Page:Tales of the Unexpected (1924).djvu/239

 There was a great open place where fairies rode and raced on 'things,' but what Mr Skelmersdale meant by 'these here things they rode,' there is no telling. Larvae, perhaps, or crickets, or the little beetles that elude us so abundantly. There was a place where water splashed and gigantic kingcups grew, and there in the hotter times the fairies bathed together. There were games being played and dancing and much elvish love-making too, I think, among the moss branch thickets. There can be no doubt that the Fairy Lady made love to Mr Skelmersdale, and no doubt either that this young man set himself to resist her. A time came, indeed, when she sat on a bank beside him, in a quiet secluded place 'all smelling of vi'lets,' and talked to him of love.

'When her voice went low and she whispered,' said Mr Skelmersdale, 'and laid 'er 'and on my 'and, you know, and came close with a soft, warm friendly way she 'ad, it was as much as I could do to keep my 'ead.'

It seems he kept his head to a certain limited unfortunate extent. He saw ''ow the wind was blowing,' he says, and so, sitting there in a place all smelling of violets, with the touch of this lovely Fairy Lady about him, Mr Skelmersdale broke it to her gently—that he was engaged!

She had told him she loved him dearly, that he was a sweet human lad for her, and whatever he would ask of her he should have—even his heart's desire.

And Mr Skelmersdale, who, I fancy, tried hard to avoid looking at her little lips as they just dropped apart and came together, led up to the more intimate question by saying he would like enough capital to start a little shop. He'd just like to feel, he said, he had money enough to do that. I imagine a little surprise in those brown eyes he talked about, but she seemed sympathetic