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