The Small People’s Fair

In the same parish where Jan Brewer¹ was Piskey-laden on Constantine Common there is a beautiful lane called Tresallyn. It has high mossy hedges, where ferns grow in abundance, and where speedwells love to display their multitude of blue blossoms.

This lane is said to be a regular Piskeys’ haunt, where all the Wee Folk in the neighbourhood meet. People who have passed through this lane in the evening or late at night have heard the Piskeys laughing; but nobody, as far as we know, except one young fellow, ever had the good fortune to see them, and he, like Jan Brewer, had the gift of seeing what others could not.

Hender Bennett was the name of this young fellow, and he lived at a farm near Tresallyn Lane. One night, after he had been over to Towan, a village about a mile and a half away, to see a young girl whom he was courting, he was returning home through this beautiful old lane, when he was startled by a burst of music quite close to him. The music was so sweet and yet so stirring that he wanted to dance to the tune². He looked about to see whence the sound was coming, but he could see nothing unusual. [162]

It was a glorious night, and the big moon floated like a silver ball in the cloudless blue of the midnight sky, and shone so brightly that he could even see fronds³ of the ferns standing⁴ out quite clearly from the mossy hedge-banks.

As he was looking around, the music grew louder, sweeter, and more stirring, and sending his gaze down the lane to where the trees arched it, he saw a big crowd of Small People holding a fair.

He had heard of Little People’s fairs from his great-grannie, but had never hoped to see one, and he was as glad as a bird that he happened to be going down Tresallyn Lane when they were holding one.

The Wee Folk were holding their fair near a gate about a dozen yards or so from where he was standing. As the moon was just then floating over the gate, he could see all the Little People quite plainly, and what they were doing.

The Little Men and the Little Women were all dressed up to the nines in the way of clothes, and although he could not have described the cut of their coats or the style of their gowns, he knew that all the Little Women were lovely, that dear little faces peeped out of quaint⁵ bonnets⁶, that they carried frails in their hands, and that Piskey-purses hung by their sides in the same way that his great-grannie’s big cotton purse bag hung under her gown.

There were ever so many little standings or stalls on the grass—one here and one there, like [163]currants in his mother’s buns, Hender told himself. Every standing was laid out with all sorts of tempting⁷ things pleasing to Small People, on which they gazed with evident delight. They asked the price of this thing and that of the little standing women behind the stalls; and to see the Little People opening their tiny brown Piskey-purses and taking out their fairy money to pay for their purchases was as good as a play.

But what delighted the young fellow most were the Tiny Fiddlers and Pipers; and to watch the way the Fiddlers elbowed their fiddle-sticks and fiddled⁸ was worth walking twelve miles any night to see, he said, to say nothing of watching the Little Men and the Little Women dancing to the tunes⁹ the Fiddlers fiddled and the Pipers piped. It was merrymaking with a vengeance¹⁰, he told himself, and the fiddling¹¹, the piping, and the merrymaking at Summercourt Fair were nothing to it!

The fair itself was held a few feet away from the standings and the merrymaking, and when Hender could turn away his gaze for a few minutes to look at the Little People’s Fair Park, he saw a sight he feared he should never see again. There were scores of fairy horses, and as many bullocks and cows, and flocks of sheep and goats, none of them much bigger than those quaint little animals in toy farmyards; but these were all alive, he could tell, by the prancing¹² of the horses! The sheep were confined within hurdles¹³. There were pigs there as well, only to Hender’s eyes [164]they looked exactly like very large sow-pigs,1 all of which were in small stone enclosures. Moving about among the animals were Little Men who were dressed like farmers, but whether they were farmers or not he could not tell.

It was all so wonderfully interesting to Hender that he stood still like one in a dream, till one of the Little Men in a smart green coat went over to a very pretty Little Lady, who reminded him of his own sweetheart whom he had not very long kissed good-night, and asked her if he might treat her to some fairing, and he took hold of her little hand and led her up to the standing. And when he opened his purse to pay for what he bought for his lady-love Hender had to give vent¹⁴ to his feelings, and he cried out: ‘I could not have done it better—no, not even if I had bought a fairing for my own little sweetheart! No fy! I couldn’t.’

The words were no sooner spoken when the Small People’s fair vanished, Little People and all, and the only thing left to show that a fair had been held were a dozen sow-pigs in a stone enclosure!

1 brewer   

n. 啤酒制造者

参考例句：

• Brewer is a very interesting man. 布鲁尔是一个很有趣的人。
• I decided to quit my job to become a brewer. 我决定辞职，做一名酿酒人。

2 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

3 fronds   

n.蕨类或棕榈类植物的叶子( frond的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You can pleat palm fronds to make huts, umbrellas and baskets. 人们可以把棕榈叶折叠起来盖棚屋，制伞，编篮子。 来自百科语句
• When these breezes reached the platform the palm-fronds would whisper. 微风吹到平台时，棕榈叶片发出簌簌的低吟。 来自辞典例句

4 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

5 quaint   

adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的

参考例句：

• There were many small lanes in the quaint village.在这古香古色的村庄里，有很多小巷。
• They still keep some quaint old customs.他们仍然保留着一些稀奇古怪的旧风俗。

6 bonnets   

n.童帽( bonnet的名词复数 )；（烟囱等的）覆盖物；（苏格兰男子的）无边呢帽；（女子戴的）任何一种帽子

参考例句：

• All the best bonnets of the city were there. 城里戴最漂亮的无边女帽的妇女全都到场了。 来自辞典例句
• I am tempting you with bonnets and bangles and leading you into a pit. 我是在用帽子和镯子引诱你，引你上钩。 来自飘（部分）

7 tempting   

a.诱人的, 吸引人的

参考例句：

• It is tempting to idealize the past. 人都爱把过去的日子说得那么美好。
• It was a tempting offer. 这是个诱人的提议。

8 fiddled   

v.伪造( fiddle的过去式和过去分词 )；篡改；骗取；修理或稍作改动

参考例句：

• He fiddled the company's accounts. 他篡改了公司的账目。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He began with Palestrina, and fiddled all the way through Bartok. 他从帕勒斯春纳的作品一直演奏到巴塔克的作品。 来自辞典例句

9 tunes   

n.曲调，曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调

参考例句：

• a potpourri of tunes 乐曲集锦
• When things get a bit too much, she simply tunes out temporarily. 碰到事情太棘手时，她干脆暂时撒手不管。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 vengeance   

n.报复，报仇，复仇

参考例句：

• He swore vengeance against the men who murdered his father.他发誓要向那些杀害他父亲的人报仇。
• For years he brooded vengeance.多年来他一直在盘算报仇。

11 fiddling   

微小的

参考例句：

• He was fiddling with his keys while he talked to me. 和我谈话时他不停地摆弄钥匙。
• All you're going to see is a lot of fiddling around. 你今天要看到的只是大量的胡摆乱弄。 来自英汉文学 - 廊桥遗梦

12 prancing   

v.（马）腾跃( prance的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The lead singer was prancing around with the microphone. 首席歌手手执麦克风，神气地走来走去。
• The King lifted Gretel on to his prancing horse and they rode to his palace. 国王把格雷特尔扶上腾跃着的马，他们骑马向天宫走去。 来自辞典例句

13 hurdles   

n.障碍( hurdle的名词复数 )；跳栏；（供人或马跳跃的）栏架；跨栏赛

参考例句：

• In starting a new company, many hurdles must be crossed. 刚开办一个公司时，必须克服许多障碍。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• There are several hurdles to be got over in this project. 在这项工程中有一些困难要克服。 来自辞典例句

14 vent   

n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄

参考例句：

• He gave vent to his anger by swearing loudly.他高声咒骂以发泄他的愤怒。
• When the vent became plugged,the engine would stop.当通风口被堵塞时，发动机就会停转。