have great respect for a fairy-man or a fairy-woman, and they often send to one of them for help, when they think that the fairies may have done them a mischief.

"They left the pipes beside me," Naggeneen went on, "and then they went away. Oh, it was then I had the terrible time all out. Oh, may I never long for anything again as I longed to play them pipes! But I knew that they'ld be listening and watching, and if they caught me at it, I'ld have to pay for it, if they could make me. So I kept my hands off them and only groaned and took on as if the dart in my hip was killing me entirely.

"Then there was one hot afternoon, and everything was still about the house, and it was the harvest time, and they all had a right to be in the fields at work. And sure I thought it was there they were. And then the wish to play the pipes came on me worse than ever before. And it was then that it was like there was a charm on me, as I was telling you. I had to do what I did. I could no more help doing it than a girl can help dancing with us, when we get her in our ring on May Eve. But first I opened the door a crack and looked out into the kitchen, to see was there anybody there, and there was n.o.body. But they were all in another room, as I found out after, waiting and listening. There was the fairy-man and a fairy-woman and all the people of the house, and some of the neighbors.

"But if I'd seen them all I dunno if I could have done other than I did, the power, whatever it was, was on me that strong. And I took the pipes and played. It was soft I played at first, and then the music got the better of me and I went on more and louder, and I played tunes and tunes. I could play as well then as I can now, and so the other fairies, that had been without me for some time, must have heard me playing, for soon I heard the rustle and the whisper and the patter of their coming, and then they gathered round me, and I had been left there lonely for so long that I kept on playing, to keep them with me.

"It was then the fairy-man and the fairy-woman began talking, and I heard every word they said, as no doubt they meant I should. 'What'll we do with the little beast at all?' says she.

"'We'll do something that's not too unpleasant at first,' says he.

'We'll take him and hold his head under the water, and see will that drive any of the devilment out of him.'

"'Oh, the thief!' says she. 'That's not the way to treat him at all.

Let's heat the shovel and put him on it and throw him out the window.'

"'Ah, why will you be that cruel?' says he. 'Just let me heat the tongs red hot in the fire and then I'll catch him by the nose with them, and we'll find out will that make him go home and send poor Rickard back to us.'

"'That's not enough,' says she. 'I'll go and bring some of the juice of the lussmore that I have, and we'll make him drink it, and then if he's a fairy he'll wish that he was a man, so that he could die, it'll make that consternation inside him.'

"'We'll do the both of them things,' says he, and with that they both started into the kitchen, and all the rest of the people after them.

But you may believe that by that time I was not there at all. I'd had enough of their kindness and I didn't think it was right to wait for any more of it. But I looked in at the window for a last glimpse of them, and one of the women saw me, and she screamed, and then the fairy-man made after me with the tongs, and I had to vanish completely. And you know what would happen then. When they drove me off, of course we had to send back Rickard, and there they found him the next morning, asleep in his bed, as sound as ever he was in his life.

"And that was not all. The lesson that he'd had was enough for him, and he left drinking and fighting and swearing, and he helped his old father and his brothers on the farm, and he was another man altogether. And so it's as I told you. You can never get the better of men, if they know anything, and all you do to hurt them only helps them. And so it will be if you send me to the Sullivans."

"If you're done talking about it now," said the King, "you'll go to the Sullivans and stay in the place of the child that we're to carry off. It's not likely they'll be leaving any pipes or any fiddle about for you to play on, and you can stay there quite comfortable.

"Off with him now!" the King cried to a dozen of his men, "and mind you don't come back without the child. And the same to you," he said again to others of his men; "take the woman and leave her in the place of the child at the O'Briens'."

The two parties were off, like two little swarms of bees, the one with Naggeneen and the other with the woman. The rest of the fairies waited. The Queen sat on her throne, with her face turned away from the rest and hidden in her hands. The King, with a troubled face, sat looking straight before him, not moving an eye or a hand. The others stood as far off as they could go. n.o.body played; n.o.body danced; n.o.body laughed or whispered. They waited and watched and listened.

Then there was a little murmur and buzz of one of the parties coming back. It was the one that had been to the Sullivans.

The King looked up and seemed to look through the fairies without seeing them. "Have you the child with you?" he asked.

"We have," said the leader.

"And where's Naggeneen?" the King asked.

"Lying in the bed beside Mrs. Sullivan," the leader answered, "and squealing like a pig under a gate."

"Give the child something to eat and make him comfortable," said the King.

The Queen turned suddenly around. "Don't give him anything to eat yet," she said. "We've nothing here but our own food. You couldn't give him that. What did you bring him here for? Was it not so that you could send him out again, as he grows up, to learn to do the things that men do? And if he touched a bit of our food or our drink, you know he could never leave us."

"That's the true word," said the King. "Here! Some of you go to the O'Briens' and see is there any milk left out of the window. And bring back enough so there'll be some for the other child, when we get her."

As the fairies set off on this errand there came a sound like the whistling of the wind through the door, and those who had gone to bring the O'Briens' child were back. They were back in a whirl and a rush and a scramble and a rout. They were all screaming and crying and whimpering and gabbling and gibbering together, and they all fell and sprawled together in a heap before the King. In the midst of them was the woman who had been sent to take the place of the O'Briens' child.

"What for are you here without the child?" the King cried. "And what are you all doing there on the floor, like fish tumbled out of a basket? Get up and tell me what's wrong with you! Where is the child?"

The fairies all choked and gasped and groaned and tried to speak. Then the leader of the party staggered up to his feet and stammered out: "The child is where it was before we went for it. We could not bring it; we could not take it; we could not touch it. You might as well be asking us to bring a lily from the fields of heaven."

"And why could you not take it?" the King asked. "Was the mother holding it so fast in her arms? Could you not make her look the other way while you'ld be taking it? Could you not put some charm on her so that she'ld let it go? Or was she praying all the time, so that you could do nothing with her? Or was she making those signs over it that none of us can stand?"

"No, no," said the leader, so low that they could scarcely hear him; "no, it wasn't that; the mother was doing none of them things. The mother was dead!"

For a minute everybody was still. The Queen started and looked at the leader of the party and leaned toward him. All the others gazed at him too. Then the King said, "And why did you not bring the child?"

"I'm after telling you we couldn't touch the child," the leader answered. "I went to take it, and all at once I felt burning hot, and like I was all dried up into a cinder, and I think they must have drawn a circle of fire round the child. And then I had that fearful feeling that you have when you're near a horseshoe nail. There must have been one somewhere about. You couldn't mistake that feeling--as if needles of ice were going all through and through you. And so I was driven back and could get no nearer to the child."

The woman who had been sent to take the place of the child was standing near the King now, though she could scarcely stand at all, and her face was all wet with tears. "But they made me go nearer to the child than that," she cried. "These others pushed me close to her, so that I'ld take her place and give the child to them. And I felt burned up like a cinder, too, and then I felt the icy needles, and then worse than that. I felt as if I was all cut across and across and through and through with flaming swords, and torn with red-hot saws.

Not the way it is when you divide yourself, so that you can be in two places at once. Anybody can do that, and it hurts no more than cutting a lock of hair, but this was--oh! there's only one thing could do this. There was a pair of open scissors lying close to the child, and I almost touched them!"