A Rose Enchanted by Virna Sheard

Author:Virna Sheard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, short story, fairy tale, children's literature, Canadiana
Publisher: Distributed Proofreaders Canada
Published: 1918-11-15T05:00:00+00:00

But alas, this thought gave them little hope, for although the fairies were permitted to enter many countries, to this one, only the elves, so far, had found the road.

The mortal king’s garden was sweet and still and scented by innumerable night-flowering trees. Here and there a bird made restless by the vivid moonlight, sang a few sleepy notes. A fountain played ceaselessly, and the sound of the falling water was like a lullaby.

The little elves would gladly have curled down under the rose leaves and gone to sleep, but the night was slipping away, they had performed their mission, and must return with word of its accomplishment.

With many sighs they lifted their grey gauzy wings and flew away toward the fairy country; so the rose-bush was left without friends in the wonderful garden.

The wind before dawn blew over its green leaves and the red flower swayed back and forth. At earliest light a humming-bird darted around and around it as though seeking for some sweetness, and finding none.

Then came the head gardener and looked the plant over, apparently puzzled. He examined it with minute care through his big horn-rimmed spectacles and shook his frosted head, for he was a very old gardener.

“Where be thee come from?” he questioned, for he always talked to his flowers. “Where be thee come from, thou pretty thing? Art some gift-plant a lady ha’ sent His Majesty? Ay! Ay! that be likely.” Then he laughed softly. “Pretty thing!—pretty thing!—” he repeated, “there be no lady half as lovely as thee—else had my royal master wed long ago. None so lovely as thee I warrant, nor half so sweet.” Bending down he almost touched the rose with his old wrinkled face “or half so sweet,” he said again, dreamily, then lifted his head and looked puzzled. “Why,” nodding, “why, bless me, pretty one! Thou ’ast no scent! No scent at all—an’ I be keen to catch the scent o’ roses! What now—what now? Hath a moth rubbed thee, or one o’ those long-beaked hummers?” He rubbed his white head and ruminated, then went along with his basket of tools.

“ ’Tis none o’ my affairs,” he soliloquized. “I’ll let it be, gold pot an’ all. But a rose wi’out scent, she be not a rose, say I. She be not a rose. I would na ha’ such in my rose-garden. I must let be—let be, though. But give me a rose wid scent, say I, even if it be a common hedge-rose, or a cinnamon bud, small as a button—Ay; I’d sooner ha’ a road-side briar sweet-scented, than yonder beauty. A rose without sweetness—she be like a woman wi’out love in her heart. Ay! Ay!”

Muttering to himself he went his way among the flower-beds.

Sunlight flooded the garden at high noon and it was a place filled with life and music. Butterflies hovered over the rose-bush—then left it. The bees hesitated on their flight near it, then passed by. A white moth touched it fleetingly; and none of these returned.

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