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THE LAUGHTER OF PETERKIN




[Illustration: The king saw a fountain of exceeding beauty.

  _Frontis._]
]




THE LAUGHTER OF PETERKIN.

  “A RETELLING OF OLD TALES OF
  THE CELTIC WONDERWORLD.” by

  ⋅ FIONA MACLEOD ⋅

  [Illustration]

  ⋅DRAWINGS⋯BY⋯SUNDERLAND⋯ROLLINSON⋅§⋅

  ⋅LONDON⋅
  ⋅ARCHIBALD⋅CONSTABLE⋅&⋅CO⋅
  ⋅1897⋅




      TO
        ISLA,
          EILIDH,
            FIONA,
              AND
                IVOR


[Illustration]




CONTENTS


                                                  PAGE
  _PROLOGUE._ THE LAUGHTER OF PETERKIN               9

  THE FOUR WHITE SWANS                              33

  THE FATE OF THE SONS OF TURENN                   117

  DARTHOOL AND THE SONS OF USNA                    177

  _NOTES_                                          281




ILLUSTRATIONS

BY SUNDERLAND ROLLINSON


  THE KING SAW A FOUNTAIN OF EXCEEDING
    BEAUTY                                  _Frontispiece_

  AS SHE TOUCHED FIONULA, LIR’S FAIR YOUNG
    DAUGHTER BECAME A BEAUTIFUL SNOW-WHITE
    SWAN                            _To face page_      33

  TURENN INTERCEDING FOR HIS SONS         "            117

  A GREAT RAVEN, GLOSSY BLACK, AND BURNISHED
    IN THE SUN RAYS                 _To face page_     177




[Illustration]


The Laughter of Peterkin


[Illustration]




The Laughter of Peterkin


At the rising of the moon, Peterkin awoke, and laughed. He was in his
little white bed near the open window, so that when a moonbeam wavered
from amid the branches of the great poplar, falling suddenly upon his
tangled curls and yellowing them with a ripple of pale gold, it was as
though a living thing stole in out of the June night.

He had not awaked at first. The moonbeam seemed caught in a tangle:
then it glanced along a crescent tress on the pillow: sprang back like
a startled bird: flickered hither and thither above the little sleeping
face: and at last played idly on the closed eyelids with their long
dark eyelashes. It was then that Peterkin awoke.

When he opened his eyes he sat up, and so the moonbeam fell into the
two white cups of his tiny hands. He held it, but like a yellow eel it
wriggled away, and danced mockingly upon the counterpane.

With a sleepy smile he turned and looked out of the window. How dark
it was out there! That white moth which wavered to and fro made the
twilight like a shadowy wall. Then upon this wall Peterkin saw a
great fantastic shape. It grew and grew, and spread out huge arms and
innumerable little hands: and in its shadow-face it had seven shining
eyes. Peterkin stared, awe-struck. Then there was a dance of moonshine,
a cascade of trickling, rippling yellow, and he saw that the shape
in the night was the familiar poplar, and that its arms were the
big boughs and branches where the spotted mavis and the black merle
sang each morning, and that the innumerable little hands were the
ever-tremulous, ever-dancing, round little leaves, and that the seven
glittering eyes were only seven stars that had caught among the topmost
twigs.


II

Peterkin was very sleepy, but before his head sank back to the pillow
he saw something which caused him to hold his breath, and made his
eyes grow so round and large that they were like the little pools one
sees on the hill-side.

Every here and there he saw tiny yellow and green lives slipping and
sliding along and in and out of the branches of the poplar. Sometimes
they were all pale yellow, like gold; sometimes of a shimmering green;
sometimes so dusky that only by their shining eyes were they visible.
At first he could not clearly distinguish these unfamiliar denizens of
the great poplar. The vast green pyramid seemed innumerously alive.
Then gradually he saw that each delicate shape was like a human being:
little men and women, but smaller than the smallest children, smaller
even than dolls. They were all laughing and chasing each other to and
fro. Some slid swiftly down an outspread branch, and then dropped on to
a green leafy billow or plunged into an inscrutable maze: others swung
by the little crook at the end of each leaf, and laughed as they were
blown this way and that by puffs of air: and a few daring ones climbed
to the topmost sprays of the topmost boughs and held up tiny white
hands like daisies. These wished to clasp the moonshine. As well might
a fish try to catch the moon-dazzle on the water! No wonder Peterkin
laughed.

Ever and again a delicate sweet singing came from the moonshine-folk.
Peterkin listened, but could hear no words he knew. Perhaps there were
no words at all, or mayhap he himself knew too few. But the singing was
strangely familiar. Sometimes when mother sang, surely he had heard it:
as far back, farther back, than memory could take him, he had heard
some echo of it. Cradle-sweet it was, that dim snatch of a fugitive
strain. And, too, had he not heard something of it in the wind, when
that went whispering through the grass and in and out of the wild-rose
thicket, or when it lifted and waved a great wing and fanned the trees
into vast swaying flames of green? Yes, even in the fire he had heard
it. When the orange and red flames flickered among the coals, or caught
the sap in the pine-logs and grew into yellow and blue with hearts of
purple, he had heard a faint far-off music.

Peterkin gave a little gasp when a sudden wave of shadow, trailed
across the poplar by a long slow-travelling cloud, swept from bough
to bough. It was as though all the singing, laughing, dancing folk had
been drowned.

He stared through the darkness, but there was nothing to be seen.
He shivered. It was lonely out there. Again he heard a sound as of
a remote singing. As before, he could not hear what the words were.
But, once more, it was not all unfamiliar. It was sadder than anything
that dimly he remembered, save the long mournful crooning of a Gaelic
cradle-song, sadder than any flame-whisper in a waning fire, or than
any cadence of the wind in the grass, or among the thickets of wild
rose.


III

Next night Peterkin lay awake a long time, hoping to see the
moonshine-folk again. He had spoken of them, but was told that there
were no little people in the poplar. At first this was the more strange
to him, for had he not seen them? Then, after he had scrupulously
examined the branches from beneath as well as at a distance, he
comforted himself with the thought that, while there might be no
little people actually living in the poplar, they came into the tree
on the flood of the moonshine.

But that night there was no moon-flood. A south wind had arisen at
sundown, and had shepherded from beyond the hills a medley of strayed
clouds: these, intricately interwoven, now spread from horizon to
horizon, obliterating the stars and obscuring even the radiance of the
new-risen moon.

If there were no moonlight, and therefore no little yellow and
green lives with bright shining eyes, there was a strange exquisite
whispering that grew into music sweeter than any which Peterkin had
ever heard.

He rose and crept stealthily from his bed to the door. It was ajar, and
he looked, half-fearfully, half-wonderingly, into the open passage.
How long and dark it was, and haunted by unfamiliar shadows: but,
clasping the skirts of his nightgown close to him, he ran swiftly to
the balustrade at the far end.

There the stair lamp shed a comfortable glow. Peterkin looked warily
down the stairs, into the hall, along the closed or opened rooms. There
was no one stirring. The front door too