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_The Dutch Cheese_ was written by Walter de la Mare
(1873-1956), and was included in his _Collected Stories for
Children_ (1947).

Title: Collected Stories for Children -- The Dutch Cheese
Date of first publication: 1947
Author: Walter de la Mare (1873-1956)
Date first posted: 1 July 2007
Date last updated: 1 July 2007
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #3

This ebook was produced by: Dr Mark Bear Akrigg




The Dutch Cheese

by Walter de la Mare (from his _Collected Stories for Children_
[1947])




Once--once upon a time there lived, with his sister Griselda, in
a little cottage near the Great Forest, a young farmer whose name
was John. Brother and sister, they lived alone, except for their
sheep-dog, Sly, their flock of sheep, the numberless birds of the
forest, and the 'fairies'. John loved his sister beyond telling;
he loved Sly; and he delighted to listen to the birds singing at
twilight round the darkening margin of the forest. But he feared
and hated the fairies. And, having a very stubborn heart, the
more he feared, the more he hated them; and the more he hated
them, the more they pestered him.

Now these were a tribe of fairies, sly, small, gay-hearted and
mischievous, and not of the race of fairies noble, silent,
beautiful and remote from man. They were a sort of gipsy-fairies,
very nimble and of aery and prankish company, and partly for
mischief and partly for love of her they were always trying to
charm John's dear sister Griselda away, with their music and
fruits and trickery. He more than half believed it was they who
years ago had decoyed into the forest not only his poor old
father, who had gone out faggot-cutting in his sheepskin hat with
his ass; but his mother too, who soon after had gone out to look
for him.

But fairies, even of this small tribe, hate no man. They mocked
him and mischiefed him; they spilt his milk, rode astraddle on
his rams, garlanded his old ewes with sow-thistle and briony,
sprinkled water on his kindling wood, loosed his bucket into the
well, and hid his great leather shoes. But all this they did, not
for hate--for they came and went like evening moths about
Griselda--but because in his fear and fury he shut up his sister
from them, and because he was sullen and stupid. Yet he did
nothing but fret himself. He set traps for them, and caught
starlings; he fired his blunderbuss at them under the moon, and
scared his sheep; he set dishes of sour milk in their way, and
sticky leaves and brambles where their rings were green in the
meadows; but all to no purpose. When at dusk, too, he heard their
faint, elfin music, he would sit in the door blowing into his
father's great bassoon till the black forest re-echoed with its
sad, solemn, wooden voice. But that was of no help either. At
last he grew so surly that he made Griselda utterly miserable.
Her cheeks lost their scarlet and her eyes their sparkling. Then
the fairies began to plague John in earnest--lest their lovely,
loved child of man, Griselda, should die.

Now one summer's evening--and most nights are cold in the Great
Forest--John, having put away his mournful bassoon and bolted the
door, was squatting, moody and gloomy, with Griselda, on his
hearth beside the fire. And he leaned back his great hairy head
and stared straight up the chimney to where high in the heavens
glittered a host of stars. And suddenly, while he lolled there on
his stool moodily watching them, there appeared against the dark
sky a mischievous elvish head secretly peeping down at him; and
busy fingers began sprinkling dew on his wide upturned face. He
heard the laughter too of the fairies miching and gambolling on
his thatch, and in a rage he started up, seized a round Dutch
cheese that lay on a platter, and with all his force threw it
clean and straight up the sooty chimney at the faces of mockery
clustered above. And after that, though Griselda sighed at her
spinning wheel, he heard no more. Even the cricket that had been
whistling all through the evening fell silent, and John supped on
his black bread and onions alone.

Next day Griselda woke at dawn and put her head out of the little
window beneath the thatch, and the day was white with mist.

"Twill be another hot day,' she said to herself, combing her
beautiful hair.

But when John went down, so white and dense with mist were the
fields, that even the green borders of the forest were invisible,
and the whiteness went to the sky. Swathing and wreathing itself,
opal and white as milk, all the morning the mist grew thicker and
thicker about the little house. When John went out about nine
o'clock to peer about him, nothing was to be seen at all. He
could hear his sheep bleating, the kettle singing, Griselda
sweeping, but straight up above him hung only, like a small round
fruit, a little cheese-red beamless sun--straight up above him,
though the hands of the clock were not yet come to ten. He
clenched his fists and stamped in sheer rage. But no one answered
him, no voice mocked him but his own. For when these idle,
mischievous fairies have played a trick on an enemy they soon
weary of it.

All day long that little sullen lantern burned above the mist,
sometimes red, so that the white mist was dyed to amber, and
sometimes milky pale. The trees dripped water from every leaf.
Every flower asleep in the garden was neckleted with beads; and
nothing but a drenched old forest crow visited the lonely cottage
that afternoon to cry: 'Kah, Kah, Kah!' and fly away.

But Griselda knew her brother's mood too well to speak of it, or
to complain. And she sang on gaily in the house, though she was
more sorrowful than ever.

Next day John went out to tend his flocks. And wherever he went
the red sun seemed to follow. When at last he found his sheep
they were drenched with the clinging mist and were huddled
together in dismay. And when they saw him it seemed that they
cried out with one unanimous bleating voice:

'O ma-a-a-ster!'

And he stood counting them. And a little apart from the rest
stood his old ram Soll, with a face as black as soot; and there,
perched on his back, impish and sharp and scarlet, rode and
tossed and sang just such another fairy as had mocked John from
the chimney-top. A fire seemed to break out in his body, and,
picking up a handful of stones, he rushed at Soll through the
flock. They scattered, bleating, out into the mist. And the
fairy, all-acockahoop on the old ram's back, took its small ears
between finger and thumb, and as fast as John ran, so fast jogged
Soll, till all the young farmer's stones were thrown, and he
found himself alone in a quagmire so sticky and befogged that it
took him till afternoon to grope his way out. And only Griselda's
singing over her broth-pot guided him at last home.

Next day he sought his sheep far and wide, but not one could he
find. To and fro he wandered, shouting and calling and whistling
to Sly, till, heartsick and thirsty, they were both wearied out.
Yet bleatings seemed to fill the air, and a faint, beautiful bell
tolled on out of the mist; and John knew the fairies had hidden
his sheep, and he hated them more than ever.

After that he went no more into the fields, brightly green
beneath the enchanted mist. He sat and sulked, staring out of the
door at the dim forests far away, glimmering faintly red beneath
the small red sun. Griselda could not sing any more, she was too
tired and hungry. And just before twilight she went out and
gathered the last few pods of peas from the garden for their
supper.

And while she was shelling them, John, within doors in the
cottage, heard again the tiny timbrels and the distant horns, and
the odd, clear, grasshopper voices calling and calling her, and
he knew in his heart that, unless he relented and made friends
with the fairies, Griselda would surely one day run away to them
and leave him forlorn. He scratched his great head, and gnawed
his broad thumb. They had taken his father, they had taken his
mother, they might take his sister--but he _wouldn't_ give in.

So he shouted, and Griselda in fear and trembling came in out of
the garden with her basket and basin and sat down in the gloaming
to finish shelling her peas.

And as the shadows thickened and the stars began to shine, the
malevolent singing came nearer, and presently there was a groping
and stirring in the thatch, a tapping at the window, and John
knew the fairies had come--not alone, not one or two or three,
but in their company and bands--to plague him, and to entice away
Griselda. He shut his mouth and stopped up his ears with his
fingers, but when, with great staring eyes, he saw them capering
like bubbles in a glass, like flames along straw, on his very
doorstep, he could contain himself no longer. He caught up
Griselda's bowl and flung it--peas, water and all--full in the
snickering faces of the Little Folk! There came a shrill, faint
twitter of laughter, a scampering of feet, and then all again was
utterly still.

Griselda tried in vain to keep back her tears. She put her arms
round John's neck and hid her face in his sleeve.

'Let me go!' she said, 'let me go, John, just a day and a night,
and I'll come back to you. They are angry with us. But they love
me; and if I sit on the hillside under the boughs of the trees
beside the pool and listen to their music just a little while,
they will make the sun shine again and drive back the flocks, and
we shall be as happy as ever. Look at poor Sly, John dear, he is
hungrier even than I am.' John heard only the mocking laughter
and the tap-tapping and the rustling and crying of the fairies,
and he wouldn't let his sister go.

And it began to be marvellously dark and still in the cottage. No
stars moved across the casement, no waterdrops glittered in the
candleshine. John could hear only one low, faint, unceasing stir
and rustling all around him. So utterly dark and still it was
that even Sly woke from his hungry dreams and gazed up into his
mistress's face and whined.

They went to bed; but still, all night long, while John lay
tossing on his mattress, the rustling never ceased. The old
kitchen clock ticked on and on, but there came no hint of dawn.
All was pitch-black and now all was utterly silent. There wasn't
a whisper, not a creak, not a sigh of air, not a footfall of
mouse, not a flutter of moth, not a settling of dust to be heard
at all. Only desolate silence. And John at last could endure his
fears and suspicions no longer. He got out of bed and stared from
his square casement. He could see nothing. He tried to thrust it
open; it would not move. He went downstairs and unbarred the door
and looked out. He saw, as it were, a deep, clear, green shade,
from behind which the songs of the birds rose faint as in a
dream.

And then he sighed like a grampus and sat down, and knew that the
fairies had beaten him. Like Jack's beanstalk, in one night had
grown up a dense wall of peas. He pushed and pulled and hacked
with his axe, and kicked with his shoes, and buffeted with his
blunderbuss. But it was all in vain. He sat down once more in his
chair beside the hearth and covered his face with his hands. And
at last Griselda, too, awoke, and came down with her candle. And
she comforted her brother, and told him if he would do what she
bade she would soon make all right again. And he promised her.

So with a scarf she bound tight his hands behind him; and with a
rope she bound his feet together, so that he could neither run
nor throw stones, peas or cheeses. She bound his eyes and ears
and mouth with a napkin, so that he could neither see, hear,
smell, nor cry out. And, that done, she pushed and pulled him
like a great bundle, and at last rolled him out of sight into the
chimney-corner against the wall. Then she took a small sharp pair
of needlework scissors that her godmother had given her, and
snipped and snipped, till at last there came a little hole in the
thick green hedge of peas. And putting her mouth there she called
softly through the little hole. And the fairies drew near the
doorstep and nodded and nodded and listened.

And then and there Griselda made a bargain with them for the
forgiveness of John--a lock of her golden hair; seven dishes of
ewes' milk; three and thirty bunches of currants, red, white and
black; a bag of thistledown; three handkerchiefs full of lambs'
wool; nine jars of honey; a peppercorn of spice. All these
(except the hair) John was to bring himself to their secret
places as soon as he was able. Above all, the bargain between
them was that Griselda would sit one full hour each evening of
summer on the hillside in the shadow and greenness that slope
down from the great forest towards the valley, where the fairies'
mounds are, and where their tiny brindled cattle graze.

Her brother lay blind and deaf and dumb as a log of wood. She
promised everything.

And then, instead of a rustling and a creeping, there came a
rending and a crashing. Instead of green shade, light of amber;
then white. And as the thick hedge withered and shrank, and the
merry and furious dancing sun scorched and scorched and scorched,
there came, above the singing of the birds, the bleatings of
sheep--and behold sooty Soll and hungry Sly met square upon the
doorstep; and all John's sheep shone white as hoar-frost on his
pastures; and every lamb was garlanded with pimpernel and
eyebright; and the old fat ewes stood still, with saddles of
moss; and their laughing riders sat and saw Griselda standing in
the doorway in her beautiful yellow hair. As for John, tied up
like a sack in the chimney-corner, down came his cheese again
crash upon his head, and, not being able to say anything, he said
nothing.


[End of _The Dutch Cheese_ by Walter de la Mare]