The Fairy Wicket

From digging in the sandy, over-triturated soil of times historical, all dotted with date and number and sign, how exquisite the relief in turning to the dear days outside history —­ yet not so very far off neither for us nurslings of the northern sun —­ when kindly beasts would loiter to give counsel by the wayside, and a fortunate encounter with one of the Good People was a surer path to Fortune and the Bride than the best-worn stool that ever proved step-ladder to aspiring youth.  For then the Fairy Wicket stood everywhere ajar —­ everywhere and to each and all. ``Open, open, green hill!’’ —­ you needed no more recondite sesame than that:  and, whoever you were, you might have a glimpse of the elfin dancers in the hall that is litten within by neither sun nor moon; or catch at the white horse’s bridle as the Fairy Prince rode through.  It has been closed now this many a year (the fairies, always strong in the field, are excellent wicket-keepers); and if it open at all, ’tis but for a moment’s mockery of the material generation that so deliberately turned its back on the gap into Elf-Land —­ that first stage to the Beyond.

It was a wanton trick, though, that these folk of malice used to play on a small school-boy, new kicked out of his nest into the draughty, uncomfortable outer world, his unfledged skin still craving the feathers whereinto he was wont to nestle.  The barrack-like school, the arid, cheerless class-rooms, drove him to Nature for redress; and, under an alien sky, he would go forth and wander along the iron road by impassive fields, so like yet so unlike those hitherto a part of him and responding to his every mood.  And to him, thus loitering with overladen heart, there would come suddenly a touch of warmth, of strange surprise.  The turn of the road just ahead —­ that, sure, is not all unfamiliar?  That row of elms —­ it cannot entirely be accident that they range just so?  And, if not accident, then round the bend will come the old duck-pond, the shoulder of the barn will top it, a few yards on will be the gate —­ it swings-to with its familiar click —­ the dogs race down the avenue —­ and then —­ and then!  It is all wildly fanciful; and yet, though knowing not Tertullian, a ``credo quia impossibile’’ is on his tongue as he quickens his pace —­ for what else can he do?  A step, and the spell is shattered —­ all is cruel and alien once more; while every copse and hedge-row seems a-tinkle with faint elfish laughter.  The Fairies have had their joke:  they have opened the wicket one of their own hand’s-breadths, and shut it in their victim’s face.  When next that victim catches a fairy, he purposes to tie up the brat in sight of his own green hill, and set him to draw up a practical scheme for Village Councils.