The Children of the Castle

“Perhaps you and Winfried might be sailors together some time,” said Ruby. “That would be nice.”

“Yes,” said Bertrand. “When I got to be captain or something like that, I’ll look him up, and – ” but he stopped abruptly. There had been a touch of arrogance in his tone.

Just then Ruby ran off. Mavis was going too, but Bertrand stopped her.

“Mavis,” he said, “Winfried knows all about her. He calls her his princess.”

“I know,” said Mavis.

“And,” Bertrand went on, “he says he knows she’ll never be far away if he wants her. Even ever so far away, over at the other side of the world, out at sea with no land for weeks and months; he says it would be just the same, or even better. The loneliness makes it easier to see her sometimes, he says. I can fancy that,” he went on dreamily, “her eyes are a little like the sea, don’t you think, Mavis?”

“Like the sea when it is quite good, quite at peace, loving and gentle,” she replied. “But still, if you had lived beside the sea as long as we have, Bertrand, you’d understand that there’s never a sure feeling about it, you never know what it won’t be doing next; and the princess, you know, makes you feel surer than sure; that’s the best of her.”

“Yes,” said Bertrand, “the sea’s like Ruby and me. Now just at this time I want more than anything to be good, and never to be selfish or cruel, or – or boasting, or mischievous. But when I get about again with Ruby – even though she’s very good now, and she never was anything like as bad as me – I don’t feel sure but what we might do each other harm and forget about being good and all that; do you see?”

“I think it’s a very good thing that you do not feel sure,” said Mavis. But she was struck by his saying just what Ruby herself had said, and it made her a little anxious.

The children’s new resolutions, however, were not put to the test in the way they expected. Bertrand quickly got well again and was able to run about in his usual way. But very soon after this his uncle, the father of Ruby and Mavis, came unexpectedly for one of his short visits to the castle, to his little daughters’ great delight. And when he left he took Bertrand away with him. There was more than one reason for the boy’s visit coming to an end so much sooner than had been intended. Miss Hortensia may have had something to do with it, for though she had grown to like Bertrand much better during his illness, and no one could have been more delighted than she at the improvement in him, it was not to be wondered at if she trembled at continuing to have the charge of him. Then, too, Bertrand confided to his uncle his wish to be a sailor, in which he never again wavered.

Ruby and Mavis felt sad when the travellers had left them. Their father’s “good-byes” were the only alloy to the pleasure of his visits. And this time there was Bertrand to say good-bye to also!

“Who would have thought,” said Mavis, “that we should ever be sorry to see him go? But I am glad to feel sorry.”

“Yes,” said Miss Hortensia, “much better for him to go while his present mood lasts, and we are able to regret him. And may be he will come to pay us a visit again some time or other.”

“I hope he will,” said Mavis. “I don’t think he will ever again be like what he was, cousin.”

“Mavis,” said Ruby, when they were alone, “when Bertrand does come to see us again, we must plan all to go to Forget-me-not Land together. It would be so nice, all four of us. Winfried will come to see us again soon; he said he would whenever he comes to his grandfather; let us ask him. I am sure the princess wouldn’t mind now Bertrand is so different.”

“I am sure she wouldn’t,” said Mavis, smiling. “And who knows,” Ruby went on, “what lovely new things and places we shan’t see when we go there again. Winfried says there’s no end to them, and that every time we go we’ll find more to see.”

“Perhaps it’s because we learn to see better and better,” said Mavis.

And I think she was right.

The End