The Children of the Castle

“Something like it,” she said.

“And oh,” continued Ruby, “your frock is just the same, and your ribbons and all. How nice you look, Mavis! Is the princess here? I should so like her to see us.”

“She’s not here to-day,” said Mavis. “She’s away somewhere – I’m not sure,” she added in a lower voice, “but that it’s about Bertrand.”

Ruby gave a sort of shiver.

“Oh Mavis!” she said, “he was so cruel and so heartless, and I was so miserable. I do hope the princess will make him go quite away.”

“Or – if he was to be quite changed,” said Mavis.

“No, no. I don’t want him. I only want you, my darling little Mavis, and we shall be so happy – much, much happier than we have ever been. Kiss me, Mavis, and tell me you quite forgive me, and if ever I am naughty or horrid again, I hope the princess will punish me.”

“She won’t let you forget her any way,” said Mavis. “I think that is how she punishes.”

Ruby looked rather puzzled; but before she could ask more they heard Winfried’s whistle, and in a moment he appeared. His face was all one smile – all Ruby’s fears and misgivings faded away before it.

“Grandfather is waiting for you,” he said. “There are some cakes, Miss Ruby, that you will find even better than those others. For everything is better here, you see.”

“How lovely it must all be,” said Ruby, with a little sigh. “Aren’t you sorry, Winfried, that you can’t stay here altogether? Mavis says you have to go away to work.”

“Of course,” said Winfried cheerily. “It would never do, young as I am, not to work. And we shouldn’t enjoy this half as much if we had it always – it’s the rest and refreshment after common life that makes half the happiness. It’s different for gran – he’s done his part, none better, and now his work should be light I’m thankful to know he’s safe here. Now we had better go – down that little hill is the way to his cottage.”

Children, you have perhaps never been in fairyland, nor, for that matter, have I been there either. But I have had glimpses of it a good many times in my life, and so I hope have you. And these glimpses, do you know, become more frequent and are less fleeting as one grows older. I, at least, find it so. Is not that something to look forward to? Though, after all, this sweet country to which our three little friends, thanks to the beautiful princess, had found their way, was scarcely the dream region which we think of as fairyland; it was better described by little Mavis’s own name for the nameless garden – “Forget-me-not Land”; for once having entered there, no one can lose the remembrance of it, any more than once having looked into her eyes one can forget Princess Forget-me-not herself.

But it would be difficult to describe this magic land; I must leave a good deal of it to that kind of fancy which comes nearer truth than clumsy words. Though, as it is nice to be told all that can be told of the sweetest and most beautiful things, I will try to tell you a little of what Ruby and Mavis saw.

It might not have seemed such a lovely place to everybody, perhaps. Time had been even when Ruby herself might not have thought it so; for this garden-land was not a gorgeous place; it was just sweet and restful. As I told you, all the flowers were wild flowers; but that gives you no idea of what they looked like, for they were carefully tended and arranged, growing in great masses together in a way we never see, except sometimes in spring when the primroses almost hide the ground where they grow, or at midsummer when a rich luxuriance of dog-roses and honeysuckle makes it seem as if they had been “planted on purpose,” as children say. All along the grassy paths where Winfried led them, every step made the little girls exclaim in new admiration.

“Oh see, Ruby, there is a whole bank of ‘Robin.’ I could not have believed it would look so beautiful; and there – look at those masses of ‘sweet Cicely,’ just like snowflakes. And in our fields it is such a poor frightened little weed of a flower you scarcely notice it,” said Mavis.

“But it’s lovely if you look into it closely,” said Winfried. “Some of the very tiniest flowers are really the most beautiful.”

Then they came in sight of a stretch of hair-bells – white and blue – the kind that in some places are called “blue-bells.”

“Stop a moment,” said the boy. “Stop and listen – hush – there now, do you hear them ringing? That is a sound you can never hear in – anywhere but here.”

They listened with all their ears, you may be sure. Yes, as they grew accustomed to the exceeding stillness, to the clear thin fineness of the air, they heard the softest, sweetest tinkle you can imagine; a perfect fairy bell-ringing, and the longer they listened the clearer it grew.

“Oh, how wonderful,” said Mavis.

And Ruby added, “I should think if we lived long enough in this country we should end by hearing the grass growing.”

“Perhaps,” said Winfried.

“But don’t you miss the sea things?” Ruby went on. “You love them so, Winfried, and somehow you seem to belong to the sea.”

“So I do,” the boy replied. “The sea is my life. Coming here is only a rest and a holiday.”

“I wonder,” said Mavis, “I wonder if there is a garden country for the sea to match this for the land. A place where seaweeds and corals and all the loveliest sea things are taken care of, like the wild flowers here?”

“You may be sure there is,” said the fisher-boy, smiling. “There is no saying what the princess won’t have to show us, and where she won’t take us now she has us in hand. Why, only to look into her eyes, you can see it – they seem to reach to everywhere; everywhere and everything beautiful seems in them.”

“You have seen farther into them than we have,” said Mavis thoughtfully. “But still I think I can understand what you mean.”

“So can I, a very little,” said Ruby. “But – they are rather frightening too, don’t you think?”

“They must be at first,” said Winfried.

But just then, a little way off, they caught sight of old Adam coming to meet them. His cottage was close by; they came upon it suddenly, for it stood half-hidden under the shelter of the hill they had been descending. Such a lovely cottage it was – so simple, yet so pretty; quite clean, with a cleanness you never see out of fairyland or places of that kind, with flowers of all kinds, forget-me-nots above all, clustering about it and peeping in at the windows.

Adam welcomed his little guests as kindly as if no unkind thought of him had ever entered Ruby’s head; he made no difference between her and Mavis, and I think this caused Ruby to feel more sorry than anything could have done.

If they had been happy that afternoon in the cottage by the sea, you can fancy how happy they were in this wonderful new fairy home of the good old man’s. There was no end to the things he had to show them and teach them, mostly, I think, about flowers; things they had never dreamt of, beauties of form and colour such as it would be impossible for me to describe. And each time they came to see him he promised to show and teach them still more. But at last Winfried said they must be going.

“I promised the princess,” he said, for now he spoke of her quite openly to the children, “that I would take you home by the time the sun sets beside the castle, and it must be near that now.”

“And how are we to go home?” asked Ruby.

“The boat is ready,” Winfried answered.

“But where’s the sea for it to sail on?” whispered Ruby to Mavis. She had not the courage to ask Winfried anymore.

“Wait and see,” said Mavis. “I don’t know, but it is sure to be all right.”

Then they bade Adam farewell, promising to come to visit him again whenever they should be allowed to do so – and rather wondering where Winfried was going to take them, they set off.

There was some reason for Ruby’s question, for so far they had seen no water at all in Forget-me-not Land. Everything seemed fresh and fragrant, as if there was no dearth of moisture, but there was neither lake, nor pond, nor running brook. Winfried mounted the hill a little way, then turning sharply, they found themselves in a sort of small wooded ravine or glen. Steps led down the steep sides to the bottom, which was a perfect thicket of ferns, mostly of the deep green delicate kind, which loves darkness and water.

Winfried stooped and lifted, by a ring fixed into it, a heavy stone.

“You won’t be frightened,” he said. “This is the way. We have to go down the well. I’ll go first; you’ll find it quite easy.”

It scarcely looked so, for it was very dark. Winfried stepped in – there was a ladder against the side – and soon disappeared, all but his head, then Mavis, and lastly, trembling a little it must be confessed, Ruby. As soon as they were all inside, the stone lid shut itself down; but instead, as one might have expected, of this leaving them in darkness, a clear almost bright light shone upwards as if a large lamp had been lighted at the foot of the well, and without difficulty the children made their way down the ladder.

“That’s very nice,” said Ruby. “I was so afraid we were going to be in the dark.”

“Were you, dear?” said a voice whose sweet tones were not strange to her. “No fear of that when I have to do with things. Jump, that’s right; here you are, and you too, Mavis.”

The princess was standing in the boat, for the “well” widened out at one side into a little stream large enough to row along.

“The brook takes us to the river, and the river to the sea; that is your way home,” she said. “Winfried will row, and you two shall nestle up to me.”

She put an arm round each, and in silence, save for the gentle drip of the oars, the little boat made its way. It was a still evening, not yet dark, though growing dusk, and though they were back in the winter world by now the children felt no cold – who could have felt cold with the princess’s mantle round them? They grew sleepy, too sleepy to notice how, as she had said, the brook turned into the river, and the river led on to the sea, the familiar sea, not more than a mile or two from the cove below the castle. And it was only when the boat grated a little on the pebbly shore that both Ruby and Mavis started up to find themselves alone with Winfried. The princess had left them.

“I will go up to the door with you,” said the boy. “Miss Hortensia is expecting you. See, there she is standing under the archway with a lantern.”

“My darlings,” said their cousin. “So Winfried has brought you safe home.”