The Wood-Pigeons and Mary

“I shall just not think any more about them,” she said to herself. “I need not go farther; there are lots of nice cones here. I will just fill the basket and go home, and I will tell godmother that I don’t care to come to the forest after all. It is too dull.”

It did seem very silent that afternoon; all the summer and even autumn sounds had gone, only the wintry ones of a branch snapping and falling, or leaves softly dropping, their little lives over. And now and then some faint strange bird’s note or cry, as the winged traveller passed rapidly overhead, which sounded to Mary’s fancy like a farewell.

“It’s going away,” she thought, “to some lovely warm place for the winter. Perhaps it has come from far north, where it is still colder than here, and is just only passing. I don’t think I like the winter after all, I wish you would take me with you, birdie,” and she gave a little shiver, for she had been standing about, as she picked up the cones. And the cold feeling reminded her of the soft, bright warmth of the secret part of the forest, and made her again reproach the Cooies in her heart, for she felt sure there would be no use in trying to find the white gate or to pass through it, if she did find it, without their help.

But patience is generally rewarded in the end, and Mary had shown patience in her actions if not in her thoughts, for she had by this time well filled her basket. And as she dropped into it the last cone or two it would hold, she heard the murmur that she had, though scarcely owning it to herself, been listening for all the afternoon.

“Coo-coo,” – very faint and distant at first, then clearer and nearer, till, on to each shoulder there came a rustle and a tiny weight, and – they were there! In rather a teasing mood, however!

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary,” they cooed. “How is your basket filled?”

Mary shrugged her shoulders, but she only heard a “cooey” laugh.

“No, no, you can’t shake us off,” they said.

“Quite contrary, indeed,” quoted Mary. “I should say it to you, not you to me. You know how I’ve been wanting you and watching for you at my window, and now you’ve let half the afternoon go without coming near me. It’s too late now for anything.”

“You are quite mistaken,” was the reply. “There is plenty of time. Business first and pleasure afterwards. You have got a nice basketful of cones, so now you can come with us with a clear conscience.”

“I wish you wouldn’t bother about my conscience; it’s all right,” said Mary, rather crossly still, though in her heart she quite trusted the Cooies, and was delighted to go with them. “What shall I do with the basket?” she went on.

“Leave it here – on the path. It will be quite safe. You are close to the white gate, though you did not know it,” said Mr Coo. “Turn round.”

So Mary did, putting down her basket, and feeling rather like a big ship steered by a very small person at the helm. And sure enough, the tiny path, or passage rather, scarcely to be called a path, was there at her side, though she had not seen it when busy gathering the cones.

It seemed less of a scramble this time, and only a very few paces to go, before they were at the gate. Mary had no grey feather in her cap this time as an “open sesame,” and no need for one apparently, for the white gate opened of itself as soon as they reached it, “without the least fuss. I suppose it is because the Cooies are on my shoulders,” thought she.

And just as they got to the other gate the wood-pigeons hopped down, and actually, with their beaks, or feet, or somehow, pushed it open, without any difficulty, holding it back till Mary had passed through, when it gently closed.

The little girl stood still, looking round her in expectation of seeing the crowds of birds as before. But not one was there! The place, though lovelier that ever, she thought, as she glanced at the beautiful light, flickering and filtering through the interlacing bushes, and rested her eyes on the fresh green, and felt the soft warmth creeping caressingly round her, was quite deserted. And as she turned to her little friends in surprise, they answered, as now often happened, her unspoken question.

“No,” they said, “you will not meet any of our relations to-day. They are very busy elsewhere, as you will hear. But that will make it all the easier to show you the arbours you so much want to see.”

“Thank you,” said Mary, not sorry to hear this, for the crowds of birds had just a little worried her, and she was feeling rather stiff and tired with the cold and with stooping so much to pick up the cones.

“But in the first place,” said one of the Cooies – I think it was Mr Coo – “you must rest a little and get warm.”

He looked at her as he spoke, with his head on one side. He and Mrs Coo were not on her shoulders now, as I said, but on the ground a little in front of her. “You have not got on your new cloak to-day,” he said. “It would have kept you warm.”

“Of course I couldn’t wear it to run about the forest in,” said Mary. “Well, to pick up cones in – I’ve not had much running about to-day, certainly. But how did you know about it?”

“Never mind just now,” was the reply. “Sit down,” and glancing round, Mary saw her mossy chair there as before, though she felt sure that a moment or two ago its place had been empty. But she was very glad to settle herself in it all the same, and before she had sat still for two minutes she felt rested and refreshed.

“It is a nice chair,” she said, patting the arms, on which the Cooies were now perched, approvingly. “Now tell me, please, where are all your hundreds of relations to-day? What are they busy about?”

“They are preparing for a great ceremony,” said Mr Coo, solemnly. “The day after to-morrow is fixed for it to take place. Our Queen – Queen White Dove – every year gives – ”

“Your Queen,” exclaimed Mary. “I never heard of her before – I did not know you had a Queen! Queen White Dove,” and something seemed to come into her mind as she spoke, as if she did remember – what was it?

“Are you sure you never heard of her before?” asked the wood-pigeons, their heads very much on one side. “But it does not matter. You will, I hope, see her for yourself, as I will explain, if you will not interrupt. She gives a prize every year for some special thing, the finding or making of which calls for skill and perseverance on the part of her subjects. This year the prize is promised to the bringer of the whitest feather. It must be as white as her own plumage, which I must tell you has never yet been matched. So there has been a great deal of search for such a feather, and work too, as some of us have endeavoured in various ways to whiten to great perfection some of our own feathers, though it remains to be seen if we have succeeded. Myself, I doubt it,” he went on (for Mr Coo had taken up the thread of the discourse), “and as the ceremonial will be a very great and beautiful sight, we have obtained leave for you, Mary, to be present at it, provided – this condition cannot be avoided – you yourself are one of the competitors.”

“I don’t know what that means,” said Mary. “Please explain. I should so like to come, and you would manage somehow, wouldn’t you, for me to get leave from godmother.”

“One question at a time, if you please,” said Mr Coo, in the tone which rather provoked Mary always. “Being a competitor simply means that you too will try to win the prize.”

Mary’s face fell.

“Oh then it’s no good,” she said. “I can’t possibly find the whitest of white feathers.”

Neither of the wood-pigeons spoke for a moment or two. They only looked at each other. Then said Mr Coo, —

“You are not a stupid child, Mary, yet you are rather slow and dull sometimes. How about your feather cloak?”

“Oh,” said Mary again, “that’s no good. If you know about the cloak, and I suppose you do, in some queer way, for I’ve never told you what it’s like, you must know that it isn’t white at all. It’s made up of all sorts of shades of bluey-grey – like your feathers – even pinky-looking here and there.”

“Ah,” said Mr Coo. “Yes, I am aware of that.” Mary opened her eyes.

“Then what do you mean?” she asked.

This time Mrs Coo replied. She never liked to be left out of the conversation for long.

“You cannot have read or heard many fairy stories, my dear.”

“Yes indeed I have, heaps,” said Mary, more and more puzzled. “Tell me why you think that.”

“We cannot explain,” said Mrs Coo. “It’s against the rules. There are some things that humans must find out for themselves,” and Mary understood that it would be no use questioning more.

Then, as she was now quite rested, the wood-pigeons proposed that they should take her round the bowers. They hopped on in front, Mary following. And oh, how pretty the bowers were! They were alike and yet different. Inside each, hung, quite high up, a little coloured lamp. It did not seem as if anything were burning in it: it was more as if some of the wonderful light in the whole place, whose source was one of the secrets, had been caught into the lamp and tinted with its exquisite colour. Such colours as Mary had never dreamt of, even though they somehow reminded her of the countless shades of her own little cloak. And there were no two lamps the same, nor were there any two bowers the same, as I have said.

For the varieties of foliage were endless. Some were very fine and small – like great masses of what we call “maiden-hair fern”; some larger and richer, like the trees Mary had read of in the tropics of the everyday world, but all foliage only – no flowers. And in each bower there were cosy-looking nests, and silvery-looking perches, and trickling water, as clear as crystal – everything to make a birds’ paradise. No wonder that the Cooies and their countless relations loved to come for a rest, in the midst of their busy lives, to the secret place of the great forest.

“Now you have visited all the bowers,” said the wood-pigeons at last, and Mary, glancing round, saw that they were back again at the entrance, where stood the mossy chair.

“Not your Queen’s one?” she asked. “Has she not one of her very own, even though I suppose in a way the whole place belongs to her. Our Queen, you know, Queen Victoria, has several palaces just for herself, though of course all our country is hers too.”

“No,” was the reply. “This is not our Queen’s home. She only visits it. Even this beautiful place is not beautiful enough for her.”

Mary drew a deep breath.

“Then,” she said, “I suppose her home is in real real fairy-land, and you say this is only on the borders. And,” as a sudden thought struck her, “she visits outside of here too, sometimes. I remember now why I seemed to know about her. It must be the Queen who goes now and then to coo to Blanche and Milly at Crook Edge. A most beautiful, quite, quite white dove, with a ring of gold round her neck.”

“You may call it gold,” said Mr Coo, “but it is really more beautiful than any gold you have ever seen. Yes – that is our Queen. Your friends are highly favoured. They are good, and they have had sorrow – ”

“Yes,” Mary interrupted, “they are still dressed in black, and I am sure they are good.”

“That is reason enough for the Queen’s favour,” said Mrs Coo, “and now they are going to be happy.”

“I am so glad,” said Mary. “How I would like to see the Queen! But there is no use thinking of it I could never find a feather white enough, however I searched, and there is no time now. Thank you very much, Cooies, for getting leave for me to come; but it is no good, you see. And – oh there is my bell! Shall I go home by the short-cut again?” and she glanced at the chair.