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Page 61
"So be it," said the others; and Amelia wore the touchwood hat, and
went up with them to the Mary Meads.
Amelia and the dwarf danced the mazurka, and their shadows, now as
short as themselves, then long and gigantic, danced beside them. As the
moon went down, and the shadows lengthened, the dwarf was in raptures.
"When one sees how colossal one's very shadow is," he remarked, "one
knows one's true worth. You also have a good shadow. We are partners in
the dance, and I think we will be partners for life. But I have not
fully considered the matter, so this is not to be regarded as a formal
proposal." And he continued to dance, singing, "L�, la, f�, l�,
l�, la, f�, l�." It was highly admired.
The Mary Meads lay a little below the house where Amelia's parents
lived, and once during the night her father, who was watching by the
sick bed of the stock, looked out of the window.
"How lovely the moonlight is!" he murmured; "but, dear me! there is a
will-o'-the-wisp yonder. I had no idea the Mary Meads were so damp."
Then he pulled the blind down and went back into the room.
As for poor Amelia, she found no four-leaved clover, and at cockcrow
they all went underground.
"We will dance on Hunch Hill to-morrow," said the dwarfs.
All went as before; not a clover plant of any kind did Amelia see, and
at cockcrow the revel broke up.
On the following night they danced in the hayfield. The old stubble was
now almost hidden by green clover. There was a grand fairy dance--a
round dance, which does not mean, as with us, a dance for two partners,
but a dance where all join hands and dance round and round in a circle
with appropriate antics. Round they went, faster and faster, the
pointed shoes now meeting in the centre like the spokes of a wheel, now
kicked out behind like spikes, and then scamper, caper, hurry! They
seemed to fly, when suddenly the ring broke at one corner, and nothing
being stronger than its weakest point, the whole circle were sent
flying over the field.
"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed the dwarfs, for they are good-humoured little
folk, and do not mind a tumble.
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Amelia, for she had fallen with her fingers on a
four-leaved clover.
She put it behind her back, for the old tinker dwarf was coming up to
her, wiping the mud from his face with his leathern apron.
"Now for our dance!" he shrieked. "And I have made up my mind--partners
now and partners always. You are incomparable. For three hundred years
I have not met with your equal."
But Amelia held the four-leaved clover above her head, and cried from
her very heart--"I want to go home!"
The dwarf gave a hideous yell of disappointment, and at this instant
the stock came tumbling head over heels into the midst, crying--"Oh!
the pills, the powders, and the draughts! oh, the lotions and
embrocations! oh, the blisters, the poultices, and the plasters! men
may well be so short-lived!"
And Amelia found herself in bed in her own home.
AT HOME AGAIN.
By the side of Amelia's bed stood a little table, on which were so many
big bottles of medicine, that Amelia smiled to think of all the stock
must have had to swallow during the month past. There was an open Bible
on it too, in which Amelia's mother was reading, whilst tears trickled
slowly down her pale cheeks. The poor lady looked so thin and ill, so
worn with sorrow and watching, that Amelia's heart smote her, as if
some one had given her a sharp blow.
"Mamma, Mamma! Mother, my dear, dear Mother!"
The tender, humble, loving tone of voice was so unlike Amelia's old
imperious snarl, that her mother hardly recognized it; and when she saw
Amelia's eyes full of intelligence instead of the delirium of fever,
and that (though older and thinner and rather pale) she looked
wonderfully well, the poor worn-out lady could hardly restrain herself
from falling into hysterics for very joy.
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