by Ouida
CHAPTER IV
Bebee ran home as fast as her feet would take her.
The children were all gathered about her gate in the dusky dewy evening;they met her with shouts of welcome and reproach intermingled; they hadbeen watching for her since first the sun had grown low and red, and nowthe moon was risen.
But they forgave her when they saw the splendor of her presents, and sheshowered out among them Pere Melchior's horn of comfits.
They dashed into the hut; they dragged the one little table out among theflowers; the cherries and cake were spread on it; and the miller's wifehad given a big jug of milk, and Father Francis himself had sent somehoneycomb.
The early roses were full of scent in the dew; the great gillyflowersbreathedout fragrance in the dusk; the goat came and nibbled thesweetbrier unrebuked; the children repeated the Flemish bread-grace, withclasped hands and reverent eyes, "Oh, dear little Jesus, come and supwith us, and bring your beautiful Mother, too; we will not forget you areGod." Then, that said, they ate, and drank, and laughed, and pickedcherries from each other's mouths like little blackbirds; the big whitedog gnawed a crust at their feet; old Krebs who had a fiddle, and couldplay it, came out and trilled them rude and ready Flemish tunes, such asTeniers or Mieris might have jumped to before an alehouse at theKermesse; Bebee and the children joined hands, and danced round togetherin the broad white moonlight, on the grass by the water-side; the idlerscame and sat about, the women netting or spinning, and the men smoking apipe before bedtime; the rough hearty Flemish bubbled like a brook ingossip, or rung like a horn over a jest; Bebee and the children, tired oftheir play, grew quiet, and chanted together the "Ave Maria StellaVirginis"; a nightingale among the willows sang to the sleeping swans.
All was happy, quiet, homely; lovely also in its simple way.
They went early to their beds, as people must do who rise at dawn.
Bebee leaned out a moment from her own little casement ere she too wentto rest.
Through an open lattice there sounded the murmur of some little child'sprayer; the wind sighed among the willows; the nightingales sang on inthe dark--all was still.
Hard work awaited her on the morrow, and on all the other days of theyear.
She was only a little peasant--she must sweep, and spin, and dig, anddelve, to get daily her bit of black bread,--but that night she was ashappy as a little princess in a fairy tale; happy in her playmates, inher flowers, in her sixteen years, in her red shoes, in her silverbuckles, because she was half a woman; happy in the dewy leaves, in thesinging birds, in the hush of the night, in the sense of rest, in thefragrance of flowers, in the drifting changes of moon and cloud; happybecause she was half a woman, because she was half a poet, becauseshe was wholly a poet.
"Oh, dear swans, how good it is to be sixteen!--how good it is to live atall!--do you not tell the willows so?" said Bebee to the gleam of silverunder the dark leaves by the water's side, which showed her where herfriends were sleeping, with their snowy wings closed over their statelyheads, and the veiled gold and ruby of their eyes.
The swans did not awake to answer.
Only the nightingale answered from the willows, with Desdemona's song.
But Bebee had never heard of Desdemona, and the willows had no sigh forher.
"Good night!" she said, softly, to all the green dewy sleeping world, andthen she lay down and slept herself.--The nightingale sang on, and thewillows trembled.