The Old King Comes Back

"

Naggeneen turned away from the King, pushed his way through the crowd, and threw himself down in a corner of the hall, with his face against the wall. The rest did not dance any more that night. Naggeneen had frightened them, as he always frightened them when he chose.

After that for a time everything went with the fairies as it had gone at first, except that Naggeneen was not among them. Sometimes he was in the hall by himself and sometimes he was out of it by himself, but he never danced with the others, he never talked with them, and he never played for them.

One day the King came to him as he sat in his corner alone and said, "Naggeneen, we are all going to the wedding. Will you come with us?"

"Leave me be," said Naggeneen. "Why would I want to see it? I don't know if I'll ever go with you or do anything with you again, or with anyone, but I know I'll not now."

All the people who were passing St. Patrick's Cathedral could tell by the looks of things that if they waited long enough they would see somebody come out. So a good many waited. After a while they saw Terence and Kathleen come out and get into a carriage.

"Look," said Kathleen: "do you see them? They are the Good People! Don't you see them all around us, in the street and in the air, and everywhere? I remember every one of them—the funny little men and the pretty little girls. Oh, you goose, you have lived with them all your life, and still you can't see them except when they want you to. But my eyes are different, and I can see them always. Here is one of them coming close to the carriage. It is the King. Yes, Your Majesty. What do you think he says, Terence? He says that they are never going to try to put my eyes out and are never going to do me any harm at all, and that I am never to be afraid of them."

Presently the people who were waiting outside the Cathedral saw John O'Brien and his mother come out and get into another carriage. "Shaun," said the old woman, "I'm wishing that poor Kitty—Heaven rest her soul!