laugh and sprang to her feet, but this time she could not escape.
"Do not leave us," they pleaded. "We will not hurt you, Tamara. We may be big and ugly, but we have good hearts. Have pity on us, lovely one, for you know how we worship you, and how our lives are spent in seeking you. Such a love for you fills our hearts we know no rest away from you."
They pleaded long and earnestly, those two love-stricken giants, they called her by every sweet and endearing name that they could think of, and Tamara listened, and made no further attempt to run away. Their devotion pleased her, it was so new and strange, and she loved to feel her power. So the morning sped away.
Deep down in the dark earth, the industrious little gnomes paused in their labours and wondered where Tamara was. "She does not often stay so long," said the mother; "I trust no harm has befallen her."
"What a trouble she is to us!" said the father, growing angry because he was alarmed. "We should be glad we have no more children, or we should have to spend all our time looking after them, to see they came to no harm. We should never have time for our work, and never know peace of mind."
"Yes, yes," said the mother impatiently, "but Tamara! Where can she be? The earth is full of giants, and I am full of fears. I cannot rest, I must go and seek her, and you must come too. She is so beautiful, and so thoughtless and full of life."
So they mounted to the upper world, and began their weary search for their naughty little daughter; and by and by they found her seated on a couch of sweet, soft heather, between the two giants. They were still telling her of their love for her—there was so much, it took long to tell—and beseeching her to choose one of them for her own faithful lover.
The father gnome was very much alarmed at this sight, for what could he, no taller than a tulip, do against two such monstrous creatures? Their thumbs alone were as big as his whole body. All that was left to be done was to appeal to Tamara, and each in turn, and both together, the father and mother begged and commanded their runaway child to return to her home.
But Tamara was as obstinate as could be. "No, I want to stay here," she said, "these good boys love me, and they will break their hearts when I leave them. You would not have me make them so unhappy, would you? I want, too, to hear all about their country and their people, for I love it, and I love them, and I hate the cold, dark cavern, with its eternal work, work, work!" Then she turned entreatingly to the giants, "You will not let me be taken back, will you?" she cried, her beautiful eyes full of appealing.
"No, no!" they cried joyfully, "we will take care of you, little Tamara."
Even, though, as they spoke, a deep sleep fell upon them. The gnome, thoroughly angry, had cast a spell upon them, and poor Tamara saw herself in an instant deprived of both her protectors. She was deeply mortified, but more determined than ever not to go back to her dark, gloomy home. No pleadings, or coaxings, or commands had any power to move her. Her mother appealed to her, her father scolded, all in vain. Anger was roused on both sides, until at length in ungovernable rage the father cursed his daughter, and as his curse fell on her, the weeping girl was changed into a crystal stream, which soon became a river; a beautiful, rapid river, for ever winding its way with a low, sad murmur, in storm or sunshine, through the land she loved so well, on and on to the great salt ocean.
The angry parents, heartbroken and desolate, had returned to their lonely home, and Tamara, with low, sad sighs, was fleeing further and further from her sleeping lovers, when Tavy at last awoke. He sat up and glared around him, too dazed to realize at first all that had happened. He looked at Tawridge, lying fast asleep, and recollection began to return—he looked for Tamara—she was gone!
In a frenzy of fear lest he should have lost his new-found love for ever, he rushed hither and thither, wildly searching for her—but, of course, in vain.
"Tamara! Tamara!" he called despairingly; no answer came. No sound reached him but the sweet, sad voice of a stream hard by, a stream he did not remember to have heard before. He was too full of his troubles, though, to pay heed to such trifles now.
Flying as fast as the wind to his father amongst the hills, he told him his pitiful tale, but the giant already knew all that had happened, for he had powers his son had not.
"My boy," he said sadly, "your Tamara is gone. Cruelly taken from you. I cannot bring her back to you, but I can send you to her. Grieved I shall be to lose my son, but I cannot keep you here and see your life filled with endless pain." Then the old giant kissed his son, and as he kissed him he turned him into a stream, which, noisy and turbulent as poor Tavy himself had been of old, rushed madly on over rock and moor, seeking his lost love. Wildly he dashed ahead, seeking to overtake her, until at last in a gentle valley where she loitered slowly, he came upon her, and, happy that they had met at last, hand in hand they glided softly onwards to the eternal sea.
During all this time poor Tawridge slept on, dreaming of Tamara, that she was his, and nothing could part them; but alas, alas for his waking! He opened his eyes and found it was but a dream! Tamara was gone, Tavy was gone, and he was left alone.
"They have gone together!" was his first thought, but then he remembered the arrival of the father and mother, and his second thought was that Tamara had been taken back to her home by her parents, and that Tavy had killed himself in despair. And Tawridge was filled with a double grief, for he had really loved poor Tavy.
In the hills there lived an Enchanter, and to him Tawridge ran for help, and of him he learnt the truth—that both were lost to him, and were together. The knowledge drove him to frenzy. Without a thought for his father or mother, or anyone else who loved him, he begged and implored the Enchanter to turn him into a stream too, that he might follow the others and overtake them, and once again be with his lost love, or near her.
At last the old Enchanter consented, and Tawridge was turned into a swiftly flowing river; and there his troubles might have ended, and the three friends have been reunited, but, as he was going back, Tawridge mistook the way, and, instead of flowing towards the sea with Tamara and Tavy, he rushed on wildly seeking them in the wrong direction. Calling to them with heartbroken cries and moans, he hurried faster and faster in his longing to overtake them, but always in the wrong direction, ever and ever flowing farther from them, never to meet his lost love again.
To this day the Tamar and the Tavy run always side by side, and the Taw, still sighing and moaning sadly, rushes in the opposite direction, and never can the enchantment be removed from Tamara and her lovers, until we, having grown better and wiser, become friends again with the Big People and the Little People we have driven from us by our ignorance and narrow minds.
THE STRANGE STORY OF CHERRY HONEY.
Cherry Honey, with her father and mother, and a half-score of brothers and sisters, lived in a little hut at Trereen, in the parish of Zennor. They were very poor people, terribly poor, for all they had to live on was what they could get out of a few acres of ground that they owned—ground as barren as any you could find thereabouts, and that is saying a good deal. For food they lived mostly on fish and potatoes, except on Sundays, when they had pork, and the broth it was boiled in; and twice a year, at Christmas and Feast-day, they had, as a great luxury, white bread.
Whether fish and potatoes make people strong, or whether the air at Trereen was specially good, I can't tell, but sure enough it is that all Tom Honey's children grew up into fine, handsome men and women, and not one weakly one amongst them.
They
