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diff --git a/34219-8.txt b/34219-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6095a15 --- /dev/null +++ b/34219-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9548 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Enchanted Castle, by E. Nesbit + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Enchanted Castle + +Author: E. Nesbit + +Illustrator: H. R. Millar + +Release Date: November 6, 2010 [EBook #34219] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENCHANTED CASTLE *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + +THE ENCHANTED CASTLE + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + +FOR CHILDREN + +_Illustrated, crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s._ + + The Treasure Seekers + The Would-be-Goods + Nine Unlikely Tales for Children + Five Children and It + New Treasure Seekers + The Story of the Amulet + + * * * * * + +FOR GROWN-UPS + +_Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s._ + + Man and Maid + +LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN + +[Illustration: THE HALL IN WHICH THE CHILDREN FOUND THEMSELVES WAS THE +MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE IN THE WORLD.] + + + + +The Enchanted Castle + +BY E. NESBIT + + AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF THE AMULET," + "THE TREASURE SEEKERS," ETC. + + WITH 47 ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. R. MILLAR + + + LONDON + T. FISHER UNWIN + ADELPHI TERRACE + + 1907 + + + + + _(All rights reserved.)_ + + + + + TO + + MARGARET OSTLER + + WITH LOVE FROM + + E. NESBIT + + Peggy, you came from the heath and moor, + And you brought their airs through my open door; + You brought the blossom of youth to blow + In the Latin Quarter of Soho. + + For the sake of that magic I send you here + A tale of enchantments, Peggy dear, + --A bit of my work, and a bit of my heart... + The bit that you left when we had to part. + + _September 25, 1907._ + ROYALTY CHAMBERS, SOHO, W. + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + THE HALL IN WHICH THE CHILDREN FOUND THEMSELVES _Frontispiece_ + PAGE + "LITTLE DECEIVER!" SHE SAID 18 + JIMMY CAME IN HEAD FIRST 25 + "IT'S THE ENTRANCE TO THE ENCHANTED CASTLE" 29 + "THIS IS AN ENCHANTED GARDEN" 33 + THE RED CLUE RAN STRAIGHT ACROSS THE GRASS 37 + THE THREE STOOD BREATHLESS, AWAITING THE RESULT 40 + "IT'S A GAME, ISN'T IT?" ASKED JIMMY 48 + SHE WAS WAITING FOR THEM WITH A CANDLE IN HER HAND 51 + LOOKING AT HERSELF IN THE LITTLE SILVER-FRAMED MIRROR 56 + BACKWARD AND FORWARD HE WENT 61 + "YOUR SHADOW'S NOT INVISIBLE, ANYHOW" 68 + THE BREAD AND BUTTER WAVING ABOUT IN THE AIR 75 + "HALLOA, MISSY, AIN'T YOU BLACKED YER BACK, NEITHER!" 83 + "YOU'RE GETTING AT ME" 92 + "STOW IT!" CRIED THE MAN 95 + "WHAT'S THAT?" THE POLICEMEN ASKED QUICKLY 104 + "I MUST GO HOME--NOW--THIS MINUTE" 108 + THE MOVING STONE BEAST 115 + THE MEN WERE TAKING SILVER OUT OF TWO GREAT CHESTS 120 + JOHNSON WASHING IN HIS OWN BACKYARD 131 + GERALD HALTED AT THE END OF A LITTLE LANDING-STAGE 137 + HE STAGGERED BACK AGAINST THE WATER-BUTT 142 + "'E'S LEP' INTO THE WATER" 151 + IT WAS ELIZA, DISHEVELLED, BREATHLESS 154 + SHE KISSED HIM WITH LITTLE QUICK, FRENCH PECKS 160 + DOWN CAME THE LOVELIEST BLUE-BLACK HAIR 171 + FULLY HALF A DOZEN OF THE CHAIRS WERE OCCUPIED 175 + A LIMP HAND WAS LAID ON HIS ARM 184 + "WONDER WHAT LIES HE'S TELLING THEM" 195 + IT WAS A STRANGE PROCESSION 201 + A PAINTED POINTED PAPER FACE PEERED OUT 214 + JIMMY SHOOK THEM TO PIECES 221 + TWO HATS WERE RAISED 231 + KATHLEEN HANDS UP THE CLOTHES AND THE STICKS 235 + HE CRIED OUT ALOUD IN THAT CROWDED PLACE 246 + SHE SAT DOWN SUDDENLY ON THE FLOOR 256 + KATHLEEN HAD HER WISH. SHE WAS A STATUE 264 + MABEL LAY DOWN, WAS COVERED UP, AND LEFT 268 + THE MONSTER LIZARD SLIPPED HEAVILY INTO THE WATER 272 + "WHAT IS IT?" SHE ASKED, BEGINNING TO TREMBLE 276 + SIDE BY SIDE THE THREE SWAM 283 + IT WAS A CELESTIAL PICNIC 288 + THE JOYS OF DIPPING ONE'S FEET IN COOL, RUNNING WATER 315 + THEY STOOD STILL AND LOOKED AT EACH OTHER 319 + HE BECAME EAGER, ALERT, VERY KEEN 326 + THE AMERICAN FIRED AGAIN 332 + + + + +The Enchanted Castle + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +THERE were three of them--Jerry, Jimmy, and Kathleen. Of course, Jerry's +name was Gerald, and not Jeremiah, whatever you may think; and Jimmy's +name was James; and Kathleen was never called by her name at all, but +Cathy, or Catty, or Puss Cat, when her brothers were pleased with her, +and Scratch Cat when they were not pleased. And they were at school in a +little town in the West of England--the boys at one school, of course, +and the girl at another, because the sensible habit of having boys and +girls at the same school is not yet as common as I hope it will be some +day. They used to see each other on Saturdays and Sundays at the house +of a kind maiden lady; but it was one of those houses where it is +impossible to play. You know the kind of house, don't you? There is a +sort of a something about that kind of house that makes you hardly able +even to talk to each other when you are left alone, and playing seems +unnatural and affected. So they looked forward to the holidays, when +they should all go home and be together all day long, in a house where +playing was natural and conversation possible, and where the Hampshire +forests and fields were full of interesting things to do and see. Their +Cousin Betty was to be there too, and there were plans. Betty's school +broke up before theirs, and so she got to the Hampshire home first, and +the moment she got there she began to have measles, so that my three +couldn't go home at all. You may imagine their feelings. The thought of +seven weeks at Miss Hervey's was not to be borne, and all three wrote +home and said so. This astonished their parents very much, because they +had always thought it was so nice for the children to have dear Miss +Hervey's to go to. However, they were "jolly decent about it," as Jerry +said, and after a lot of letters and telegrams, it was arranged that the +boys should go and stay at Kathleen's school, where there were now no +girls left and no mistresses except the French one. + +"It'll be better than being at Miss Hervey's," said Kathleen, when the +boys came round to ask Mademoiselle when it would be convenient for them +to come; "and, besides, our school's not half so ugly as yours. We do +have tablecloths on the tables and curtains at the windows, and yours is +all deal boards, and desks, and inkiness." + +When they had gone to pack their boxes Kathleen made all the rooms as +pretty as she could with flowers in jam jars, marigolds chiefly, +because there was nothing much else in the back garden. There were +geraniums in the front garden, and calceolarias and lobelias; of course, +the children were not allowed to pick these. + +"We ought to have some sort of play to keep us going through the +holidays," said Kathleen, when tea was over, and she had unpacked and +arranged the boys' clothes in the painted chests of drawers, feeling +very grown-up and careful as she neatly laid the different sorts of +clothes in tidy little heaps in the drawers. "Suppose we write a book." + +"You couldn't," said Jimmy. + +"I didn't mean me, of course," said Kathleen, a little injured; "I meant +us." + +"Too much fag," said Gerald briefly. + +"If we wrote a book," Kathleen persisted, "about what the insides of +schools really _are_ like, people would read it and say how clever we +were." + +"More likely expel us," said Gerald. "No; we'll have an out-of-doors +game--bandits, or something like that. It wouldn't be bad if we could +get a cave and keep stores in it, and have our meals there." + +"There aren't any caves," said Jimmy, who was fond of contradicting +every one. "And, besides, your precious Mamselle won't let us go out +alone, as likely as not." + +"Oh, we'll see about that," said Gerald. "I'll go and talk to her like a +father." + +"Like that?" Kathleen pointed the thumb of scorn at him, and he looked +in the glass. + +"To brush his hair and his clothes and to wash his face and hands was to +our hero but the work of a moment," said Gerald, and went to suit the +action to the word. + +It was a very sleek boy, brown and thin and interesting-looking, that +knocked at the door of the parlour where Mademoiselle sat reading a +yellow-covered book and wishing vain wishes. Gerald could always make +himself look interesting at a moment's notice, a very useful +accomplishment in dealing with strange grown-ups. It was done by opening +his grey eyes rather wide, allowing the corners of his mouth to droop, +and assuming a gentle, pleading expression, resembling that of the late +little Lord Fauntleroy--who must, by the way, be quite old now, and an +awful prig. + +"Entrez!" said Mademoiselle, in shrill French accents. So he entered. + +"Eh bien?" she said rather impatiently. + +"I hope I am not disturbing you," said Gerald, in whose mouth, it +seemed, butter would not have melted. + +"But no," she said, somewhat softened. "What is it that you desire?" + +"I thought I ought to come and say how do you do," said Gerald, "because +of you being the lady of the house." + +He held out the newly-washed hand, still damp and red. She took it. + +"You are a very polite little boy," she said. + +"Not at all," said Gerald, more polite than ever. "I am so sorry for +you. It must be dreadful to have us to look after in the holidays." + +"But not at all," said Mademoiselle in her turn. "I am sure you will be +very good childrens." + +Gerald's look assured her that he and the others would be as near angels +as children could be without ceasing to be human. + +"We'll try," he said earnestly. + +"Can one do anything for you?" asked the French governess kindly. + +"Oh, no, thank you," said Gerald. "We don't want to give you any trouble +at all. And I was thinking it would be less trouble for you if we were +to go out into the woods all day to-morrow and take our dinner with +us--something cold, you know--so as not to be a trouble to the cook." + +"You are very considerate," said Mademoiselle coldly. Then Gerald's eyes +smiled; they had a trick of doing this when his lips were quite serious. +Mademoiselle caught the twinkle, and she laughed and Gerald laughed too. + +"Little deceiver!" she said. "Why not say at once you want to be free of +_surveillance_, how you say--overwatching--without pretending it is me +you wish to please?" + +"You have to be careful with grown-ups," said Gerald, "but it isn't all +pretence either. We _don't_ want to trouble you--and we don't want you +to----" + +[Illustration: "LITTLE DECEIVER!" SHE SAID.] + +"To trouble you. Eh bien! Your parents, they permit these days at +woods?" + +"Oh, yes," said Gerald truthfully. + +"Then I will not be more a dragon than the parents. I will forewarn the +cook. Are you content?" + +"Rather!" said Gerald. "Mademoiselle, you are a dear." + +"A deer?" she repeated--"a stag?" + +"No, a--a _chérie_," said Gerald--"a regular A1 _chérie_. And you shan't +repent it. Is there anything we can do for you--wind your wool, or find +your spectacles, or----?" + +"He thinks me a grandmother!" said Mademoiselle, laughing more than +ever. "Go then, and be not more naughty than you must." + + * * * * * + +"Well, what luck?" the others asked. + +"It's all right," said Gerald indifferently. "I told you it would be. +The ingenuous youth won the regard of the foreign governess, who in her +youth had been the beauty of her humble village." + +"I don't believe she ever was. She's too stern," said Kathleen. + +"Ah!" said Gerald, "that's only because you don't know how to manage +her. She wasn't stern with _me_." + +"I say, what a humbug you are though, aren't you?" said Jimmy. + +"No, I'm a dip--what's-its-name? Something like an ambassador. +Dipsoplomatist--that's what I am. Anyhow, we've got our day, and if we +don't find a cave in it my name's not Jack Robinson." + +Mademoiselle, less stern than Kathleen had ever seen her, presided at +supper, which was bread and treacle spread several hours before, and now +harder and drier than any other food you can think of. Gerald was very +polite in handing her butter and cheese, and pressing her to taste the +bread and treacle. + +"Bah! it is like sand in the mouth--of a dryness! Is it possible this +pleases you?" + +"No," said Gerald, "it is not possible, but it is not polite for boys to +make remarks about their food!" + +She laughed, but there was no more dried bread and treacle for supper +after that. + +"How _do_ you do it?" Kathleen whispered admiringly as they said +good-night. + +"Oh, it's quite easy when you've once got a grown-up to see what you're +after. You'll see, I shall drive her with a rein of darning cotton after +this." + +Next morning Gerald got up early and gathered a little bunch of pink +carnations from a plant which he found hidden among the marigolds. He +tied it up with black cotton and laid it on Mademoiselle's plate. She +smiled and looked quite handsome as she stuck the flowers in her belt. + +"Do you think it's quite decent," Jimmy asked later--"sort of bribing +people to let you do as you like with flowers and things and passing +them the salt?" + +"It's not that," said Kathleen suddenly. "_I_ know what Gerald means, +only I never think of the things in time myself. You see, if you want +grown-ups to be nice to you the least you can do is to be nice to them +and think of little things to please them. I never think of any myself. +Jerry does; that's why all the old ladies like him. It's not bribery. +It's a sort of honesty--like paying for things." + +"Well, anyway," said Jimmy, putting away the moral question, "we've got +a ripping day for the woods." + +They had. + +The wide High Street, even at the busy morning hour almost as quiet as a +dream-street, lay bathed in sunshine; the leaves shone fresh from last +night's rain, but the road was dry, and in the sunshine the very dust of +it sparkled like diamonds. The beautiful old houses, standing stout and +strong, looked as though they were basking in the sunshine and enjoying +it. + +"But _are_ there any woods?" asked Kathleen as they passed the +market-place. + +"It doesn't much matter about woods," said Gerald dreamily, "we're sure +to find _something_. One of the chaps told me his father said when he +was a boy there used to be a little cave under the bank in a lane near +the Salisbury Road; but he said there was an enchanted castle there too, +so perhaps the cave isn't true either." + +"If we were to get horns," said Kathleen, "and to blow them very hard +all the way, we might find a magic castle." + +"If you've got the money to throw away on horns ..." said Jimmy +contemptuously. + +"Well, I have, as it happens, so there!" said Kathleen. And the horns +were bought in a tiny shop with a bulging window full of a tangle of +toys and sweets and cucumbers and sour apples. + +And the quiet square at the end of the town where the church is, and the +houses of the most respectable people, echoed to the sound of horns +blown long and loud. But none of the houses turned into enchanted +castles. + +So they went along the Salisbury Road, which was very hot and dusty, so +they agreed to drink one of the bottles of gingerbeer. + +"We might as well carry the gingerbeer inside us as inside the bottle," +said Jimmy, "and we can hide the bottle and call for it as we come +back." + +Presently they came to a place where the road, as Gerald said, went two +ways at once. + +"_That_ looks like adventures," said Kathleen; and they took the +right-hand road, and the next time they took a turning it was a +left-hand one, so as to be quite fair, Jimmy said, and then a right-hand +one and then a left, and so on, till they were completely lost. + +"_Com_pletely," said Kathleen; "how jolly!" + +And now trees arched overhead, and the banks of the road were high and +bushy. The adventurers had long since ceased to blow their horns. It +was too tiring to go on doing that, when there was no one to be annoyed +by it. + +"Oh, kriky!" observed Jimmy suddenly, "let's sit down a bit and have +some of our dinner. We might call it lunch, you know," he added +persuasively. + +So they sat down in the hedge and ate the ripe red gooseberries that +were to have been their dessert. + +And as they sat and rested and wished that their boots did not feel so +full of feet, Gerald leaned back against the bushes, and the bushes gave +way so that he almost fell over backward. Something had yielded to the +pressure of his back, and there was the sound of something heavy that +fell. + +"O Jimminy!" he remarked, recovering himself suddenly; "there's +something hollow in there--the stone I was leaning against simply +_went_!" + +"I wish it was a cave," said Jimmy; "but of course it isn't." + +"If we blow the horns perhaps it will be," said Kathleen, and hastily +blew her own. + +Gerald reached his hand through the bushes. "I can't feel anything but +air," he said; "it's just a hole full of emptiness." The other two +pulled back the bushes. There certainly was a hole in the bank. "I'm +going to go in," observed Gerald. + +"Oh, don't!" said his sister. "I wish you wouldn't. Suppose there were +snakes!" + +"Not likely," said Gerald, but he leaned forward and struck a match. +"It _is_ a cave!" he cried, and put his knee on the mossy stone he had +been sitting on, scrambled over it, and disappeared. + +A breathless pause followed. + +"You all right?" asked Jimmy. + +"Yes; come on. You'd better come feet first--there's a bit of a drop." + +"I'll go next," said Kathleen, and went--feet first, as advised. The +feet waved wildly in the air. + +"Look out!" said Gerald in the dark; "you'll have my eye out. Put your +feet _down_, girl, not up. It's no use trying to fly here--there's no +room." + +He helped her by pulling her feet forcibly down and then lifting her +under the arms. She felt rustling dry leaves under her boots, and stood +ready to receive Jimmy, who came in head first, like one diving into an +unknown sea. + +"It _is_ a cave," said Kathleen. + +"The young explorers," explained Gerald, blocking up the hole of +entrance with his shoulders, "dazzled at first by the darkness of the +cave, could see nothing." + +"Darkness doesn't dazzle," said Jimmy. + +"I wish we'd got a candle," said Kathleen. + +"Yes, it does," Gerald contradicted--"could see nothing. But their +dauntless leader, whose eyes had grown used to the dark while the clumsy +forms of the others were bunging up the entrance, had made a +discovery." + +[Illustration: JIMMY CAME IN HEAD FIRST, LIKE ONE DIVING INTO AN UNKNOWN +SEA.] + +"Oh, what!" Both the others were used to Gerald's way of telling a story +while he acted it, but they did sometimes wish that he didn't talk quite +so long and so like a book in moments of excitement. + +"He did not reveal the dread secret to his faithful followers till one +and all had given him their word of honour to be calm." + +"We'll be calm all right," said Jimmy impatiently. + +"Well, then," said Gerald, ceasing suddenly to be a book and becoming a +boy, "there's a light over there--look behind you!" + +They looked. And there was. A faint greyness on the brown walls of the +cave, and a brighter greyness cut off sharply by a dark line, showed +that round a turning or angle of the cave there was daylight. + +"Attention!" said Gerald; at least, that was what he meant, though what +he said was "'Shun!" as becomes the son of a soldier. The others +mechanically obeyed. + +"You will remain at attention till I give the word 'Slow march!' on +which you will advance cautiously in open order, following your hero +leader, taking care not to tread on the dead and wounded." + +"I wish you wouldn't!" said Kathleen. + +"There aren't any," said Jimmy, feeling for her hand in the dark; "he +only means, take care not to tumble over stones and things." + +Here he found her hand, and she screamed. + +"It's only me," said Jimmy. "I thought you'd like me to hold it. But +you're just like a girl." + +Their eyes had now begun to get accustomed to the darkness, and all +could see that they were in a rough stone cave, that went straight on +for about three or four yards and then turned sharply to the right. + +"Death or victory!" remarked Gerald. "Now, then--Slow march!" + +He advanced carefully, picking his way among the loose earth and stones +that were the floor of the cave. "A sail, a sail!" he cried, as he +turned the corner. + +"How splendid!" Kathleen drew a long breath as she came out into the +sunshine. + +"I don't see any sail," said Jimmy, following. + +The narrow passage ended in a round arch all fringed with ferns and +creepers. They passed through the arch into a deep, narrow gully whose +banks were of stones, moss-covered; and in the crannies grew more ferns +and long grasses. Trees growing on the top of the bank arched across, +and the sunlight came through in changing patches of brightness, turning +the gully to a roofed corridor of goldy-green. The path, which was of +greeny-grey flagstones where heaps of leaves had drifted, sloped steeply +down, and at the end of it was another round arch, quite dark inside, +above which rose rocks and grass and bushes. + +"It's like the outside of a railway tunnel," said James. + +"It's the entrance to the enchanted castle," said Kathleen. "Let's blow +the horns." + +"Dry up!" said Gerald. "The bold Captain, reproving the silly chatter of +his subordinates----" + +"I like that!" said Jimmy, indignant. + +"I thought you would," resumed Gerald--"of his subordinates, bade them +advance with caution and in silence, because after all there might be +somebody about, and the other arch might be an ice-house or something +dangerous." + +"What?" asked Kathleen anxiously. + +"Bears, perhaps," said Gerald briefly. + +"There aren't any bears without bars--in England, anyway," said Jimmy. +"They call bears bars in America," he added absently. + +"Quick march!" was Gerald's only reply. + +And they marched. Under the drifted damp leaves the path was firm and +stony to their shuffling feet. At the dark arch they stopped. + +"There are steps down," said Jimmy. + +"It _is_ an ice-house," said Gerald. + +"Don't let's," said Kathleen. + +"Our hero," said Gerald, "who nothing could dismay, raised the faltering +hopes of his abject minions by saying that he was jolly well going on, +and they could do as they liked about it." + +"If you call names," said Jimmy, "you can go on by yourself." He added, +"So there!" + +[Illustration: "IT'S THE ENTRANCE TO THE ENCHANTED CASTLE," SAID +KATHLEEN.] + +"It's part of the game, silly," explained Gerald kindly. "You can be +Captain to-morrow, so you'd better hold your jaw now, and begin to +think about what names you'll call us when it's your turn." + +Very slowly and carefully they went down the steps. A vaulted stone +arched over their heads. Gerald struck a match when the last step was +found to have no edge, and to be, in fact, the beginning of a passage, +turning to the left. + +"This," said Jimmy, "will take us back into the road." + +"Or under it," said Gerald. "We've come down eleven steps." + +They went on, following their leader, who went very slowly for fear, as +he explained, of steps. The passage was very dark. + +"I don't half like it!" whispered Jimmy. + +Then came a glimmer of daylight that grew and grew, and presently ended +in another arch that looked out over a scene so like a picture out of a +book about Italy that every one's breath was taken away, and they simply +walked forward silent and staring. A short avenue of cypresses led, +widening as it went, to a marble terrace that lay broad and white in the +sunlight. The children, blinking, leaned their arms on the broad, flat +balustrade and gazed. Immediately below them was a lake--just like a +lake in "The Beauties of Italy"--a lake with swans and an island and +weeping willows; beyond it were green slopes dotted with groves of +trees, and amid the trees gleamed the white limbs of statues. Against a +little hill to the left was a round white building with pillars, and to +the right a waterfall came tumbling down among mossy stones to splash +into the lake. Steps led from the terrace to the water, and other steps +to the green lawns beside it. Away across the grassy slopes deer were +feeding, and in the distance where the groves of trees thickened into +what looked almost a forest were enormous shapes of grey stone, like +nothing that the children had ever seen before. + +"That chap at school----" said Gerald. + +"It _is_ an enchanted castle," said Kathleen. + +"I don't see any castle," said Jimmy. + +"What do you call that, then?" Gerald pointed to where, beyond a belt of +lime-trees, white towers and turrets broke the blue of the sky. + +"There doesn't seem to be any one about," said Kathleen, "and yet it's +all so tidy. I believe it is magic." + +"Magic mowing machines," Jimmy suggested. + +"If we were in a book it would be an enchanted castle--certain to be," +said Kathleen. + +"It _is_ an enchanted castle," said Gerald in hollow tones. + +"But there aren't any." Jimmy was quite positive. + +"How do you know? Do you think there's nothing in the world but what +_you've_ seen?" His scorn was crushing. + +"I think magic went out when people began to have steam-engines," Jimmy +insisted, "and newspapers, and telephones and wireless telegraphing." + +"Wireless is rather like magic when you come to think of it," said +Gerald. + +"Oh, _that_ sort!" Jimmy's contempt was deep. + +"Perhaps there's given up being magic because people didn't believe in +it any more," said Kathleen. + +"Well, don't let's spoil the show with any silly old not believing," +said Gerald with decision. "I'm going to believe in magic as hard as I +can. This is an enchanted garden, and that's an enchanted castle, and +I'm jolly well going to explore. The dauntless knight then led the way, +leaving his ignorant squires to follow or not, just as they jolly well +chose." He rolled off the balustrade and strode firmly down towards the +lawn, his boots making, as they went, a clatter full of determination. + +The others followed. There never was such a garden--out of a picture or +a fairy tale. They passed quite close by the deer, who only raised their +pretty heads to look, and did not seem startled at all. And after a long +stretch of turf they passed under the heaped-up heavy masses of +lime-trees and came into a rose-garden, bordered with thick, close-cut +yew hedges, and lying red and pink and green and white in the sun, like +a giant's many-coloured, highly-scented pocket-handkerchief. + +"I know we shall meet a gardener in a minute, and he'll ask what we're +doing here. And then what will you say?" Kathleen asked with her nose in +a rose. + +[Illustration: "THIS IS AN ENCHANTED GARDEN AND THAT'S AN ENCHANTED +CASTLE."] + +"I shall say we've lost our way, and it will be quite true," said +Gerald. + +But they did not meet a gardener or anybody else, and the feeling of +magic got thicker and thicker, till they were almost afraid of the sound +of their feet in the great silent place. Beyond the rose garden was a +yew hedge with an arch cut in it, and it was the beginning of a maze +like the one in Hampton Court. + +"Now," said Gerald, "you mark my words. In the middle of this maze we +shall find the secret enchantment. Draw your swords, my merry men all, +and hark forward tallyho in the utmost silence." + +Which they did. + +It was very hot in the maze, between the close yew hedges, and the way +to the maze's heart was hidden well. Again and again they found +themselves at the black yew arch that opened on the rose garden, and +they were all glad that they had brought large, clean pocket-handkerchiefs +with them. + +It was when they found themselves there for the fourth time that Jimmy +suddenly cried, "Oh, I wish----" and then stopped short very suddenly. +"Oh!" he added in quite a different voice, "where's the dinner?" And +then in a stricken silence they all remembered that the basket with the +dinner had been left at the entrance of the cave. Their thoughts dwelt +fondly on the slices of cold mutton, the six tomatoes, the bread and +butter, the screwed-up paper of salt, the apple turnovers, and the +little thick glass that one drank the gingerbeer out of. + +"Let's go back," said Jimmy, "now this minute, and get our things and +have our dinner." + +"Let's have one more try at the maze. I hate giving things up," said +Gerald. + +"I _am_ so hungry!" said Jimmy. + +"Why didn't you say so before?" asked Gerald bitterly. + +"I wasn't before." + +"Then you can't be now. You don't get hungry all in a minute. What's +that?" + +"That" was a gleam of red that lay at the foot of the yew hedge--a thin +little line, that you would hardly have noticed unless you had been +staring in a fixed and angry way at the roots of the hedge. + +It was a thread of cotton. Gerald picked it up. One end of it was tied +to a thimble with holes in it, and the other---- + +"There _is_ no other end," said Gerald, with firm triumph. "It's a +clue--that's what it is. What price cold mutton now? I've always felt +something magic would happen some day, and now it has." + +"I expect the gardener put it there," said Jimmy. + +"With a Princess's silver thimble on it? Look! there's a crown on the +thimble." + +There was. + +"Come," said Gerald in low, urgent tones, "if you are adventurers _be_ +adventurers; and anyhow, I expect some one has gone along the road and +bagged the mutton hours ago." + +He walked forward, winding the red thread round his fingers as he went. +And it _was_ a clue, and it led them right into the middle of the maze. +And in the very middle of the maze they came upon the wonder. + +The red clue led them up two stone steps to a round grass plot. There +was a sun-dial in the middle, and all round against the yew hedge a low, +wide marble seat. The red clue ran straight across the grass and by the +sun-dial, and ended in a small brown hand with jewelled rings on every +finger. The hand was, naturally, attached to an arm, and that had many +bracelets on it, sparkling with red and blue and green stones. The arm +wore a sleeve of pink and gold brocaded silk, faded a little here and +there but still extremely imposing, and the sleeve was part of a dress, +which was worn by a lady who lay on the stone seat asleep in the sun. +The rosy gold dress fell open over an embroidered petticoat of a soft +green colour. There was old yellow lace the colour of scalded cream, and +a thin white veil spangled with silver stars covered the face. + +"It's the enchanted Princess," said Gerald, now really impressed. "I +told you so." + +"It's the Sleeping Beauty," said Kathleen. "It is--look how +old-fashioned her clothes are, like the pictures of Marie Antoinette's +ladies in the history book. She has slept for a hundred years. Oh, +Gerald, you're the eldest; you must be the Prince, and we never knew +it." + +[Illustration: THE RED CLUE RAN STRAIGHT ACROSS THE GRASS AND BY THE +SUN-DIAL, AND ENDED IN A SMALL BROWN HAND.] + +"She isn't really a Princess," said Jimmy. But the others laughed at +him, partly because his saying things like that was enough to spoil any +game, and partly because they really were not at all sure that it was +not a Princess who lay there as still as the sunshine. Every stage of +the adventure--the cave, the wonderful gardens, the maze, the clue, had +deepened the feeling of magic, till now Kathleen and Gerald were almost +completely bewitched. + +"Lift the veil up, Jerry," said Kathleen in a whisper; "if she isn't +beautiful we shall know she can't be the Princess." + +"Lift it yourself," said Gerald. + +"I expect you're forbidden to touch the figures," said Jimmy. + +"It's not wax, silly," said his brother. + +"No," said his sister, "wax wouldn't be much good in this sun. And, +besides, you can see her breathing. It's the Princess right enough." She +very gently lifted the edge of the veil and turned it back. The +Princess's face was small and white between long plaits of black hair. +Her nose was straight and her brows finely traced. There were a few +freckles on cheek-bones and nose. + +"No wonder," whispered Kathleen, "sleeping all these years in all this +sun!" Her mouth was not a rosebud. But all the same-- + +"Isn't she lovely!" Kathleen murmured. + +"Not so dusty," Gerald was understood to reply. + +"Now, Jerry," said Kathleen firmly, "you're the eldest." + +"Of course I am," said Gerald uneasily. + +"Well, you've got to wake the Princess." + +"She's not a Princess," said Jimmy, with his hands in the pockets of his +knickerbockers; "she's only a little girl dressed up." + +"But she's in long dresses," urged Kathleen. + +"Yes, but look what a little way down her frock her feet come. She +wouldn't be any taller than Jerry if she was to stand up." + +"Now then," urged Kathleen. "Jerry, don't be silly. You've got to do +it." + +"Do what?" asked Gerald, kicking his left boot with his right. + +"Why, kiss her awake, of course." + +"Not me!" was Gerald's unhesitating rejoinder. + +"Well, some one's got to." + +"She'd go for me as likely as not the minute she woke up," said Gerald +anxiously. + +"I'd do it like a shot," said Kathleen, "but I don't suppose it ud make +any difference me kissing her." + +She did it; and it didn't. The Princess still lay in deep slumber. + +"Then you must, Jimmy. I daresay you'll do. Jump back quickly before she +can hit you." + +"She won't hit him, he's such a little chap," said Gerald. + +"Little yourself!" said Jimmy. "_I_ don't mind kissing her. I'm not a +coward, like Some People. Only if I do, I'm going to be the dauntless +leader for the rest of the day." + +[Illustration: THE THREE STOOD BREATHLESS, AWAITING THE RESULT.] + +"No, look here--hold on!" cried Gerald, "perhaps I'd better----" But, +in the meantime, Jimmy had planted a loud, cheerful-sounding kiss on the +Princess's pale cheek, and now the three stood breathless, awaiting the +result. + +And the result was that the Princess opened large, dark eyes, stretched +out her arms, yawned a little, covering her mouth with a small brown +hand, and said, quite plainly and distinctly, and without any room at +all for mistake:-- + +"Then the hundred years are over? How the yew hedges have grown! Which +of you is my Prince that aroused me from my deep sleep of so many long +years?" + +"I did," said Jimmy fearlessly, for she did not look as though she were +going to slap any one. + +"My noble preserver!" said the Princess, and held out her hand. Jimmy +shook it vigorously. + +"But I say," said he, "you aren't really a Princess, are you?" + +"Of course I am," she answered; "who else could I be? Look at my crown!" +She pulled aside the spangled veil, and showed beneath it a coronet of +what even Jimmy could not help seeing to be diamonds. + +"But----" said Jimmy. + +"Why," she said, opening her eyes very wide, "you must have known about +my being here, or you'd never have come. How _did_ you get past the +dragons?" + +Gerald ignored the question. "I say," he said, "do you really believe in +magic, and all that?" + +"I ought to," she said, "if anybody does. Look, here's the place where I +pricked my finger with the spindle." She showed a little scar on her +wrist. + +"Then this really _is_ an enchanted castle?" + +"Of course it is," said the Princess. "How stupid you are!" She stood +up, and her pink brocaded dress lay in bright waves about her feet. + +"I said her dress would be too long," said Jimmy. + +"It was the right length when I went to sleep," said the Princess; "it +must have grown in the hundred years." + +"I don't believe you're a Princess at all," said Jimmy; "at least----" + +"Don't bother about believing it, if you don't like," said the Princess. +"It doesn't so much matter what you believe as what I am." She turned to +the others. + +"Let's go back to the castle," she said, "and I'll show you all my +lovely jewels and things. Wouldn't you like that?" + +"Yes," said Gerald with very plain hesitation. "But----" + +"But what?" The Princess's tone was impatient. + +"But we're most awfully hungry." + +"Oh, so am I!" cried the Princess. + +"We've had nothing to eat since breakfast." + +"And it's three now," said the Princess, looking at the sun-dial. "Why, +you've had nothing to eat for hours and hours and hours. But think of +me! I haven't had anything to eat for a hundred years. Come along to the +castle." + +"The mice will have eaten everything," said Jimmy sadly. He saw now that +she really _was_ a Princess. + +"Not they," cried the Princess joyously. "You forget everything's +enchanted here. Time simply stood still for a hundred years. Come along, +and one of you must carry my train, or I shan't be able to move now it's +grown such a frightful length." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +WHEN you are young so many things are difficult to believe, and yet the +dullest people will tell you that they are true--such things, for +instance, as that the earth goes round the sun, and that it is not flat +but round. But the things that seem really likely, like fairy-tales and +magic, are, so say the grown-ups, not true at all. Yet they are so easy +to believe, especially when you see them happening. And, as I am always +telling you, the most wonderful things happen to all sorts of people, +only you never hear about them because the people think that no one will +believe their stories, and so they don't tell them to any one except me. +And they tell me, because they know that I can believe anything. + +When Jimmy had awakened the Sleeping Princess, and she had invited the +three children to go with her to her palace and get something to eat, +they all knew quite surely that they had come into a place of magic +happenings. And they walked in a slow procession along the grass towards +the castle. The Princess went first, and Kathleen carried her shining +train; then came Jimmy, and Gerald came last. They were all quite sure +that they had walked right into the middle of a fairy tale, and they +were the more ready to believe it because they were so tired and hungry. +They were, in fact, so hungry and tired that they hardly noticed where +they were going, or observed the beauties of the formal gardens through +which the pink-silk Princess was leading them. They were in a sort of +dream, from which they only partially awakened to find themselves in a +big hall, with suits of armour and old flags round the walls, the skins +of beasts on the floor, and heavy oak tables and benches ranged along +it. + +The Princess entered, slow and stately, but once inside she twitched her +sheeny train out of Jimmy's hand and turned to the three. + +"You just wait here a minute," she said, "and mind you don't talk while +I'm away. This castle is crammed with magic, and I don't know what will +happen if you talk." And with that, picking up the thick goldy-pink +folds under her arms, she ran out, as Jimmy said afterwards, "most +unprincesslike," showing as she ran black stockings and black strap +shoes. + +Jimmy wanted very much to say that he didn't believe anything would +happen, only he was afraid something would happen if he did, so he +merely made a face and put out his tongue. The others pretended not to +see this, which was much more crushing than anything they could have +said. So they sat in silence, and Gerald ground the heel of his boot +upon the marble floor. Then the Princess came back, very slowly and +kicking her long skirts in front of her at every step. She could not +hold them up now because of the tray she carried. + +It was not a silver tray, as you might have expected, but an oblong tin +one. She set it down noisily on the end of the long table and breathed a +sigh of relief. + +"Oh! it _was_ heavy," she said. I don't know what fairy feast the +children's fancy had been busy with. Anyhow, this was nothing like it. +The heavy tray held a loaf of bread, a lump of cheese, and a brown jug +of water. The rest of its heaviness was just plates and mugs and knives. + +"Come along," said the Princess hospitably. "I couldn't find anything +but bread and cheese--but it doesn't matter, because everything's magic +here, and unless you have some dreadful secret fault the bread and +cheese will turn into anything you like. What _would_ you like?" she +asked Kathleen. + +"Roast chicken," said Kathleen, without hesitation. + +The pinky Princess cut a slice of bread and laid it on a dish. "There +you are," she said, "roast chicken. Shall I carve it, or will you?" + +"You, please," said Kathleen, and received a piece of dry bread on a +plate. + +"Green peas?" asked the Princess, cut a piece of cheese and laid it +beside the bread. + +Kathleen began to eat the bread, cutting it up with knife and fork as +you would eat chicken. It was no use owning that she didn't see any +chicken and peas, or anything but cheese and dry bread, because that +would be owning that she had some dreadful secret fault. + +"If I have, it _is_ a secret, even from me," she told herself. + +The others asked for roast beef and cabbage--and got it, she supposed, +though to her it only looked like dry bread and Dutch cheese. + +"I _do_ wonder what my dreadful secret fault is," she thought, as the +Princess remarked that, as for her, she could fancy a slice of roast +peacock. "This one," she added, lifting a second mouthful of dry bread +on her fork, "is quite delicious." + +"It's a game, isn't it?" asked Jimmy suddenly. + +"What's a game?" asked the Princess, frowning. + +"Pretending it's beef--the bread and cheese, I mean." + +"A game? But it _is_ beef. Look at it," said the Princess, opening her +eyes very wide. + +"Yes, of course," said Jimmy feebly. "I was only joking." + +[Illustration: "IT'S A GAME, ISN'T IT?" ASKED JIMMY.] + +Bread and cheese is not perhaps so good as roast beef or chicken or +peacock (I'm not sure about the peacock. I never tasted peacock, did +you?); but bread and cheese is, at any rate, very much better than +nothing when you have gone on having nothing since breakfast +(gooseberries and gingerbeer hardly count) and it is long past your +proper dinner-time. Every one ate and drank and felt much better. + +"Now," said the Princess, brushing the breadcrumbs off her green silk +lap, "if you're sure you won't have any more meat you can come and see +my treasures. Sure you won't take the least bit more chicken? No? Then +follow me." + +She got up and they followed her down the long hall to the end where the +great stone stairs ran up at each side and joined in a broad flight +leading to the gallery above. Under the stairs was a hanging of +tapestry. + +"Beneath this arras," said the Princess, "is the door leading to my +private apartments." She held the tapestry up with both hands, for it +was heavy, and showed a little door that had been hidden by it. + +"The key," she said, "hangs above." + +And so it did, on a large rusty nail. + +"Put it in," said the Princess, "and turn it." + +Gerald did so, and the great key creaked and grated in the lock. + +"Now push," she said; "push hard, all of you." + +They pushed hard, all of them. The door gave way, and they fell over +each other into the dark space beyond. + +The Princess dropped the curtain and came after them, closing the door +behind her. + +"Look out!" she said; "look out! there are two steps down." + +"Thank you," said Gerald, rubbing his knee at the bottom of the steps. +"We found that out for ourselves." + +"I'm sorry," said the Princess, "but you can't have hurt yourselves +much. Go straight on. There aren't any more steps." + +They went straight on--in the dark. + +"When you come to the door just turn the handle and go in. Then stand +still till I find the matches. I know where they are." + +"Did they have matches a hundred years ago?" asked Jimmy. + +"I meant the tinder-box," said the Princess quickly. "We always called +it the matches. Don't you? Here, let me go first." + +She did, and when they had reached the door she was waiting for them +with a candle in her hand. She thrust it on Gerald. + +"Hold it steady," she said, and undid the shutters of a long window, so +that first a yellow streak and then a blazing great oblong of light +flashed at them and the room was full of sunshine. + +"It makes the candle look quite silly," said Jimmy. + +"So it does," said the Princess, and blew out the candle. Then she took +the key from the outside of the door, put it in the inside key-hole, and +turned it. + +[Illustration: SHE WAS WAITING FOR THEM WITH A CANDLE IN HER HAND.] + +The room they were in was small and high. Its domed ceiling was of deep +blue with gold stars painted on it. The walls were of wood, panelled +and carved, and there was no furniture in it whatever. + +"This," said the Princess, "is my treasure chamber." + +"But where," asked Kathleen politely, "_are_ the treasures?" + +"Don't you see them?" asked the Princess. + +"No, we don't," said Jimmy bluntly. "You don't come that +bread-and-cheese game with me--not twice over, you don't!" + +"If you _really_ don't see them," said the Princess, "I suppose I shall +have to say the charm. Shut your eyes, please. And give me your word of +honour you won't look till I tell you, and that you'll never tell any +one what you've seen." + +Their words of honour were something that the children would rather not +have given just then, but they gave them all the same, and shut their +eyes tight. + +"Wiggadil yougadoo begadee leegadeeve nowgadow?" said the Princess +rapidly; and they heard the swish of her silk train moving across the +room. Then there was a creaking, rustling noise. + +"She's locking us in!" cried Jimmy. + +"Your word of honour," gasped Gerald. + +"Oh, do be quick!" moaned Kathleen. + +"You may look," said the voice of the Princess. And they looked. The +room was not the same room, yet--yes, the starry-vaulted blue ceiling +was there, and below it half a dozen feet of the dark panelling, but +below that the walls of the room blazed and sparkled with white and blue +and red and green and gold and silver. Shelves ran round the room, and +on them were gold cups and silver dishes, and platters and goblets set +with gems, ornaments of gold and silver, tiaras of diamonds, necklaces +of rubies, strings of emeralds and pearls, all set out in unimaginable +splendour against a background of faded blue velvet. It was like the +Crown jewels that you see when your kind uncle takes you to the Tower, +only there seemed to be far more jewels than you or any one else has +ever seen together at the Tower or anywhere else. + +The three children remained breathless, open-mouthed, staring at the +sparkling splendours all about them, while the Princess stood, her arm +stretched out in a gesture of command, and a proud smile on her lips. + +"My word!" said Gerald, in a low whisper. But no one spoke out loud. +They waited as if spellbound for the Princess to speak. + +She spoke. + +"What price bread-and-cheese games now?" she asked triumphantly. "Can I +do magic, or can't I?" + +"You can; oh, you can!" said Kathleen. + +"May we--may we _touch_?" asked Gerald. + +"All that is mine is yours," said the Princess, with a generous wave of +her brown hand, and added quickly, "Only, of course, you mustn't take +anything away with you." + +"We're not thieves!" said Jimmy. The others were already busy turning +over the wonderful things on the blue velvet shelves. + +"Perhaps not," said the Princess, "but you're a very unbelieving little +boy. You think I can't see inside you, but I can. _I_ know what you've +been thinking." + +"What?" asked Jimmy. + +"Oh, you know well enough," said the Princess. "You're thinking about +the bread and cheese that I changed into beef, and about your secret +fault. I say, let's all dress up and you be princes and princesses too." + +"To crown our hero," said Gerald, lifting a gold crown with a cross on +the top, "was the work of a moment." He put the crown on his head, and +added a collar of SS and a zone of sparkling emeralds, which would not +quite meet round his middle. He turned from fixing it by an ingenious +adaptation of his belt to find the others already decked with diadems, +necklaces, and rings. + +"How splendid you look!" said the Princess, "and how I wish your clothes +were prettier. What ugly clothes people wear nowadays! A hundred years +ago----" + +Kathleen stood quite still with a diamond bracelet raised in her hand. + +"I say," she said. "The King and Queen?" + +"_What_ King and Queen?" asked the Princess. + +"Your father and mother, your sorrowing parents," said Kathleen. +"They'll have waked up by now. Won't they be wanting to see you, after a +hundred years, you know?" + +"Oh--ah--yes," said the Princess slowly. "I embraced my rejoicing +parents when I got the bread and cheese. They're having their dinner. +They won't expect me yet. Here," she added, hastily putting a ruby +bracelet on Kathleen's arm, "see how splendid that is!" + +Kathleen would have been quite content to go on all day trying on +different jewels and looking at herself in the little silver-framed +mirror that the Princess took from one of the shelves, but the boys were +soon weary of this amusement. + +"Look here," said Gerald, "if you're sure your father and mother won't +want you, let's go out and have a jolly good game of something. You +could play besieged castles awfully well in that maze--unless you can do +any more magic tricks." + +"You forget," said the Princess, "I'm grown up. I don't play games. And +I don't like to do too much magic at a time, it's so tiring. Besides, +it'll take us ever so long to put all these things back in their proper +places." + +It did. The children would have laid the jewels just anywhere; but the +Princess showed them that every necklace, or ring, or bracelet had its +own home on the velvet--a slight hollowing in the shelf beneath, so that +each stone fitted into its own little nest. + +[Illustration: KATHLEEN LOOKING AT HERSELF IN THE LITTLE SILVER-FRAMED +MIRROR.] + +As Kathleen was fitting the last shining ornament into its proper place, +she saw that part of the shelf near it held, not bright jewels, but +rings and brooches and chains, as well as queer things that she did not +know the names of, and all were of dull metal and odd shapes. + +"What's all this rubbish?" she asked. + +"Rubbish, indeed!" said the Princess. "Why those are _all_ magic things! +This bracelet--any one who wears it has got to speak the truth. This +chain makes you as strong as ten men; if you wear this spur your horse +will go a mile a minute; or if you're walking it's the same as +seven-league boots." + +"What does this brooch do?" asked Kathleen, reaching out her hand. The +Princess caught her by the wrist. + +"You mustn't touch," she said; "if any one but me touches them all the +magic goes out at once and never comes back. That brooch will give you +any wish you like." + +"And this ring?" Jimmy pointed. + +"Oh, that makes you invisible." + +"What's this?" asked Gerald, showing a curious buckle. + +"Oh, that undoes the effect of all the other charms." + +"Do you mean _really_?" Jimmy asked. "You're not just kidding?" + +"Kidding indeed!" repeated the Princess scornfully. "I should have +thought I'd shown you enough magic to prevent you speaking to a Princess +like _that_!" + +"I say," said Gerald, visibly excited. "You might show us how some of +the things act. Couldn't you give us each a wish?" + +The Princess did not at once answer. And the minds of the three played +with granted wishes--brilliant yet thoroughly reasonable--the kind of +wish that never seems to occur to people in fairy tales when they +suddenly get a chance to have their three wishes granted. + +"No," said the Princess suddenly, "no; I can't give wishes to _you_, it +only gives me wishes. But I'll let you see the ring make _me_ invisible. +Only you must shut your eyes while I do it." + +They shut them. + +"Count fifty," said the Princess, "and then you may look. And then you +must shut them again, and count fifty, and I'll reappear." + +Gerald counted, aloud. Through the counting one could hear a creaking, +rustling sound. + +"Forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty!" said Gerald, and they +opened their eyes. + +They were alone in the room. The jewels had vanished and so had the +Princess. + +"She's gone out by the door, of course," said Jimmy, but the door was +locked. + +"That _is_ magic," said Kathleen breathlessly. + +"Maskelyne and Devant can do _that_ trick," said Jimmy. "And I want my +tea." + +"Your tea!" Gerald's tone was full of contempt. "The lovely Princess," +he went on, "reappeared as soon as our hero had finished counting fifty. +One, two, three, four----" + +Gerald and Kathleen had both closed their eyes. But somehow Jimmy +hadn't. He didn't mean to cheat, he just forgot. And as Gerald's count +reached twenty he saw a panel under the window open slowly. + +"Her," he said to himself. "I _knew_ it was a trick!" and at once shut +his eyes, like an honourable little boy. + +On the word "fifty" six eyes opened. And the panel was closed and there +was no Princess. + +"She hasn't pulled it off this time," said Gerald. + +"Perhaps you'd better count again," said Kathleen. + +"I believe there's a cupboard under the window," said Jimmy, "and she's +hidden in it. Secret panel, you know." + +"You looked! that's cheating," said the voice of the Princess so close +to his ear that he quite jumped. + +"I didn't cheat." + +"Where on earth---- What ever----" said all three together. For still +there was no Princess to be seen. + +"Come back visible, Princess dear," said Kathleen. "Shall we shut our +eyes and count again?" + +"Don't be silly!" said the voice of the Princess, and it sounded very +cross. + +"We're _not_ silly," said Jimmy, and his voice was cross too. "Why can't +you come back and have done with it? You know you're only hiding." + +"Don't!" said Kathleen gently. "She _is_ invisible, you know." + +"So should I be if I got into the cupboard," said Jimmy. + +"Oh yes," said the sneering tone of the Princess, "you think yourselves +very clever, I dare say. But _I_ don't mind. We'll play that you _can't_ +see me, if you like." + +"Well, but we _can't_," said Gerald. "It's no use getting in a wax. If +you're hiding, as Jimmy says, you'd better come out. If you've really +turned invisible, you'd better make yourself visible again." + +"Do you really mean," asked a voice quite changed, but still the +Princess's, "that you _can't_ see me?" + +"Can't you _see_ we can't?" asked Jimmy rather unreasonably. + +The sun was blazing in at the window; the eight-sided room was very hot, +and every one was getting cross. + +"You can't _see_ me?" There was the sound of a sob in the voice of the +invisible Princess. + +"_No_, I tell you," said Jimmy, "and I want my tea--and----" + +What he was saying was broken off short, as one might break a stick of +sealing wax. And then in the golden afternoon a really quite horrid +thing happened: Jimmy suddenly leaned backwards, then forwards, his eyes +opened wide and his mouth too. Backward and forward he went, very +quickly and abruptly, then stood still. + +"Oh, he's in a fit! Oh, Jimmy, dear Jimmy!" cried Kathleen, hurrying to +him. "What is it, dear, what is it?" + +"It's _not_ a fit," gasped Jimmy angrily. "She shook me." + +[Illustration: BACKWARD AND FORWARD HE WENT.] + +"Yes," said the voice of the Princess, "and I'll shake him again if he +keeps on saying he can't see me." + +"You'd better shake _me_," said Gerald angrily. "I'm nearer your own +size." + +And instantly she did. But not for long. The moment Gerald felt hands on +his shoulders he put up his own and caught those other hands by the +wrists. And there he was, holding wrists that he couldn't see. It was a +dreadful sensation. An invisible kick made him wince, but he held tight +to the wrists. + +"Cathy," he cried, "come and hold her legs; she's kicking me." + +"Where?" cried Kathleen, anxious to help. "I don't _see_ any legs." + +"This is her hands I've got," cried Gerald. "She _is_ invisible right +enough. Get hold of this hand, and then you can feel your way down to +her legs." + +Kathleen did so. I wish I could make you understand how very, very +uncomfortable and frightening it is to feel, in broad daylight, hands +and arms that you can't see. + +"I _won't_ have you hold my legs," said the invisible Princess, +struggling violently. + +"What are you so cross about?" Gerald was quite calm. "You said you'd be +invisible, and you _are_." + +"I'm not." + +"You are really. Look in the glass." + +"I'm not; I can't be." + +"Look in the glass," Gerald repeated, quite unmoved. + +"Let go, then," she said. + +Gerald did, and the moment he had done so he found it impossible to +believe that he really had been holding invisible hands. + +"You're just pretending not to see me," said the Princess anxiously, +"aren't you? Do say you are. You've had your joke with me. Don't keep it +up. I don't like it." + +"On our sacred word of honour," said Gerald, "you're still invisible." + +There was a silence. Then, "Come," said the Princess. "I'll let you out, +and you can go. I'm tired of playing with you." + +They followed her voice to the door, and through it, and along the +little passage into the hall. No one said anything. Every one felt very +uncomfortable. + +"Let's get out of this," whispered Jimmy as they got to the end of the +hall. + +But the voice of the Princess said: "Come out this way; it's quicker. I +think you're perfectly hateful. I'm sorry I ever played with you. Mother +always told me not to play with strange children." + +A door abruptly opened, though no hand was seen to touch it. "Come +through, can't you!" said the voice of the Princess. + +It was a little ante-room, with long, narrow mirrors between its long, +narrow windows. + +"Goodbye," said Gerald. "Thanks for giving us such a jolly time. Let's +part friends," he added, holding out his hand. + +An unseen hand was slowly put in his, which closed on it, vice-like. + +"Now," he said, "you've jolly well _got_ to look in the glass and own +that we're not liars." + +He led the invisible Princess to one of the mirrors, and held her in +front of it by the shoulders. + +"Now," he said, "you just look for yourself." + +There was a silence, and then a cry of despair rang through the room. + +"Oh--oh--oh! I _am_ invisible. Whatever shall I do?" + +"Take the ring off," said Kathleen, suddenly practical. + +Another silence. + +"I _can't_!" cried the Princess. "It won't come off. But it can't be the +ring; rings don't make you invisible." + +"You said this one did," said Kathleen, "and it has." + +"But it _can't_," said the Princess. "I was only playing at magic. I +just hid in the secret cupboard--it was only a game. Oh, whatever +_shall_ I do?" + +"A game?" said Gerald slowly; "but you _can_ do magic--the invisible +jewels, and you made them come visible." + +"Oh, it's only a secret spring and the panelling slides up. Oh, what am +I to do?" + +Kathleen moved towards the voice and gropingly got her arms round a +pink-silk waist that she couldn't see. Invisible arms clasped her, a hot +invisible cheek was laid against hers, and warm invisible tears lay wet +between the two faces. + +"Don't cry, dear," said Kathleen; "let me go and tell the King and +Queen." + +"The----?" + +"Your royal father and mother." + +"Oh, _don't_ mock me!" said the poor Princess. "You _know_ that was only +a game, too, like----" + +"Like the bread and cheese," said Jimmy triumphantly. "I knew _that_ +was!" + +"But your dress and being asleep in the maze, and----" + +"Oh, I dressed up for fun, because every one's away at the fair, and I +put the clue just to make it all more real. I was playing at Fair +Rosamond first, and then I heard you talking in the maze, and I thought +what fun; and now I'm invisible, and I shall never come right again, +never--I know I shan't! It serves me right for lying, but I didn't +really think you'd believe it--not more than half, that is," she added +hastily, trying to be truthful. + +"But if you're not the Princess, who _are_ you?" asked Kathleen, still +embracing the unseen. + +"I'm--my aunt lives here," said the invisible Princess. "She may be home +any time. Oh, what shall I do?" + +"Perhaps she knows some charm----" + +"Oh, nonsense!" said the voice sharply; "she doesn't believe in charms. +She _would_ be so vexed. Oh, I daren't let her see me like this!" she +added wildly. "And all of you here, too. She'd be so dreadfully cross." + +The beautiful magic castle that the children had believed in now felt +as though it were tumbling about their ears. All that was left was the +invisibleness of the Princess. But that, you will own, was a good deal. + +"I just said it," moaned the voice, "and it came true. I wish I'd never +played at magic--I wish I'd never played at anything at all." + +"Oh, don't say that," Gerald said kindly. "Let's go out into the garden, +near the lake, where it's cool, and we'll hold a solemn council. You'll +like that, won't you?" + +"Oh!" cried Kathleen suddenly, "the buckle; that makes magic come +undone!" + +"It doesn't _really_," murmured the voice that seemed to speak without +lips. "I only just _said_ that." + +"You only 'just said' about the ring," said Gerald. "Anyhow, let's try." + +"Not _you_--_me_," said the voice. "You go down to the Temple of Flora, +by the lake. I'll go back to the jewel-room by myself. Aunt might see +you." + +"She won't see _you_," said Jimmy. + +"Don't rub it in," said Gerald. "Where _is_ the Temple of Flora?" + +"That's the way," the voice said; "down those steps and along the +winding path through the shrubbery. You can't miss it. It's white +marble, with a statue goddess inside." + +The three children went down to the white marble Temple of Flora that +stood close against the side of the little hill, and sat down in its +shadowy inside. It had arches all round except against the hill behind +the statue, and it was cool and restful. + +They had not been there five minutes before the feet of a runner sounded +loud on the gravel. A shadow, very black and distinct, fell on the white +marble floor. + +"Your shadow's not invisible anyhow," said Jimmy. + +"Oh, bother my shadow!" the voice of the Princess replied. "We left the +key inside the door, and it's shut itself with the wind, and it's a +spring lock!" + +There was a heartfelt pause. + +Then Gerald said, in his most business-like manner: + +"Sit down, Princess, and we'll have a thorough good palaver about it." + +"I shouldn't wonder," said Jimmy, "if we was to wake up and find it was +dreams." + +"No such luck," said the voice. + +"Well," said Gerald, "first of all, what's your name, and if you're not +a Princess, who are you?" + +"I'm--I'm," said a voice broken with sobs, "I'm +the--housekeeper's--niece--at--the--castle--and my name's Mabel Prowse." + +"That's exactly what I thought," said Jimmy, without a shadow of truth, +because how could he? The others were silent. It was a moment full of +agitation and confused ideas. + +"Well, anyhow," said Gerald, "you belong here." + +[Illustration: "YOUR SHADOW'S NOT INVISIBLE, ANYHOW," SAID JIMMY.] + +"Yes," said the voice, and it came from the floor, as though its owner +had flung herself down in the madness of despair. "Oh yes, I belong here +right enough, but what's the use of belonging anywhere if you're +invisible?" + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +THOSE of my readers who have gone about much with an invisible companion +will not need to be told how awkward the whole business is. For one +thing, however much you may have been convinced that your companion _is_ +invisible, you will, I feel sure, have found yourself every now and then +saying, "This _must_ be a dream!" or "I _know_ I shall wake up in half a +sec!" And this was the case with Gerald, Kathleen, and Jimmy as they sat +in the white marble Temple of Flora, looking out through its arches at +the sunshiny park and listening to the voice of the enchanted Princess, +who really was not a Princess at all, but just the housekeeper's niece, +Mabel Prowse; though, as Jimmy said, "she was enchanted, right enough." + +"It's no use talking," she said again and again, and the voice came from +an empty-looking space between two pillars; "I never believed anything +would happen, and now it has." + +"Well," said Gerald kindly, "can we do anything for you? Because, if +not, I think we ought to be going." + +"Yes," said Jimmy; "I _do_ want my tea!" + +"Tea!" said the unseen Mabel scornfully. "Do you mean to say you'd go +off to your teas and leave me after getting me into this mess?" + +"Well, of all the unfair Princesses I ever met!" Gerald began. But +Kathleen interrupted. + +"Oh, don't rag her," she said. "Think how horrid it must be to be +invisible!" + +"I don't think," said the hidden Mabel, "that my aunt likes me very much +as it is. She wouldn't let me go to the fair because I'd forgotten to +put back some old trumpery shoe that Queen Elizabeth wore--I got it out +from the glass case to try it on." + +"Did it fit?" asked Kathleen, with interest. + +"Not it--much too small," said Mabel. "I don't believe it ever fitted +any one." + +"I do want my tea!" said Jimmy. + +"I do really think perhaps we ought to go," said Gerald. "You see, it +isn't as if we could do anything for you." + +"You'll have to tell your aunt," said Kathleen kindly. + +"No, no, no!" moaned Mabel invisibly; "take me with you. I'll leave her +a note to say I've run away to sea." + +"Girls don't run away to sea." + +"They might," said the stone floor between the pillars, "as stowaways, +if nobody wanted a cabin boy--cabin girl, I mean." + +"I'm sure you oughtn't," said Kathleen firmly. + +"Well, what _am_ I to do?" + +"Really," said Gerald, "I don't know what the girl _can_ do. Let her +come home with us and have----" + +"Tea--oh, yes," said Jimmy, jumping up. + +"And have a good council." + +"After tea," said Jimmy. + +"But her aunt'll find she's gone." + +"So she would if I stayed." + +"Oh, come on," said Jimmy. + +"But the aunt'll think something's happened to her." + +"So it has." + +"And she'll tell the police, and they'll look everywhere for me." + +"They'll never find you," said Gerald. "Talk of impenetrable disguises!" + +"I'm sure," said Mabel, "aunt would much rather never see me again than +see me like this. She'd never get over it; it might kill her--she has +spasms as it is. I'll write to her, and we'll put it in the big +letter-box at the gate as we go out. Has any one got a bit of pencil and +a scrap of paper?" + +Gerald had a note-book, with leaves of the shiny kind which you have to +write on, not with a blacklead pencil, but with an ivory thing with a +point of real lead. And it won't write on any other paper except the +kind that is in the book, and this is often very annoying when you are +in a hurry. Then was seen the strange spectacle of a little ivory stick, +with a leaden point, standing up at an odd, impossible-looking slant, +and moving along all by itself as ordinary pencils do when you are +writing with them. + +"May we look over?" asked Kathleen. + +There was no answer. The pencil went on writing. + +"Mayn't we look over?" Kathleen said again. + +"Of course you may!" said the voice near the paper. "I nodded, didn't I? +Oh, I forgot, my nodding's invisible too." + +The pencil was forming round, clear letters on the page torn out of the +note-book. This is what it wrote:-- + + "DEAR AUNT,-- + + "I am afraid you will not see me again for some + time. A lady in a motor-car has adopted me, and we + are going straight to the coast and then in a + ship. It is useless to try to follow me. Farewell, + and may you be happy. I hope you enjoyed the fair. + + "MABEL." + +"But that's all lies," said Jimmy bluntly. + +"No, it isn't; it's fancy," said Mabel. "If I said I've become +invisible, she'd think that was a lie, anyhow." + +"Oh, _come_ along," said Jimmy; "you can quarrel just as well walking." + +Gerald folded up the note as a lady in India had taught him to do years +before, and Mabel led them by another and very much nearer way out of +the park. And the walk home was a great deal shorter, too, than the walk +out had been. + +The sky had clouded over while they were in the Temple of Flora, and the +first spots of rain fell as they got back to the house, very late indeed +for tea. + +Mademoiselle was looking out of the window, and came herself to open the +door. + +"But it is that you are in lateness, in lateness!" she cried. "You have +had a misfortune--no? All goes well?" + +"We are very sorry indeed," said Gerald. "It took us longer to get home +than we expected. I do hope you haven't been anxious. I have been +thinking about you most of the way home." + +"Go, then," said the French lady, smiling; "you shall have them in the +same time--the tea and the supper." + +Which they did. + +"How _could_ you say you were thinking about her all the time?" said a +voice just by Gerald's ear, when Mademoiselle had left them alone with +the bread and butter and milk and baked apples. "It was just as much a +lie as me being adopted by a motor lady." + +"No, it wasn't," said Gerald, through bread and butter. "I _was_ +thinking about whether she'd be in a wax or not. So there!" + +[Illustration: IT WAS RATHER HORRID TO SEE THE BREAD AND BUTTER WAVING +ABOUT IN THE AIR.] + +There were only three plates, but Jimmy let Mabel have his, and shared +with Kathleen. It was rather horrid to see the bread and butter waving +about in the air, and bite after bite disappearing from it apparently by +no human agency; and the spoon rising with apple in it and returning to +the plate empty. Even the tip of the spoon disappeared as long as it was +in Mabel's unseen mouth; so that at times it looked as though its bowl +had been broken off. + +Every one was very hungry, and more bread and butter had to be fetched. +Cook grumbled when the plate was filled for the third time. + +"I tell you what," said Jimmy; "I did want my tea." + +"I tell _you_ what," said Gerald; "it'll be jolly difficult to give +Mabel any breakfast. Mademoiselle will be here then. She'd have a fit if +she saw bits of forks with bacon on them vanishing, and then the forks +coming back out of vanishment, and the bacon lost for ever." + +"We shall have to buy things to eat and feed our poor captive in +secret," said Kathleen. + +"Our money won't last long," said Jimmy, in gloom. "Have _you_ got any +money?" + +He turned to where a mug of milk was suspended in the air without +visible means of support. + +"I've not got much money," was the reply from near the milk, "but I've +got heaps of ideas." + +"We must talk about everything in the morning," said Kathleen. "We must +just say good-night to Mademoiselle, and then you shall sleep in my bed, +Mabel. I'll lend you one of my nightgowns." + +"I'll get my own to-morrow," said Mabel cheerfully. + +"You'll go back to get things?" + +"Why not? Nobody can see me. I think I begin to see all sorts of amusing +things coming along. It's not half bad being invisible." + +It was extremely odd, Kathleen thought, to see the Princess's clothes +coming out of nothing. First the gauzy veil appeared hanging in the air. +Then the sparkling coronet suddenly showed on the top of the chest of +drawers. Then a sleeve of the pinky gown showed, then another, and then +the whole gown lay on the floor in a glistening ring as the unseen legs +of Mabel stepped out of it. For each article of clothing became visible +as Mabel took it off. The nightgown, lifted from the bed, disappeared a +bit at a time. + +"Get into bed," said Kathleen, rather nervously. + +The bed creaked and a hollow appeared in the pillow. Kathleen put out +the gas and got into bed; all this magic had been rather upsetting, and +she was just the least bit frightened, but in the dark she found it was +not so bad. Mabel's arms went round her neck the moment she got into +bed, and the two little girls kissed in the kind darkness, where the +visible and the invisible could meet on equal terms. + +"Good-night," said Mabel. "You're a darling, Cathy; you've been most +awfully good to me, and I sha'n't forget it. I didn't like to say so +before the boys, because I know boys think you're a muff if you're +grateful. But I _am_. Good-night." + +Kathleen lay awake for some time. She was just getting sleepy when she +remembered that the maid who would call them in the morning would see +those wonderful Princess clothes. + +"I'll have to get up and hide them," she said. "What a bother!" + +And as she lay thinking what a bother it was she happened to fall +asleep, and when she woke again it was bright morning, and Eliza was +standing in front of the chair where Mabel's clothes lay, gazing at the +pink Princess-frock that lay on the top of her heap and saying, "Law!" + +"Oh, don't touch, _please_!" Kathleen leaped out of bed as Eliza was +reaching out her hand. + +"Where on earth did you get hold of that?" + +"We're going to use it for acting," said Kathleen, on the desperate +inspiration of the moment. "It's lent me for that." + +"You might show _me_, miss," suggested Eliza. + +"Oh, please not!" said Kathleen, standing in front of the chair in her +nightgown. "You shall see us act when we are dressed up. There! And you +won't tell any one, will you?" + +"Not if you're a good little girl," said Eliza. "But you be sure to let +me see when you _do_ dress up. But where----" + +Here a bell rang and Eliza had to go, for it was the postman, and she +particularly wanted to see him. + +"And now," said Kathleen, pulling on her first stocking, "we shall have +to _do_ the acting. Everything seems very difficult." + +"Acting isn't," said Mabel; and an unsupported stocking waved in the air +and quickly vanished. "I shall love it." + +"You forget," said Kathleen gently, "invisible actresses can't take part +in plays unless they're magic ones." + +"Oh," cried a voice from under a petticoat that hung in the air, "I've +got _such_ an idea!" + +"Tell it us after breakfast," said Kathleen, as the water in the basin +began to splash about and to drip from nowhere back into itself. "And +oh! I do wish you hadn't written such whoppers to your aunt. I'm sure we +oughtn't to tell lies for anything." + +"What's the use of telling the truth if nobody believes you?" came from +among the splashes. + +"I don't know," said Kathleen, "but I'm sure we ought to tell the +truth." + +"_You_ can, if you like," said a voice from the folds of a towel that +waved lonely in front of the wash-hand stand. + +"All right. We will, then, first thing after brek--_your_ brek, I mean. +You'll have to wait up here till we can collar something and bring it +up to you. Mind you dodge Eliza when she comes to make the bed." + +The invisible Mabel found this a fairly amusing game; she further +enlivened it by twitching out the corners of tucked-up sheets and +blankets when Eliza wasn't looking. + +"Drat the clothes!" said Eliza; "anyone ud think the things was +bewitched." + +She looked about for the wonderful Princess clothes she had glimpsed +earlier in the morning. But Kathleen had hidden them in a perfectly safe +place under the mattress, which she knew Eliza never turned. + +Eliza hastily brushed up from the floor those bits of fluff which come +from goodness knows where in the best regulated houses. Mabel, very +hungry and exasperated at the long absence of the others at their +breakfast, could not forbear to whisper suddenly in Eliza's ear:-- + +"Always sweep under the mats." + +The maid started and turned pale. "I must be going silly," she murmured; +"though it's just what mother always used to say. Hope I ain't going +dotty, like Aunt Emily. Wonderful what you can fancy, ain't it?" + +She took up the hearth-rug all the same, swept under it, and under the +fender. So thorough was she, and so pale, that Kathleen, entering with a +chunk of bread raided by Gerald from the pantry window, exclaimed:-- + +"Not done yet. I say, Eliza, you do look ill! What's the matter?" + +"I thought I'd give the room a good turn-out," said Eliza, still very +pale. + +"Nothing's happened to upset you?" Kathleen asked. She had her own +private fears. + +"Nothing only my fancy, miss," said Eliza. "I always was fanciful from a +child--dreaming of the pearly gates and them little angels with nothing +on only their heads and wings--so cheap to dress, I always think, +compared with children." + +When she was got rid of, Mabel ate the bread and drank water from the +tooth-mug. + +"I'm afraid it tastes of cherry tooth-paste rather," said Kathleen +apologetically. + +"It doesn't matter," a voice replied from the tilted mug; "it's more +interesting than water. I should think red wine in ballads was rather +like this." + +"We've got leave for the day again," said Kathleen, when the last bit of +bread had vanished, "and Gerald feels like I do about lies. So we're +going to tell your aunt where you really are." + +"She won't believe you." + +"That doesn't matter, if we speak the truth," said Kathleen primly. + +"I expect you'll be sorry for it," said Mabel; "but come on--and, I say, +do be careful not to shut me in the door as you go out. You nearly did +just now." + +In the blazing sunlight that flooded the High Street four shadows to +three children seemed dangerously noticeable. A butcher's boy looked far +too earnestly at the extra shadow, and his big, liver-coloured lurcher +snuffed at the legs of that shadow's mistress and whined uncomfortably. + +"Get behind me," said Kathleen; "then our two shadows will look like +one." + +But Mabel's shadow, very visible, fell on Kathleen's back, and the +ostler of the Davenant Arms looked up to see what big bird had cast that +big shadow. + +A woman driving a cart with chickens and ducks in it called out:-- + +"Halloa, missy, ain't you blacked yer back neither! What you been +leaning up against?" + +Every one was glad when they got out of the town. + +Speaking the truth to Mabel's aunt did not turn out at all as any +one--even Mabel--expected. The aunt was discovered reading a pink +novelette at the window of the housekeeper's room, which, framed in +clematis and green creepers, looked out on a nice little courtyard to +which Mabel led the party. + +"Excuse me," said Gerald, "but I believe you've lost your niece?" + +"Not lost, my boy," said the aunt, who was spare and tall, with a drab +fringe and a very genteel voice. + +"We could tell you something about her," said Gerald. + +[Illustration: "HALLOA, MISSY, AIN'T YOU BLACKED YER BACK, NEITHER!"] + +"Now," replied the aunt, in a warning voice, "no complaints, please. My +niece has gone, and I am sure no one thinks less than I do of her little +pranks. If she's played any tricks on you it's only her light-hearted +way. Go away, children, I'm busy." + +"Did you get her note?" asked Kathleen. + +The aunt showed rather more interest than before, but she still kept her +finger in the novelette. + +"Oh," she said, "so you witnessed her departure? Did she seem glad to +go?" + +"Quite," said Gerald truthfully. + +"Then I can only be glad that she is provided for," said the aunt. "I +dare say you were surprised. These romantic adventures do occur in our +family. Lord Yalding selected me out of eleven applicants for the post +of housekeeper here. I've not the slightest doubt the child was changed +at birth and her rich relatives have claimed her." + +"But aren't you going to do anything--tell the police, or----" + +"Shish!" said Mabel. + +"_I_ won't shish," said Jimmy. "Your Mabel's invisible--that's all it +is. She's just beside me now." + +"I detest untruthfulness," said the aunt severely, "in all its forms. +Will you kindly take that little boy away? I am quite satisfied about +Mabel." + +"_Well_," said Gerald, "you _are_ an aunt and no mistake! But what will +Mabel's father and mother say?" + +"Mabel's father and mother are dead," said the aunt calmly, and a little +sob sounded close to Gerald's ear. + +"All right," he said, "we'll be off. But don't you go saying we didn't +tell you the truth, that's all." + +"You have told me nothing," said the aunt, "none of you, except that +little boy, who has told me a silly falsehood." + +"We meant well," said Gerald gently. "You don't mind our having come +through the grounds, do you? We're very careful not to touch anything." + +"No visitors are allowed," said the aunt, glancing down at her novel +rather impatiently. + +"Ah! but you wouldn't count _us_ visitors," said Gerald in his best +manner. "We're friends of Mabel's. Our father's Colonel of the --th." + +"Indeed!" said the aunt. + +"And our aunt's Lady Sandling, so you can be sure we wouldn't hurt +anything on the estate." + +"I'm sure you wouldn't hurt a fly," said the aunt absently. "Goodbye. Be +good children." + +And on this they got away quickly. + +"Why," said Gerald, when they were outside the little court, "your +aunt's as mad as a hatter. Fancy not caring what becomes of you, and +fancy believing that rot about the motor lady!" + +"I knew she'd believe it when I wrote it," said Mabel modestly. "She's +not mad, only she's always reading novelettes. _I_ read the books in the +big library. Oh, it's such a jolly room--such a queer smell, like boots, +and old leather books sort of powdery at the edges. I'll take you there +some day. Now your consciences are all right about my aunt, I'll tell +you my great idea. Let's get down to the Temple of Flora. I'm glad you +got aunt's permission for the grounds. It would be so awkward for you to +have to be always dodging behind bushes when one of the gardeners came +along." + +"Yes," said Gerald modestly, "I thought of that." + +The day was as bright as yesterday had been, and from the white marble +temple the Italian-looking landscape looked more than ever like a steel +engraving coloured by hand, or an oleographic imitation of one of +Turner's pictures. + +When the three children were comfortably settled on the steps that led +up to the white statue, the voice of the fourth child said sadly: "I'm +not ungrateful, but I'm rather hungry. And you can't be always taking +things for me through your larder window. If you like, I'll go back and +live in the castle. It's supposed to be haunted. I suppose I could haunt +it as well as any one else. I am a sort of ghost now, you know. I will +if you like." + +"Oh no," said Kathleen kindly; "you must stay with us." + +"But about food. I'm not ungrateful, really I'm not, but breakfast is +breakfast, and bread's only bread." + +"If you could get the ring off, you could go back." + +"Yes," said Mabel's voice, "but you see, I can't. I tried again last +night in bed, and again this morning. And it's like stealing, taking +things out of your larder--even if it's only bread." + +"Yes, it is," said Gerald, who had carried out this bold enterprise. + +"Well, now, what we must do is to earn some money." + +Jimmy remarked that this was all very well. But Gerald and Kathleen +listened attentively. + +"What I mean to say," the voice went on, "I'm really sure is all for the +best, me being invisible. We shall have adventures--you see if we +don't." + +"'Adventures,' said the bold buccaneer, 'are not always profitable.'" It +was Gerald who murmured this. + +"This one will be, anyhow, you see. Only you mustn't all go. Look here, +if Jerry could make himself look common----" + +"That ought to be easy," said Jimmy. And Kathleen told him not to be so +jolly disagreeable. + +"I'm not," said Jimmy, "only----" + +"Only he has an inside feeling that this Mabel of yours is going to get +us into trouble," put in Gerald. "Like La Belle Dame Sans Merci, and he +does not want to be found in future ages alone and palely loitering in +the middle of sedge and things." + +"I won't get you into trouble, indeed I won't," said the voice. "Why, +we're a band of brothers for life, after the way you stood by me +yesterday. What I mean is--Gerald can go to the fair and do conjuring." + +"He doesn't know any," said Kathleen. + +"_I_ should do it really," said Mabel, "but Jerry could look like doing +it. Move things without touching them and all that. But it wouldn't do +for all three of you to go. The more there are of children the younger +they look, I think, and the more people wonder what they're doing all +alone by themselves." + +"The accomplished conjurer deemed these the words of wisdom," said +Gerald; and answered the dismal "Well, but what about us?" of his +brother and sister by suggesting that they should mingle unsuspected +with the crowd. "But don't let on that you know me," he said; "and try +to look as if you belonged to some of the grown-ups at the fair. If you +don't, as likely as not you'll have the kind policemen taking the little +lost children by the hand and leading them home to their stricken +relations--French governess, I mean." + +"Let's go _now_," said the voice that they never could get quite used to +hearing, coming out of different parts of the air as Mabel moved from +one place to another. So they went. + +The fair was held on a waste bit of land, about half a mile from the +castle gates. When they got near enough to hear the steam-organ of the +merry-go-round, Gerald suggested that as he had ninepence he should go +ahead and get something to eat, the amount spent to be paid back out of +any money they might make by conjuring. The others waited in the shadows +of a deep-banked lane, and he came back, quite soon, though long after +they had begun to say what a long time he had been gone. He brought some +Barcelona nuts, red-streaked apples, small sweet yellow pears, pale +pasty gingerbread, a whole quarter of a pound of peppermint bull's-eyes, +and two bottles of gingerbeer. + +"It's what they call an investment," he said, when Kathleen said +something about extravagance. "We shall all need special nourishing to +keep our strength up, especially the bold conjurer." + +They ate and drank. It was a very beautiful meal, and the far-off music +of the steam-organ added the last touch of festivity to the scene. The +boys were never tired of seeing Mabel eat, or rather of seeing the +strange, magic-looking vanishment of food which was all that showed of +Mabel's eating. They were entranced by the spectacle, and pressed on her +more than her just share of the feast, just for the pleasure of seeing +it disappear. + +"My aunt!" said Gerald, again and again; "that ought to knock 'em!" + +It did. + +Jimmy and Kathleen had the start of the others, and when they got to the +fair they mingled with the crowd, and were as unsuspected as possible. + +They stood near a large lady who was watching the cocoanut shies, and +presently saw a strange figure with its hands in its pockets strolling +across the trampled yellowy grass among the bits of drifting paper and +the sticks and straws that always litter the ground of an English fair. +It was Gerald, but at first they hardly knew him. He had taken off his +tie, and round his head, arranged like a turban, was the crimson +school-scarf that had supported his white flannels. The tie, one +supposed, had taken on the duties of the handkerchief. And his face and +hands were a bright black, like very nicely polished stoves! + +Every one turned to look at him. + +"He's just like a nigger!" whispered Jimmy. "I don't suppose it'll ever +come off, do you?" + +They followed him at a distance, and when he went close to the door of a +small tent, against whose door-post a long-faced melancholy woman was +lounging, they stopped and tried to look as though they belonged to a +farmer who strove to send up a number by banging with a big mallet on a +wooden block. + +Gerald went up to the woman. + +"Taken much?" he asked, and was told, but not harshly, to go away with +his impudence. + +"I'm in business myself," said Gerald, "I'm a conjurer, from India." + +"Not you!" said the woman; "you ain't no nigger. Why, the backs of yer +ears is all white." + +"Are they?" said Gerald. "How clever of you to see that!" He rubbed them +with his hands. "That better?" + +"That's all right. What's your little game?" + +"Conjuring, really and truly," said Gerald. "There's smaller boys than +me put on to it in India. Look here, I owe you one for telling me about +my ears. If you like to run the show for me I'll go shares. Let me have +your tent to perform in, and you do the patter at the door." + +"Lor' love you! I can't do no patter. And you're getting at me. Let's +see you do a bit of conjuring, since you're so clever an' all." + +"Right you are," said Gerald firmly. "You see this apple? Well, I'll +make it move slowly through the air, and then when I say 'Go!' it'll +vanish." + +"Yes--into your mouth! Get away with your nonsense." + +"You're too clever to be so unbelieving," said Gerald. "Look here!" + +He held out one of the little apples, and the woman saw it move slowly +and unsupported along the air. + +"Now--_go_!" cried Gerald, to the apple, and it went. "How's that?" he +asked, in tones of triumph. + +The woman was glowing with excitement, and her eyes shone. "The best I +ever see!" she whispered. "I'm on, mate, if you know any more tricks +like that." + +"Heaps," said Gerald confidently; "hold out your hand." The woman held +it out; and from nowhere, as it seemed, the apple appeared and was laid +on her hand. The apple was rather damp. + +[Illustration: "YOU'RE GETTING AT ME. LET'S SEE YOU DO A BIT OF +CONJURING, SINCE YOU'RE SO CLEVER AN' ALL."] + +She looked at it a moment, and then whispered: "Come on! there's to be +no one in it but just us two. But not in the tent. You take a pitch +here, 'longside the tent. It's worth twice the money in the open air." + +"But people won't pay if they can see it all for nothing." + +"Not for the first turn, but they will after--you see. And you'll have +to do the patter." + +"Will you lend me your shawl?" Gerald asked. She unpinned it--it was a +red and black plaid--and he spread it on the ground as he had seen +Indian conjurers do, and seated himself cross-legged behind it. + +"I mustn't have any one behind me, that's all," he said; and the woman +hastily screened off a little enclosure for him by hanging old sacks to +two of the guy-ropes of the tent. "Now I'm ready," he said. The woman +got a drum from the inside of the tent and beat it. Quite soon a little +crowd had collected. + +"Ladies and gentlemen," said Gerald, "I come from India, and I can do a +conjuring entertainment the like of which you've never seen. When I see +two shillings on the shawl I'll begin." + +"I dare say you will!" said a bystander; and there were several short, +disagreeable laughs. + +"Of course," said Gerald, "if you can't afford two shillings between +you"--there were about thirty people in the crowd by now--"I say no +more." + +Two or three pennies fell on the shawl, then a few more, then the fall +of copper ceased. + +"Ninepence," said Gerald. "Well, I've got a generous nature. You'll get +such a nine-pennyworth as you've never had before. I don't wish to +deceive you--I have an accomplice, but my accomplice is invisible." + +The crowd snorted. + +"By the aid of that accomplice," Gerald went on, "I will read any letter +that any of you may have in your pocket. If one of you will just step +over the rope and stand beside me, my invisible accomplice will read +that letter over his shoulder." + +A man stepped forward, a ruddy-faced, horsy-looking person. He pulled a +letter from his pocket and stood plain in the sight of all, in a place +where every one saw that no one could see over his shoulder. + +"Now!" said Gerald. There was a moment's pause. Then from quite the +other side of the enclosure came a faint, far-away, sing-song voice. It +said:-- + +"'SIR,--Yours of the fifteenth duly to hand. With regard to the mortgage +on your land, we regret our inability----'" + +"Stow it!" cried the man, turning threateningly on Gerald. + +He stepped out of the enclosure explaining that there was nothing of +that sort in his letter; but nobody believed him, and a buzz of +interested chatter began in the crowd, ceasing abruptly when Gerald +began to speak. + +"Now," said he, laying the nine pennies down on the shawl, "you keep +your eyes on those pennies, and one by one you'll see them disappear." + +[Illustration: "STOW IT!" CRIED THE MAN, TURNING THREATENINGLY ON +GERALD.] + +And of course they did. Then one by one they were laid down again by +the invisible hand of Mabel. The crowd clapped loudly. "Brayvo!" "That's +something like!" "Show us another!" cried the people in the front rank. +And those behind pushed forward. + +"Now," said Gerald, "you've seen what I can do, but I don't do any more +till I see five shillings on this carpet." + +And in two minutes seven-and-threepence lay there and Gerald did a +little more conjuring. + +When the people in front didn't want to give any more money, Gerald +asked them to stand back and let the others have a look in. I wish I had +time to tell you of all the tricks he did--the grass round his enclosure +was absolutely trampled off by the feet of the people who thronged to +look at him. There is really hardly any limit to the wonders you can do +if you have an invisible accomplice. All sorts of things were made to +move about, apparently by themselves, and even to vanish--into the folds +of Mabel's clothing. The woman stood by, looking more and more pleasant +as she saw the money come tumbling in, and beating her shabby drum every +time Gerald stopped conjuring. + +The news of the conjurer had spread all over the fair. The crowd was +frantic with admiration. The man who ran the cocoanut shies begged +Gerald to throw in his lot with him; the owner of the rifle gallery +offered him free board and lodging and go shares; and a brisk, broad +lady, in stiff black silk and a violet bonnet, tried to engage him for +the forthcoming Bazaar for Reformed Bandsmen. + +And all this time the others mingled with the crowd--quite unobserved, +for who could have eyes for any one but Gerald? It was getting quite +late, long past tea-time, and Gerald, who was getting very tired indeed, +and was quite satisfied with his share of the money, was racking his +brains for a way to get out of it. + +"How are we to hook it?" he murmured, as Mabel made his cap disappear +from his head by the simple process of taking it off and putting it in +her pocket. "They'll never let us get away. I didn't think of that +before." + +"Let me think!" whispered Mabel; and next moment she said, close to his +ear: "Divide the money, and give her something for the shawl. Put the +money on it and say...." She told him what to say. + +Gerald's pitch was in the shade of the tent; otherwise, of course, every +one would have seen the shadow of the invisible Mabel as she moved about +making things vanish. + +Gerald told the woman to divide the money, which she did honestly +enough. + +"Now," he said, while the impatient crowd pressed closer and closer. +"I'll give you five bob for your shawl." + +"Seven-and-six," said the woman mechanically. + +"Righto!" said Gerald, putting his heavy share of the money in his +trouser pocket. + +"This shawl will now disappear," he said, picking it up. He handed it to +Mabel, who put it on; and, of course, it disappeared. A roar of +applause went up from the audience. + +"Now," he said, "I come to the last trick of all. I shall take three +steps backward and vanish." He took three steps backward, Mabel wrapped +the invisible shawl round him, and--he did not vanish. The shawl, being +invisible, did not conceal him in the least. + +"Yah!" cried a boy's voice in the crowd. "Look at 'im! 'E knows 'e can't +do it." + +"I wish I could put you in my pocket," said Mabel. The crowd was +crowding closer. At any moment they might touch Mabel, and then anything +might happen--simply anything. Gerald took hold of his hair with both +hands, as his way was when he was anxious or discouraged. Mabel, in +invisibility, wrung her hands, as people are said to do in books; that +is, she clasped them and squeezed very tight. + +"Oh!" she whispered suddenly, "it's loose. I can get it off." + +"Not----" + +"Yes--the ring." + +"Come on, young master. Give us summat for our money," a farm labourer +shouted. + +"I will," said Gerald. "This time I really will vanish. Slip round into +the tent," he whispered to Mabel. "Push the ring under the canvas. Then +slip out at the back and join the others. When I see you with them I'll +disappear. Go slow, and I'll catch you up." + += = = = = + +"It's me," said a pale and obvious Mabel in the ear of Kathleen. "He's +got the ring; come on, before the crowd begins to scatter." + +As they went out of the gate they heard a roar of surprise and annoyance +rise from the crowd, and knew that this time Gerald really _had_ +disappeared. + +They had gone a mile before they heard footsteps on the road, and looked +back. No one was to be seen. + +Next moment Gerald's voice spoke out of clear, empty-looking space. + +"Halloa!" it said gloomily. + +"How horrid!" cried Mabel; "you did make me jump! Take the ring off. It +makes me feel quite creepy, you being nothing but a voice." + +"So did you us," said Jimmy. + +"Don't take it off yet," said Kathleen, who was really rather thoughtful +for her age, "because you're still black, I suppose, and you might be +recognised, and eloped with by gipsies, so that you should go on doing +conjuring for ever and ever." + +"I should take it off," said Jimmy; "it's no use going about invisible, +and people seeing us with Mabel and saying we've eloped with her." + +"Yes," said Mabel impatiently, "that would be simply silly. And, +besides, I want my ring." + +"It's not yours any more than ours, anyhow," said Jimmy. + +"Yes, it is," said Mabel. + +"Oh, stow it!" said the weary voice of Gerald beside her. "What's the +use of jawing?" + +"I want the ring," said Mabel, rather mulishly. + +"Want"--the words came out of the still evening air--"want must be your +master. You can't have the ring. _I can't get it off!_" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +THE difficulty was not only that Gerald had got the ring on and couldn't +get it off, and was therefore invisible, but that Mabel, who had been +invisible and therefore possible to be smuggled into the house, was now +plain to be seen and impossible for smuggling purposes. + +The children would have not only to account for the apparent absence of +one of themselves, but for the obvious presence of a perfect stranger. + +"I can't go back to aunt. I can't and I won't," said Mabel firmly, "not +if I was visible twenty times over." + +"She'd smell a rat if you did." Gerald owned--"about the motor-car, I +mean, and the adopting lady. And what we're to say to Mademoiselle about +you----!" He tugged at the ring. + +"Suppose you told the truth," said Mabel meaningly. + +"She wouldn't believe it," said Cathy; "or, if she did, she'd go stark, +staring, raving mad." + +"No," said Gerald's voice, "we daren't _tell_ her. But she's really +rather decent. Let's ask her to let you stay the night because it's too +late for you to get home." + +"That's all right," said Jimmy, "but what about you?" + +"I shall go to bed," said Gerald, "with a bad headache. Oh, _that's_ not +a lie! I've got one right enough. It's the sun, I think. I know +blacklead attracts the concentration of the sun." + +"More likely the pears and the gingerbread," said Jimmy unkindly. "Well, +let's get along. I wish it was me was invisible. I'd do something +different from going to bed with a silly headache, I know that." + +"What would you do?" asked the voice of Gerald just behind him. + +"Do keep in one place, you silly cuckoo!" said Jimmy. "You make me feel +all jumpy." He had indeed jumped rather violently. "Here, walk between +Cathy and me." + +"What _would_ you do?" repeated Gerald, from that apparently unoccupied +position. + +"I'd be a burglar," said Jimmy. + +Cathy and Mabel in one breath reminded him how wrong burgling was, and +Jimmy replied: + +"Well, then--a detective." + +"There's got to be something to detect before you can begin +detectiving," said Mabel. + +"Detectives don't always detect things," said Jimmy, very truly. "If I +couldn't be any other kind I'd be a baffled detective. You could be one +all right, and have no end of larks just the same. Why don't you do it?" + +"It's exactly what I _am_ going to do," said Gerald. "We'll go round by +the police-station and see what they've got in the way of crimes." + +They did, and read the notices on the board outside. Two dogs had been +lost, a purse, and a portfolio of papers "of no value to any but the +owner." Also Houghton Grange had been broken into and a quantity of +silver plate stolen. "Twenty pounds reward offered for any information +that may lead to the recovery of the missing property." + +"That burglary's my lay," said Gerald; "I'll detect that. Here comes +Johnson," he added; "he's going off duty. Ask him about it." The fell +detective, being invisible, was unable to pump the constable, but the +young brother of our hero made the inquiries in quite a creditable +manner. "Be creditable, Jimmy." + +Jimmy hailed the constable. + +"Halloa, Johnson!" he said. + +And Johnson replied: "Halloa, young shaver!" + +"Shaver yourself!" said Jimmy, but without malice. + +"What are you doing this time of night?" the constable asked jocosely. +"All the dicky birds is gone to their little nesteses." + +"We've been to the fair," said Kathleen. "There was a conjurer there. I +wish you could have seen him." + +"Heard about him," said Johnson; "all fake, you know. The quickness of +the 'and deceives the hi." + +Such is fame. Gerald, standing in the shadow, jingled the loose money in +his pocket to console himself. + +"What's that?" the policeman asked quickly. + +[Illustration: "WHAT'S THAT?" THE POLICEMAN ASKED QUICKLY.] + +"Our money jingling," said Jimmy, with perfect truth. + +"It's well to be some people," Johnson remarked; "wish I'd got my +pockets full to jingle with." + +"Well, why haven't you?" asked Mabel. "Why don't you get that twenty +pounds reward?" + +"I'll tell you why I don't. Because in this 'ere realm of liberty, and +Britannia ruling the waves, you aint allowed to arrest a chap on +suspicion, even if you know puffickly well who done the job." + +"What a shame!" said Jimmy warmly. "And who _do_ you think did it?" + +"I don't think--I know." Johnson's voice was ponderous as his boots. +"It's a man what's known to the police on account of a heap o' crimes +he's done, but we never can't bring it 'ome to 'im, nor yet get +sufficient evidence to convict." + +"Well," said Jimmy, "when I've left school I'll come to you and be +apprenticed, and be a detective. Just now I think we'd better get home +and detect our supper. Good-night!" + +They watched the policeman's broad form disappear through the swing door +of the police-station; and as it settled itself into quiet again the +voice of Gerald was heard complaining bitterly. + +"You've no more brains than a halfpenny bun," he said: "no details about +how and when the silver was taken." + +"But he told us he knew," Jimmy urged. + +"Yes, that's all you've got out of him. A silly policeman's silly idea. +Go home and detect your precious supper! It's all you're fit for." + +"What'll you do about supper?" Mabel asked. + +"Buns!" said Gerald, "halfpenny buns. They'll make me think of my dear +little brother and sister. Perhaps you've got enough sense to buy buns? +I can't go into a shop in this state." + +"Don't you be so disagreeable," said Mabel with spirit. "We did our +best. If I were Cathy you should whistle for your nasty buns." + +"If you were Cathy the gallant young detective would have left home long +ago. Better the cabin of a tramp steamer than the best family mansion +that's got a brawling sister in it," said Gerald. "You're a bit of an +outsider at present, my gentle maiden. Jimmy and Cathy know well enough +when their bold leader is chaffing and when he isn't." + +"Not when we can't see your face we don't," said Cathy, in tones of +relief. "I really thought you were in a flaring wax, and so did Jimmy, +didn't you?" + +"Oh, rot!" said Gerald. "Come on! This way to the bun shop." + +They went. And it was while Cathy and Jimmy were in the shop and the +others were gazing through the glass at the jam tarts and Swiss rolls +and Victoria sandwiches and Bath buns under the spread yellow muslin in +the window, that Gerald discoursed in Mabel's ear of the plans and +hopes of one entering on a detective career. + +"I shall keep my eyes open to-night, I can tell you," he began. "I shall +keep my eyes skinned, and no jolly error. The invisible detective may +not only find out about the purse and the silver, but detect some crime +that isn't even done yet. And I shall hang about until I see some +suspicious-looking characters leave the town, and follow them furtively +and catch them red-handed, with their hands full of priceless jewels, +and hand them over." + +"Oh!" cried Mabel, so sharply and suddenly that Gerald was roused from +his dream to express sympathy. + +"Pain?" he said quite kindly. "It's the apples--they _were_ rather +hard." + +"Oh, it's not that," said Mabel very earnestly. "Oh, how awful! I never +thought of that before." + +"Never thought of _what_?" Gerald asked impatiently. + +"The window." + +"What window?" + +"The panelled-room window. At home, you know--at the castle. That +settles it--I _must_ go home. We left it open and the shutters as well, +and all the jewels and things there. Auntie'll never go in; she never +does. That settles it; I _must_ go home--now--this minute." + +Here the others issued from the shop, bun-bearing, and the situation was +hastily explained to them. + +[Illustration: "I _MUST_ GO HOME--NOW--THIS MINUTE."] + +"So you see I must go," Mabel ended. + +And Kathleen agreed that she must. + +But Jimmy said he didn't see what good it would do. "Because the key's +inside the door, anyhow." + +"She _will_ be cross," said Mabel sadly. "She'll have to get the +gardeners to get a ladder and----" + +"Hooray!" said Gerald. "Here's me! Nobler and more secret than gardeners +or ladders was the invisible Jerry. I'll climb in at the window--it's +all ivy, I know I could--and shut the window and the shutters all +sereno, put the key back on the nail, and slip out unperceived the back +way, threading my way through the maze of unconscious retainers. +There'll be plenty of time. I don't suppose burglars begin their fell +work until the night is far advanced." + +"Won't you be afraid?" Mabel asked. "Will it be safe--suppose you were +caught?" + +"As houses. I can't be," Gerald answered, and wondered that the question +came from Mabel and not from Kathleen, who was usually inclined to fuss +a little annoyingly about the danger and folly of adventures. + +But all Kathleen said was, "Well, goodbye: we'll come and see you +to-morrow, Mabel. The floral temple at half-past ten. I hope you won't +get into an awful row about the motor-car lady." + +"Let's detect our supper now," said Jimmy. + +"All right," said Gerald a little bitterly. It is hard to enter on an +adventure like this and to find the sympathetic interest of years +suddenly cut off at the meter, as it were. Gerald felt that he ought, at +a time like this, to have been the centre of interest. And he wasn't. +They could actually talk about supper. Well, let them. He didn't care! +He spoke with sharp sternness: "Leave the pantry window undone for me to +get in by when I've done my detecting. Come on, Mabel." He caught her +hand. "Bags I the buns, though," he added, by a happy afterthought, and +snatching the bag, pressed it on Mabel, and the sound of four boots +echoed on the pavement of the High Street as the outlines of the running +Mabel grew small with distance. + += = = = = + +Mademoiselle was in the drawing-room. She was sitting by the window in +the waning light reading letters. + +"Ah, _vous voici_!" she said unintelligibly. "You are again late; and my +little Gerald, where is he?" + +This was an awful moment. Jimmy's detective scheme had not included any +answer to this inevitable question. The silence was unbroken till Jimmy +spoke. + +"He _said_ he was going to bed because he had a headache." And this, of +course, was true. + +"This poor Gerald!" said Mademoiselle. "Is it that I should mount him +some supper?" + +"He never eats anything when he's got one of his headaches," Kathleen +said. And this also was the truth. + +Jimmy and Kathleen went to bed, wholly untroubled by anxiety about their +brother, and Mademoiselle pulled out the bundle of letters and read them +amid the ruins of the simple supper. + += = = = = + +"It is ripping being out late like this," said Gerald through the soft +summer dusk. + +"Yes," said Mabel, a solitary-looking figure plodding along the +high-road. "I do hope auntie won't be _very_ furious." + +"Have another bun," suggested Gerald kindly, and a sociable munching +followed. + +It was the aunt herself who opened to a very pale and trembling Mabel +the door which is appointed for the entrances and exits of the domestic +staff at Yalding Towers. She looked over Mabel's head first, as if she +expected to see some one taller. Then a very small voice said:-- + +"Aunt!" + +The aunt started back, then made a step towards Mabel. + +"You naughty, naughty girl!" she cried angrily; "how could you give me +such a fright? I've a good mind to keep you in bed for a week for this, +miss. Oh, Mabel, thank Heaven you're safe!" And with that the aunt's +arms went round Mabel and Mabel's round the aunt in such a hug as they +had never met in before. + +"But you didn't seem to care a bit this morning," said Mabel, when she +had realised that her aunt really had been anxious, really was glad to +have her safe home again. + +"How do you know?" + +"I was there listening. Don't be angry, auntie." + +"I feel as if I never could be angry with you again, now I've got you +safe," said the aunt surprisingly. + +"But how was it?" Mabel asked. + +"My dear," said the aunt impressively, "I've been in a sort of trance. I +think I must be going to be ill. I've always been fond of you, but I +didn't want to spoil you. But yesterday, about half-past three, I was +talking about you to Mr. Lewson, at the fair, and quite suddenly I felt +as if you didn't matter at all. And I felt the same when I got your +letter and when those children came. And to-day in the middle of tea I +suddenly woke up and realised that you were gone. It was awful. I think +I must be going to be ill. Oh, Mabel, why did you do it?" + +"It was--a joke," said Mabel feebly. And then the two went in and the +door was shut. + +"That's most uncommon odd," said Gerald, outside; "looks like more magic +to me. I don't feel as if we'd got to the bottom of this yet, by any +manner of means. There's more about this castle than meets the eye." + +There certainly was. For this castle happened to be--but it would not be +fair to Gerald to tell you more about it than he knew on that night when +he went alone and invisible through the shadowy great grounds of it to +look for the open window of the panelled room. He knew that night no +more than I have told you; but as he went along the dewy lawns and +through the groups of shrubs and trees, where pools lay like giant +looking-glasses reflecting the quiet stars, and the white limbs of +statues gleamed against a background of shadow, he began to feel--well, +not excited, not surprised, not anxious, but--different. + +The incident of the invisible Princess had surprised, the incident of +the conjuring had excited, and the sudden decision to be a detective had +brought its own anxieties; but all these happenings, though wonderful +and unusual, had seemed to be, after all, inside the circle of possible +things--wonderful as the chemical experiments are where two liquids +poured together make fire, surprising as legerdemain, thrilling as a +juggler's display, but nothing more. Only now a new feeling came to him +as he walked through those gardens; by day those gardens were like +dreams, at night they were like visions. He could not see his feet as he +walked, but he saw the movement of the dewy grass-blades that his feet +displaced. And he had that extraordinary feeling so difficult to +describe, and yet so real and so unforgettable--the feeling that he was +in another world, that had covered up and hidden the old world as a +carpet covers a floor. The floor was there all right, underneath, but +what he walked on was the carpet that covered it--and that carpet was +drenched in magic, as the turf was drenched in dew. + +The feeling was very wonderful; perhaps you will feel it some day. There +are still some places in the world where it can be felt, but they grow +fewer every year. + +The enchantment of the garden held him. + +"I'll not go in yet," he told himself; "it's too early. And perhaps I +shall never be here at night again. I suppose it _is_ the night that +makes everything look so different." + +Something white moved under a weeping willow; white hands parted the +long, rustling leaves. A white figure came out, a creature with horns +and goat's legs and the head and arms of a boy. And Gerald was not +afraid. That was the most wonderful thing of all, though he would never +have owned it. The white thing stretched its limbs, rolled on the grass, +righted itself, and frisked away across the lawn. Still something white +gleamed under the willow; three steps nearer and Gerald saw that it was +the pedestal of a statue--empty. + +"They come alive," he said; and another white shape came out of the +Temple of Flora and disappeared in the laurels. "The statues come +alive." + +[Illustration: THE MOVING STONE BEAST.] + +There was a crunching of the little stones in the gravel of the drive. +Something enormously long and darkly grey came crawling towards him, +slowly, heavily. The moon came out just in time to show its shape. It +was one of those great lizards that you see at the Crystal Palace, +made in stone, of the same awful size which they were millions of years +ago when they were masters of the world, before Man was. + +"It can't see me," said Gerald. "I am not afraid. _It's_ come to life, +too." + +As it writhed past him he reached out a hand and touched the side of its +gigantic tail. It was of stone. It had not "come alive," as he had +fancied, but _was_ alive in its stone. It turned, however, at the touch; +but Gerald also had turned, and was running with all his speed towards +the house. Because at that stony touch Fear had come into the garden and +almost caught him. It was Fear that he ran from, and not the moving +stone beast. + +He stood panting under the fifth window; when he had climbed to the +window-ledge by the twisted ivy that clung to the wall, he looked back +over the grey slope--there was a splashing at the fish-pool that had +mirrored the stars--the shape of the great stone beast was wallowing in +the shallows among the lily-pads. + +Once inside the room, Gerald turned for another look. The fish-pond lay +still and dark, reflecting the moon. Through a gap in the drooping +willow the moonlight fell on a statue that stood calm and motionless on +its pedestal. Everything was in its place now in the garden. Nothing +moved or stirred. + +"How extraordinarily rum!" said Gerald. "I shouldn't have thought you +_could_ go to sleep walking through a garden and dream--like that." + +He shut the window, lit a match, and closed the shutters. Another match +showed him the door. He turned the key, went out, locked the door again, +hung the key on its usual nail, and crept to the end of the passage. +Here he waited, safe in his invisibility, till the dazzle of the matches +should have gone from his eyes, and he be once more able to find his way +by the moonlight that fell in bright patches on the floor through the +barred, unshuttered windows of the hall. + +"Wonder where the kitchen is," said Gerald. He had quite forgotten that +he was a detective. He was only anxious to get home and tell the others +about that extraordinarily odd dream that he had had in the gardens. "I +suppose it doesn't matter _what_ doors I open. I'm invisible all right +still, I suppose? Yes; can't see my hand before my face." He held up a +hand for the purpose. "Here goes!" + +He opened many doors, wandered into long rooms with furniture dressed in +brown holland covers that looked white in that strange light, rooms with +chandeliers hanging in big bags from the high ceilings, rooms whose +walls were alive with pictures, rooms whose walls were deadened with +rows on rows of old books, state bedrooms in whose great plumed +four-posters Queen Elizabeth had no doubt slept. (That Queen, by the +way, must have been very little at home, for she seems to have slept in +every old house in England.) But he could not find the kitchen. At last +a door opened on stone steps that went up--there was a narrow stone +passage--steps that went down--a door with a light under it. It was, +somehow, difficult to put out one's hand to that door and open it. + +"Nonsense!" Gerald told himself; "don't be an ass! Are you invisible, or +aren't you?" + +Then he opened the door, and some one inside said something in a sudden +rough growl. + +Gerald stood back, flattened against the wall, as a man sprang to the +doorway and flashed a lantern into the passage. + +"All right," said the man, with almost a sob of relief. "It was only the +door swung open, it's that heavy--that's all." + +"Blow the door!" said another growling voice; "blessed if I didn't think +it was a fair cop that time." + +They closed the door again. Gerald did not mind. In fact, he rather +preferred that it should be so. He didn't like the look of those men. +There was an air of threat about them. In their presence even +invisibility seemed too thin a disguise. And Gerald had seen as much as +he wanted to see. He had seen that he had been right about the gang. By +wonderful luck--beginner's luck, a card-player would have told him--he +had discovered a burglary on the very first night of his detective +career. The men were taking silver out of two great chests, wrapping it +in rags, and packing it in baize sacks. The door of the room was of iron +six inches thick. It was, in fact, the strong-room, and these men had +picked the lock. The tools they had done it with lay on the floor, on a +neat cloth roll, such as wood-carvers keep their chisels in. + +"Hurry up!" Gerald heard. "You needn't take all night over it." + +The silver rattled slightly. "You're a rattling of them trays like +bloomin' castanets," said the gruffest voice. Gerald turned and went +away, very carefully and very quickly. And it is a most curious thing +that, though he couldn't find the way to the servants' wing when he had +nothing else to think of, yet now, with his mind full, so to speak, of +silver forks and silver cups, and the question of who might be coming +after him down those twisting passages, he went straight as an arrow to +the door that led from the hall to the place he wanted to get to. + +As he went the happenings took words in his mind. + +"The fortunate detective," he told himself, "having succeeded beyond his +wildest dreams, himself left the spot in search of assistance." + +But what assistance? There were, no doubt, men in the house, also the +aunt; but he could not warn them. He was too hopelessly invisible to +carry any weight with strangers. The assistance of Mabel would not be of +much value. The police? Before they could be got--and the getting of +them presented difficulties--the burglars would have cleared away with +their sacks of silver. + +[Illustration: THE MEN WERE TAKING SILVER OUT OF TWO GREAT CHESTS.] + +Gerald stopped and thought hard; he held his head with both hands to do +it. You know the way--the same as you sometimes do for simple +equations or the dates of the battles of the Civil War. + +Then with pencil, note-book, a window-ledge, and all the cleverness he +could find at the moment, he wrote:-- + + "_You know the room where the silver is. Burglars + are burgling it, the thick door is picked. Send a + man for police. I will follow the burglars if they + get away ere police arrive on the spot._" + +He hesitated a moment, and ended-- + + "_From a Friend--this is not a sell._" + +This letter, tied tightly round a stone by means of a shoe-lace, +thundered through the window of the room where Mabel and her aunt, in +the ardour of reunion, were enjoying a supper of unusual charm--stewed +plums, cream, sponge-cakes, custard in cups, and cold bread-and-butter +pudding. + +Gerald, in hungry invisibility, looked wistfully at the supper before he +threw the stone. He waited till the shrieks had died away, saw the stone +picked up, the warning letter read. + +"Nonsense!" said the aunt, growing calmer. "How wicked! Of course it's a +hoax." + +"Oh! do send for the police, like he says," wailed Mabel. + +"Like who says?" snapped the aunt. + +"Whoever it is," Mabel moaned. + +"Send for the police at once," said Gerald, outside, in the manliest +voice he could find. + +"You'll only blame yourself if you don't. I can't do any more for you." + +"I--I'll set the dogs on you!" cried the aunt. + +"Oh, auntie, _don't_!" Mabel was dancing with agitation. "It's true--I +know it's true. Do--do wake Bates!" + +"I don't believe a word of it," said the aunt. No more did Bates when, +owing to Mabel's persistent worryings, he was awakened. But when he had +seen the paper, and had to choose whether he'd go to the strong-room and +see that there really wasn't anything to believe or go for the police on +his bicycle, he chose the latter course. + +When the police arrived the strong-room door stood ajar, and the silver, +or as much of it as three men could carry, was gone. + +Gerald's note-book and pencil came into play again later on that night. +It was five in the morning before he crept into bed, tired out and cold +as a stone. + += = = = = + +"Master Gerald!"--it was Eliza's voice in his ears--"it's seven o'clock +and another fine day, and there's been another burglary---- My cats +alive!" she screamed, as she drew up the blind and turned towards the +bed; "look at his bed, all crocked with black, and him not there! Oh, +Jimminy!" It was a scream this time. Kathleen came running from her +room; Jimmy sat up in his bed and rubbed his eyes. + +"Whatever is it?" Kathleen cried. + +"I dunno when I 'ad such a turn." Eliza sat down heavily on a box as +she spoke. "First thing his bed all empty and black as the chimley back, +and him not in it, and then when I looks again he _is_ in it all the +time. I must be going silly. I thought as much when I heard them +haunting angel voices yesterday morning. But I'll tell Mam'selle of you, +my lad, with your tricks, you may rely on that. Blacking yourself all +over like a dirty nigger and crocking up your clean sheets and +pillow-cases. It's going back of beyond, this is." + +"Look here," said Gerald slowly; "I'm going to tell you something." + +Eliza simply snorted, and that was rude of her; but then, she had had a +shock and had not got over it. + +"Can you keep a secret?" asked Gerald, very earnest through the grey of +his partly rubbed-off blacklead. + +"Yes," said Eliza. + +"Then keep it and I'll give you two bob." + +"But what was you going to tell me?" + +"That. About the two bob and the secret. And you keep your mouth shut." + +"I didn't ought to take it," said Eliza, holding out her hand eagerly. +"Now you get up, and mind you wash all the corners, Master Gerald." + +"Oh, I'm so glad you're safe," said Kathleen, when Eliza had gone. + +"You didn't seem to care much last night," said Gerald coldly. + +"I can't think how I let you go. I didn't care last night. But when I +woke this morning and remembered!" + +"There, that'll do--it'll come off on you," said Gerald through the +reckless hugging of his sister. + +"How did you get visible?" Jimmy asked. + +"It just happened when she called me--the ring came off." + +"Tell us all about everything," said Kathleen. + +"Not yet," said Gerald mysteriously. + += = = = = + +"Where's the ring?" Jimmy asked after breakfast. "_I_ want to have a try +now." + +"I--I forgot it," said Gerald; "I expect it's in the bed somewhere." + +But it wasn't. Eliza had made the bed. + +"I'll swear there aint no ring there," she said. "I should 'a' seen it +if there had 'a' been." + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +"SEARCH and research proving vain," said Gerald, when every corner of +the bedroom had been turned out and the ring had not been found, "the +noble detective hero of our tale remarked that he would have other fish +to fry in half a jiff, and if the rest of you want to hear about last +night...." + +"Let's keep it till we get to Mabel," said Kathleen heroically. + +"The assignation was ten-thirty, wasn't it? Why shouldn't Gerald gas as +we go along? I don't suppose anything very much happened, anyhow." This, +of course, was Jimmy. + +"That shows," remarked Gerald sweetly, "how much _you_ know. The +melancholy Mabel will await the tryst without success, as far as this +one is concerned. 'Fish, fish, other fish--other fish I fry!'" he +warbled to the tune of "Cherry Ripe," till Kathleen could have pinched +him. + +Jimmy turned coldly away, remarking, "When you've quite done." + +But Gerald went on singing-- + + "'Where the lips of Johnson smile, + There's the land of Cherry Isle. + Other fish, other fish, + Fish I fry. + Stately Johnson, come and buy!'" + +"How can you," asked Kathleen, "be so aggravating?" + +"I don't know," said Gerald, returning to prose. "Want of sleep or +intoxication--of success, I mean. Come where no one can hear us. + + "Oh, come to some island where no one can hear, + And beware of the keyhole that's glued to an ear," + +he whispered, opened the door suddenly, and there, sure enough, was +Eliza, stooping without. She flicked feebly at the wainscot with a +duster, but concealment was vain. + +"You know what listeners never hear," said Jimmy severely. + +"I didn't, then--so there!" said Eliza, whose listening ears were +crimson. So they passed out, and up the High Street, to sit on the +churchyard wall and dangle their legs. And all the way Gerald's lips +were shut into a thin, obstinate line. + +"_Now_," said Kathleen. "Oh, Jerry, don't be a goat! I'm simply dying to +hear what happened." + +"That's better," said Gerald, and he told his story. As he told it some +of the white mystery and magic of the moonlit gardens got into his voice +and his words, so that when he told of the statues that came alive, and +the great beast that was alive through all its stone, Kathleen thrilled +responsive, clutching his arm, and even Jimmy ceased to kick the wall +with his boot heels, and listened open-mouthed. + +Then came the thrilling tale of the burglars, and the warning letter +flung into the peaceful company of Mabel, her aunt, and the +bread-and-butter pudding. Gerald told the story with the greatest +enjoyment and such fulness of detail that the church clock chimed +half-past eleven as he said, "Having done all that human agency could +do, and further help being despaired of, our gallant young detective---- +Hullo, there's Mabel!" + +There was. The tail-board of a cart shed her almost at their feet. + +"I couldn't wait any longer," she explained, "when you didn't come. And +I got a lift. Has anything more happened? The burglars had gone when +Bates got to the strong-room." + +"You don't mean to say all that wheeze is _real_?" Jimmy asked. + +"Of course it's real," said Kathleen. "Go on, Jerry. He's just got to +where he threw the stone into your bread-and-butter pudding, Mabel. Go +on." + +Mabel climbed on to the wall. "You've got visible again quicker than I +did," she said. + +Gerald nodded and resumed: + +"Our story must be told in as few words as possible, owing to the +fish-frying taking place at twelve, and it's past the half-hour now. +Having left his missive to do its warning work, Gerald de Sherlock +Holmes sped back, wrapped in invisibility, to the spot where by the +light of their dark-lanterns the burglars were still--still burgling +with the utmost punctuality and despatch. I didn't see any sense in +running into danger, so I just waited outside the passage where the +steps are--you know?" + +Mabel nodded. + +"Presently they came out, very cautiously, of course, and looked about +them. They didn't see me--so deeming themselves unobserved they passed +in silent Indian file along the passage--one of the sacks of silver +grazed my front part--and out into the night." + +"But which way?" + +"Through the little looking-glass room where you looked at yourself when +you were invisible. The hero followed swiftly on his invisible +tennis-shoes. The three miscreants instantly sought the shelter of the +groves and passed stealthily among the rhododendrons and across the +park, and"--his voice dropped and he looked straight before him at the +pinky convolvulus netting a heap of stones beyond the white dust of the +road--"the stone things that come alive, they kept looking out from +between bushes and under trees--and _I_ saw them all right, but they +didn't see me. They saw the burglars though, right enough; but the +burglars couldn't see them. Rum, wasn't it?" + +"The stone things?" Mabel had to have them explained to her. + +"_I_ never saw them come alive," she said, "and I've been in the gardens +in the evening as often as often." + +"_I_ saw them," said Gerald stiffly. + +"I know, I know," Mabel hastened to put herself right with him: "what I +mean to say is I shouldn't wonder if they're only visible when you're +_in_visible--the liveness of them, I mean, not the stoniness." + +Gerald understood, and I'm sure I hope you do. + +"I shouldn't wonder if you're right," he said. "The castle garden's +enchanted right enough; but what I should like to know is _how_ and why. +I say, come on, I've got to catch Johnson before twelve. We'll walk as +far as the market and then we'll have to run for it." + +"But go on with the adventure," said Mabel. "You can talk as we go. Oh, +do--it is so awfully thrilling!" + +This pleased Gerald, of course. + +"Well, I just followed, you know, like in a dream, and they got out the +cavy way--you know, where we got in--and I jolly well thought I'd lost +them; I had to wait till they'd moved off down the road so that they +shouldn't hear me rattling the stones, and I had to tear to catch them +up. I took my shoes off--I expect my stockings are done for. And I +followed and followed and followed and they went through the place where +the poor people live, and right down to the river. And---- I say, we +must run for it." + +So the story stopped and the running began. + +They caught Johnson in his own back-yard washing at a bench against his +own back-door. + +"Look here, Johnson," Gerald said, "what'll you give me if I put you up +to winning that fifty pounds reward?" + +"Halves," said Johnson promptly, "and a clout 'longside your head if you +was coming any of your nonsense over me." + +"It's _not_ nonsense," said Gerald very impressively. "If you'll let us +in I'll tell you all about it. And when you've caught the burglars and +got the swag back you just give me a quid for luck. I won't ask for +more." + +"Come along in, then," said Johnson, "if the young ladies'll excuse the +towel. But I bet you _do_ want something more off of me. Else why not +claim the reward yourself?" + +"Great is the wisdom of Johnson--he speaks winged words." The children +were all in the cottage now, and the door was shut. "I want you never to +let on who told you. Let them think it was your own unaided pluck and +farsightedness." + +"Sit you down," said Johnson, "and if you're kidding you'd best send the +little gells home afore I begin on you." + +[Illustration: "LOOK HERE, JOHNSON," GERALD SAID, "WHAT'LL YOU GIVE ME +IF I PUT YOU UP TO WINNING THAT FIFTY POUNDS REWARD?"] + +"I am not kidding," replied Gerald loftily, "never less. And any one but +a policeman would see why I don't want any one to know it was me. I +found it out at dead of night, in a place where I wasn't supposed to be; +and there'd be a beastly row if they found out at home about me being +out nearly all night. _Now_ do you see, my bright-eyed daisy?" + +Johnson was now too interested, as Jimmy said afterwards, to mind what +silly names he was called. He said he did see--and asked to see more. + +"Well, don't you ask any questions, then. I'll tell you all it's good +for you to know. Last night about eleven I was at Yalding Towers. No--it +doesn't matter how I got there or what I got there for--and there was a +window open and I got in, and there was a light. And it was in the +strong-room, and there were three men, putting silver in a bag." + +"Was it you give the warning, and they sent for the police?" Johnson was +leaning eagerly forward, a hand on each knee. + +"Yes, that was me. You can let them think it was you, if you like. You +were off duty, weren't you?" + +"I was," said Johnson, "in the arms of Murphy----" + +"Well, the police didn't come quick enough. But _I_ was there--a lonely +detective. And I followed them." + +"You did?" + +"And I saw them hide the booty and I know the other stuff from Houghton +Court's in the same place, and I heard them arrange about when to take +it away." + +"Come and show me where," said Johnson, jumping up so quickly that his +Windsor arm-chair fell over backwards, with a crack, on the red-brick +floor. + +"Not so," said Gerald calmly; "if you go near the spot before the +appointed time you'll find the silver, but you'll never catch the +thieves." + +"You're right there." The policeman picked up his chair and sat down in +it again. "Well?" + +"Well, there's to be a motor to meet them in the lane beyond the +boat-house by Sadler's Rents at one o'clock to-night. They'll get the +things out at half-past twelve and take them along in a boat. So now's +your chance to fill your pockets with chink and cover yourself with +honour and glory." + +"So help me!"--Johnson was pensive and doubtful still--"so help me! you +_couldn't_ have made all this up out of your head." + +"Oh yes, I could. But I didn't. Now look here. It's the chance of your +lifetime, Johnson! A quid for me, and a still tongue for you, and the +job's done. Do you agree?" + +"Oh, _I_ agree right enough," said Johnson. "I _agree_. But if you're +coming any of your larks----" + +"Can't you _see_ he isn't?" Kathleen put in impatiently. "He's not a +liar--we none of us are." + +"If you're not on, say so," said Gerald, "and I'll find another +policeman with more sense." + +"I could split about you being out all night," said Johnson. + +"But you wouldn't be so ungentlemanly," said Mabel brightly. "Don't you +be so unbelieving, when we're trying to do you a good turn." + +"If I were you," Gerald advised, "I'd go to the place where the silver +is, with two other men. You could make a nice little ambush in the +wood-yard--it's close there. And I'd have two or three more men up trees +in the lane to wait for the motor-car." + +"You ought to have been in the force, you ought," said Johnson +admiringly; "but s'pose it _was_ a hoax!" + +"Well, then you'd have made an ass of yourself--I don't suppose it ud be +the first time," said Jimmy. + +"Are you on?" said Gerald in haste. "Hold your jaw, Jimmy, you idiot!" + +"_Yes_," said Johnson. + +"Then when you're on duty you go down to the wood-yard, and the place +where you see me blow my nose is _the_ place. The sacks are tied with +string to the posts under the water. You just stalk by in your dignified +beauty and make a note of the spot. That's where glory waits you, and +when Fame elates you and you're a sergeant, please remember me." + +Johnson said he was blessed. He said it more than once, and then +remarked that he was on, and added that he must be off that instant +minute. + +Johnson's cottage lies just out of the town beyond the blacksmith's +forge and the children had come to it through the wood. They went back +the same way, and then down through the town, and through its narrow, +unsavoury streets to the towing-path by the timber yard. Here they ran +along the trunks of the big trees, peeped into the saw-pit, and--the men +were away at dinner and this was a favourite play place of every boy +within miles--made themselves a see-saw with a fresh cut, sweet-smelling +pine plank and an elm-root. + +"What a ripping place!" said Mabel, breathless on the see-saw's end. "I +believe I like this better than pretending games or even magic." + +"So do I," said Jimmy. "Jerry, don't keep sniffing so--you'll have no +nose left." + +"I can't help it," Gerald answered: "I daren't use my hankey for fear +Johnson's on the look-out somewhere unseen. I wish I'd thought of some +other signal." Sniff! "No, nor I shouldn't want to now if I hadn't got +not to. That's what's so rum. The moment I got down here and remembered +what I'd said about the signal I began to have a cold--and---- Thank +goodness! here he is." + +The children, with a fine air of unconcern, abandoned the see-saw. + +"Follow my leader!" Gerald cried, and ran along a barked oak trunk, the +others following. In and out and round about ran the file of children, +over heaps of logs, under the jutting ends of piled planks, and just as +the policeman's heavy boots trod the towing-path Gerald halted at the +end of a little landing-stage of rotten boards, with a rickety +handrail, cried "Pax!" and blew his nose with loud fervour. + +"Morning," he said immediately. + +"Morning," said Johnson. "Got a cold, aint you?" + +"Ah! I shouldn't have a cold if I'd got boots like yours," returned +Gerald admiringly. "Look at them. Any one ud know your fairy footstep a +mile off. How do you ever get near enough to any one to arrest them?" He +skipped off the landing-stage, whispered as he passed Johnson, "Courage, +promptitude, and despatch. That's the place," and was off again, the +active leader of an active procession. + +"We've brought a friend home to dinner," said Kathleen, when Eliza +opened the door. "Where's Mademoiselle?" + +"Gone to see Yalding Towers. To-day's show day, you know. An' just you +hurry over your dinners. It's my afternoon out, and my gentleman friend +don't like it if he's kept waiting." + +"All right, we'll eat like lightning," Gerald promised. "Set another +place, there's an angel." + +They kept their word. The dinner--it was minced veal and potatoes and +rice-pudding, perhaps the dullest food in the world--was over in a +quarter of an hour. + +"And now," said Mabel, when Eliza and a jug of hot water had disappeared +up the stairs together, "where's the ring? I ought to put it back." + +[Illustration: GERALD HALTED AT THE END OF A LITTLE LANDING-STAGE OF +ROTTEN BOARDS.] + +"I haven't had a turn yet," said Jimmy. "When we find it Cathy and I +ought to have turns same as you and Gerald did." + +"When you find it----?" Mabel's pale face turned paler between her dark +locks. + +"I'm very sorry--we're all very sorry," began Kathleen, and then the +story of the losing had to be told. + +"You couldn't have looked properly," Mabel protested. "It can't have +vanished." + +"You don't know what it can do--no more do we. It's no use getting your +quills up, fair lady. Perhaps vanishing itself is just what it does do. +You see, it came off my hand in the bed. We looked everywhere." + +"Would you mind if _I_ looked?" Mabel's eyes implored her little +hostess. "You see, if it's lost it's my fault. It's almost the same as +stealing. That Johnson would say it was just the same. I know he would." + +"Let's all look again," said Mabel, jumping up. "We _were_ rather in a +hurry this morning." + +So they looked, and they looked. In the bed, under the bed, under the +carpet, under the furniture. They shook the curtains, they explored the +corners, and found dust and flue, but no ring. They looked, and they +looked. Everywhere they looked. Jimmy even looked fixedly at the +ceiling, as though he thought the ring might have bounced up there and +stuck. But it hadn't. + +"Then," said Mabel at last, "your housemaid must have stolen it. That's +all. I shall tell her I think so." + +And she would have done it too, but at that moment the front door banged +and they knew that Eliza had gone forth in all the glory of her best +things to meet her "gentleman friend." + +"It's no use"--Mabel was almost in tears; "look here--will you leave me +alone? Perhaps you others looking distracts me. And I'll go over every +inch of the room by myself." + +"Respecting the emotion of their guest, the kindly charcoal-burners +withdrew," said Gerald. And they closed the door softly from the outside +on Mabel and her search. + +They waited for her, of course--politeness demanded it, and besides, +they had to stay at home to let Mademoiselle in; though it was a +dazzling day, and Jimmy had just remembered that Gerald's pockets were +full of the money earned at the fair, and that nothing had yet been +bought with that money, except a few buns in which he had had no share. +And of course they waited impatiently. + +It seemed about an hour, and was really quite ten minutes, before they +heard the bedroom door open and Mabel's feet on the stairs. + +"She hasn't found it," Gerald said. + +"How do you know?" Jimmy asked. + +"The way she walks," said Gerald. You can, in fact, almost always tell +whether the thing has been found that people have gone to look for by +the sound of their feet as they return. Mabel's feet said "No go," as +plain as they could speak. And her face confirmed the cheerless news. + +A sudden and violent knocking at the back door prevented any one from +having to be polite about how sorry they were, or fanciful about being +sure the ring would turn up soon. + +All the servants except Eliza were away on their holidays, so the +children went together to open the door, because, as Gerald said, if it +was the baker they could buy a cake from him and eat it for dessert. +"That kind of dinner sort of _needs_ dessert," he said. + +But it was not the baker. When they opened the door they saw in the +paved court where the pump is, and the dust-bin, and the water-butt, a +young man, with his hat very much on one side, his mouth open under his +fair bristly moustache, and his eyes as nearly round as human eyes can +be. He wore a suit of a bright mustard colour, a blue necktie, and a +goldish watch-chain across his waistcoat. His body was thrown back and +his right arm stretched out towards the door, and his expression was +that of a person who is being dragged somewhere against his will. He +looked so strange that Kathleen tried to shut the door in his face, +murmuring, "Escaped insane." But the door would not close. There was +something in the way. + +"Leave go of me!" said the young man. + +"Ho yus! I'll leave go of you!" It was the voice of Eliza--but no Eliza +could be seen. + +"Who's got hold of you?" asked Kathleen. + +"_She_ has, miss," replied the unhappy stranger. + +"Who's she?" asked Kathleen, to gain time, as she afterwards explained, +for she now knew well enough that what was keeping the door open was +Eliza's unseen foot. + +"My fyongsay, miss. At least it sounds like her voice, and it feels like +her bones, but something's come over me, miss, an' I can't see her." + +"That's what he keeps on saying," said Eliza's voice. "E's my gentleman +friend; is 'e gone dotty, or is it me?" + +"Both, I shouldn't wonder," said Jimmy. + +"Now," said Eliza, "you call yourself a man; you look me in the face and +say you can't see me." + +"Well--I can't," said the wretched gentleman friend. + +"If _I'd_ stolen a ring," said Gerald, looking at the sky, "I should go +indoors and be quiet, not stand at the back door and make an exhibition +of myself." + +"Not much exhibition about her," whispered Jimmy; "good old ring!" + +"I haven't stolen _any_thing," said the gentleman friend. "Here, you +leave me be. It's my eyes has gone wrong. Leave go of me, d'ye hear?" + +Suddenly his hand dropped and he staggered back against the water-butt. +Eliza had "left go" of him. She pushed past the children, shoving them +aside with her invisible elbows. Gerald caught her by the arm with one +hand, felt for her ear with the other, and whispered. "You stand still +and don't say a word. If you do----well, what's to stop me from sending +for the police?" + +[Illustration: HE STAGGERED BACK AGAINST THE WATER-BUTT.] + +Eliza did not know what there was to stop him. So she did as she was +told, and stood invisible and silent, save for a sort of blowing, +snorting noise peculiar to her when she was out of breath. + +The mustard-coloured young man had recovered his balance, and stood +looking at the children with eyes, if possible, rounder than before. + +"What _is_ it?" he gasped feebly. "What's up? What's it all about?" + +"If you don't know, I'm afraid we can't tell you," said Gerald politely. + +"Have I been talking very strange-like?" he asked, taking off his hat +and passing his hand over his forehead. + +"Very," said Mabel. + +"I hope I haven't said anything that wasn't good manners," he said +anxiously. + +"Not at all," said Kathleen. "You only said your _fiancée_ had hold of +your hand, and that you couldn't see her." + +"No more I can." + +"No more can we," said Mabel. + +"But I couldn't have dreamed it, and then come along here making a penny +show of myself like this, could I?" + +"You know best," said Gerald courteously. + +"But," the mustard-coloured victim almost screamed, "do you mean to tell +me...." + +"I don't mean to tell you anything," said Gerald quite truly, "but I'll +give you a bit of advice. You go home and lie down a bit and put a wet +rag on your head. You'll be all right to-morrow." + +"But I haven't----" + +"_I_ should," said Mabel; "the sun's very hot, you know." + +"I feel all right now," he said, "but--well, I can only say I'm sorry, +that's all I can say. I've never been taken like this before, miss. I'm +not subject to it--don't you think that. But I could have sworn +Eliza---- Aint she gone out to meet me?" + +"Eliza's indoors," said Mabel. "She can't come out to meet anybody +to-day." + +"You won't tell her about me carrying on this way, will you, miss? It +might set her against me if she thought I was liable to fits, which I +never was from a child." + +"We won't tell Eliza anything about you." + +"And you'll overlook the liberty?" + +"Of course. We know you couldn't help it," said Kathleen. "You go home +and lie down. I'm sure you must need it. Good-afternoon." + +"Good-afternoon, I'm sure, miss," he said dreamily. "All the same I can +feel the print of her finger-bones on my hand while I'm saying it. And +you won't let it get round to my boss--my employer I mean? Fits of all +sorts are against a man in any trade." + +"No, no, no, it's all right--_goodbye_," said every one. And a silence +fell as he went slowly round the water-butt and the green yard-gate shut +behind him. The silence was broken by Eliza. + +"Give me up!" she said. "Give me up to break my heart in a prison cell!" + +There was a sudden splash, and a round wet drop lay on the doorstep. + +"Thunder shower," said Jimmy; but it was a tear from Eliza. + +"Give me up," she went on, "give me up"--splash--"but don't let me be +took here in the town where I'm known and respected"--splash. "I'll walk +ten miles to be took by a strange police--not Johnson as keeps company +with my own cousin"--splash. "But I do thank you for one thing. You +didn't tell Elf as I'd stolen the ring. And I didn't"--splash--"I only +sort of borrowed it, it being my day out, and my gentleman friend such a +toff, like you can see for yourselves." + +The children had watched, spellbound, the interesting tears that became +visible as they rolled off the invisible nose of the miserable Eliza. +Now Gerald roused himself, and spoke. + +"It's no use your talking," he said. "We can't see you!" + +"That's what _he_ said," said Eliza's voice, "but----" + +"You can't see yourself," Gerald, went on. "Where's your hand?" + +Eliza, no doubt, tried to see it, and of course failed; for instantly, +with a shriek that might have brought the police if there had been any +about, she went into a violent fit of hysterics. The children did what +they could, everything that they had read of in books as suitable to +such occasions, but it is extremely difficult to do the right thing with +an invisible housemaid in strong hysterics and her best clothes. That +was why the best hat was found, later on, to be completely ruined, and +why the best blue dress was never quite itself again. And as they were +burning bits of the feather dusting-brush as nearly under Eliza's nose +as they could guess, a sudden spurt of flame and a horrible smell, as +the flame died between the quick hands of Gerald, showed but too plainly +that Eliza's feather boa had tried to help. + +It did help. Eliza "came to" with a deep sob and said, "Don't burn me +real ostrich stole; I'm better now." + +They helped her up and she sat down on the bottom step, and the children +explained to her very carefully and quite kindly that she really was +invisible, and that if you steal--or even borrow--rings you can never be +sure what will happen to you. + +"But 'ave I got to go on stopping like this," she moaned, when they had +fetched the little mahogany looking-glass from its nail over the kitchen +sink, and convinced her that she was really invisible, "for ever and +ever? An' we was to a bin married come Easter. No one won't marry a gell +as 'e can't see. It aint likely." + +"No, not for ever and ever," said Mabel kindly, "but you've got to go +through with it--like measles. I expect you'll be all right to-morrow." + +"To-night, _I_ think," said Gerald. + +"We'll help you all we can, and not tell any one," said Kathleen. + +"Not even the police," said Jimmy. + +"Now let's get Mademoiselle's tea ready," said Gerald. + +"And ours," said Jimmy. + +"No," said Gerald, "we'll have our tea _out_. We'll have a picnic and +we'll take Eliza. I'll go out and get the cakes." + +"_I_ shan't eat no cake, Master Jerry," said Eliza's voice, "so don't +you think it. You'd see it going down inside my chest. It wouldn't be +what I should call nice of me to have cake showing through me in the +open air. Oh, it's a dreadful judgment--just for a borrow!" + +They reassured her, set the tea, deputed Kathleen to let in +Mademoiselle--who came home tired and a little sad, it seemed--waited +for her and Gerald and the cakes, and started off for Yalding Towers. + +"Picnic parties aren't allowed," said Mabel. + +"Ours will be," said Gerald briefly. "Now, Eliza, you catch on to +Kathleen's arm and I'll walk behind to conceal your shadow. My aunt! +take your hat off. It makes your shadow look like I don't know what. +People will think we're the county lunatic asylum turned loose." + +It was then that the hat, becoming visible in Kathleen's hand, showed +how little of the sprinkled water had gone where it was meant to go--on +Eliza's face. + +"Me best 'at," said Eliza, and there was a silence with sniffs in it. + +"Look here," said Mabel, "you cheer up. Just you think this is all a +dream. It's just the kind of thing you might dream if your conscience +had got pains in it about the ring." + +"But will I wake up again?" + +"Oh yes, you'll wake up again. Now we're going to bandage your eyes and +take you through a very small door, and don't you resist, or we'll bring +a policeman into the dream like a shot." + +I have not time to describe Eliza's entrance into the cave. She went +head first: the girls propelled and the boys received her. If Gerald had +not thought of tying her hands some one would certainly have been +scratched. As it was Mabel's hand was scraped between the cold rock and +a passionate boot-heel. Nor will I tell you all that she said as they +led her along the fern-bordered gully and through the arch into the +wonderland of Italian scenery. She had but little language left when +they removed her bandage under a weeping willow where a statue of Diana, +bow in hand, stood poised on one toe, a most unsuitable attitude for +archery, I have always thought. + +"Now," said Gerald, "it's all over--nothing but niceness now and cake +and things." + +"It's time we did have our tea," said Jimmy. And it was. + +Eliza, once convinced that her chest, though invisible, was not +transparent, and that her companions could not by looking through it +count how many buns she had eaten, made an excellent meal. So did the +others. If you want really to enjoy your tea, have minced veal and +potatoes and rice-pudding for dinner, with several hours of excitement +to follow, and take your tea late. + +The soft, cool green and grey of the garden were changing--the green +grew golden, the shadows black, and the lake where the swans were +mirrored upside down, under the Temple of Phoebus, was bathed in rosy +light from the little fluffy clouds that lay opposite the sunset. + +"It _is_ pretty," said Eliza, "just like a picture-postcard, aint +it?--the tuppenny kind." + +"I ought to be getting home," said Mabel. + +"I can't go home like this. I'd stay and be a savage and live in that +white hut if it had any walls and doors," said Eliza. + +"She means the Temple of Dionysus," said Mabel, pointing to it. + +The sun set suddenly behind the line of black fir-trees on the top of +the slope, and the white temple, that had been pink, turned grey. + +"It would be a very nice place to live in even as it is," said Kathleen. + +"Draughty," said Eliza, "and law, what a lot of steps to clean! What +they make houses for without no walls to 'em? Who'd live in----" She +broke off, stared, and added: "What's that?" + +"What?" + +"That white thing coming down the steps. Why, it's a young man in +statooary." + +"The statues do come alive here, after sunset," said Gerald in very +matter-of-fact tones. + +"I see they do." Eliza did not seem at all surprised or alarmed. +"There's another of 'em. Look at them little wings to his feet like +pigeons." + +"I expect that's Mercury," said Gerald. + +"It's 'Hermes' under the statue that's got wings on its feet," said +Mabel, "but----" + +"_I_ don't see any statues," said Jimmy. "What are you punching me for?" + +"Don't you see?" Gerald whispered; but he need not have been so +troubled, for all Eliza's attention was with her wandering eyes that +followed hither and thither the quick movements of unseen statues. +"Don't you see? The statues come alive when the sun goes down--and you +can't see them unless you're invisible--and _I_--if you _do_ see them +you're not frightened--unless you _touch_ them." + +"Let's get her to touch one and see," said Jimmy. + +"'E's lep' into the water," said Eliza in a rapt voice. "My, can't he +swim neither! And the one with the pigeons' wings is flying all over the +lake having larks with 'im. I do call that pretty. It's like cupids as +you see on wedding-cakes. And here's another of 'em, a little chap with +long ears and a baby deer galloping alongside! An' look at the lady with +the biby, throwing it up and catching it like as if it was a ball. I +wonder she ain't afraid. But it's pretty to see 'em." + +[Illustration: "'E'S LEP' INTO THE WATER," SAID ELIZA IN A RAPT VOICE. +"MY, CAN'T HE SWIM NEITHER!"] + +The broad park lay stretched before the children in growing greyness and +a stillness that deepened. Amid the thickening shadows they could see +the statues gleam white and motionless. But Eliza saw other things. She +watched in silence presently, and they watched silently, and the evening +fell like a veil that grew heavier and blacker. And it was night. And +the moon came up above the trees. + +"Oh," cried Eliza suddenly, "here's the dear little boy with the +deer--he's coming right for me, bless his heart!" + +Next moment she was screaming, and her screams grew fainter and there +was the sound of swift boots on gravel. + +"Come on!" cried Gerald; "she touched it, and then she was frightened. +Just like I was. Run! she'll send every one in the town mad if she gets +there like that. Just a voice and boots! Run! Run!" + +They ran. But Eliza had the start of them. Also when she ran on the +grass they could not hear her footsteps and had to wait for the sound of +leather on far-away gravel. Also she was driven by fear, and fear drives +fast. + +She went, it seemed, the nearest way, invisibly through the waxing +moonlight, seeing she only knew what amid the glades and groves. + +"I'll stop here; see you to-morrow," gasped Mabel, as the loud pursuers +followed Eliza's clatter across the terrace. "She's gone through the +stable yard." + +"The back way," Gerald panted as they turned the corner of their own +street, and he and Jimmy swung in past the water-butt. + +An unseen but agitated presence seemed to be fumbling with the locked +back-door. The church clock struck the half-hour. + +"Half-past nine," Gerald had just breath to say. "Pull at the ring. +Perhaps it'll come off now." + +He spoke to the bare doorstep. But it was Eliza, dishevelled, +breathless, her hair coming down, her collar crooked, her dress twisted +and disordered, who suddenly held out a hand--a hand that they could +see; and in the hand, plainly visible in the moonlight, the dark circle +of the magic ring. + + * * * * * + +"'Alf a mo!" said Eliza's gentleman friend next morning. He was waiting +for her when she opened the door with pail and hearthstone in her hand. +"Sorry you couldn't come out yesterday." + +"So'm I." Eliza swept the wet flannel along the top step. "What did you +do?" + +[Illustration: IT WAS ELIZA, DISHEVELLED, BREATHLESS, HER HAIR COMING +DOWN, HER COLLAR CROOKED, HER DRESS TWISTED AND DISORDERED, WHO SUDDENLY +HELD OUT A HAND.] + +"I 'ad a bit of a headache," said the gentleman friend. "I laid down +most of the afternoon. What were you up to?" + +"Oh, nothing pertickler," said Eliza. + + * * * * * + +"Then it was all a dream," she said, when he was gone; "but it'll be a +lesson to me not to meddle with anybody's old ring again in a hurry." + +"So they didn't tell 'er about me behaving like I did," said he as he +went--"sun, I suppose--like our Army in India. I hope I aint going to be +liable to it, that's all!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +JOHNSON was the hero of the hour. It was he who had tracked the +burglars, laid his plans, and recovered the lost silver. He had not +thrown the stone--public opinion decided that Mabel and her aunt must +have been mistaken in supposing that there was a stone at all. But he +did not deny the warning letter. It was Gerald who went out after +breakfast to buy the newspaper, and who read aloud to the others the two +columns of fiction which were the _Liddlesby Observer's_ report of the +facts. As he read every mouth opened wider and wider, and when he ceased +with "this gifted fellow-townsman with detective instincts which +outrival those of Messrs. Lecoq and Holmes, and whose promotion is now +assured," there was quite a blank silence. + +"Well," said Jimmy, breaking it, "he doesn't stick it on neither, does +he?" + +"I feel," said Kathleen, "as if it was our fault--as if it was us had +told all these whoppers; because if it hadn't been for you they couldn't +have, Jerry. How could he say all that?" + +"Well," said Gerald, trying to be fair, "you know, after all, the chap +had to say something. I'm glad I----" He stopped abruptly. + +"You're glad you what?" + +"No matter," said he, with an air of putting away affairs of state. +"Now, what are we going to do to-day? The faithful Mabel approaches; she +will want her ring. And you and Jimmy want it too. Oh, I know. +Mademoiselle hasn't had any attention paid to her for more days than our +hero likes to confess." + +"I wish you wouldn't always call yourself 'our hero,'" said Jimmy; "you +aren't mine, anyhow." + +"You're both of you _mine_," said Kathleen hastily. + +"Good little girl." Gerald smiled annoyingly. "Keep baby brother in a +good temper till Nursie comes back." + +"You're not going out without us?" Kathleen asked in haste. + + "'I haste away, + 'Tis market day,'" + +sang Gerald, + + "'And in the market there + Buy roses for my fair.' + +If you want to come too, get your boots on, and look slippy about it." + +"I don't want to come," said Jimmy, and sniffed. + +Kathleen turned a despairing look on Gerald. + +"Oh, James, James," said Gerald sadly, "how difficult you make it for +me to forget that you're my little brother! If ever I treat you like one +of the other chaps, and rot you like I should Turner or Moberley or any +of my pals--well, this is what comes of it." + +"You don't call them your baby brothers," said Jimmy, and truly. + +"No; and I'll take precious good care I don't call you it again. Come +on, my hero and heroine. The devoted Mesrour is your salaaming slave." + +The three met Mabel opportunely at the corner of the square where every +Friday the stalls and the awnings and the green umbrellas were pitched, +and poultry, pork, pottery, vegetables, drapery, sweets, toys, tools, +mirrors, and all sorts of other interesting merchandise were spread out +on trestle tables, piled on carts whose horses were stabled and whose +shafts were held in place by piled wooden cases, or laid out, as in the +case of crockery and hardware, on the bare flagstones of the +market-place. + +The sun was shining with great goodwill, and, as Mabel remarked, "all +Nature looked smiling and gay." There were a few bunches of flowers +among the vegetables, and the children hesitated, balanced in choice. + +"Mignonette is sweet," said Mabel. + +"Roses are roses," said Kathleen. + +"Carnations are tuppence," said Jimmy; and Gerald, sniffing among the +bunches of tightly-tied tea-roses, agreed that this settled it. + +So the carnations were bought, a bunch of yellow ones, like sulphur, a +bunch of white ones like clotted cream, and a bunch of red ones like the +cheeks of the doll that Kathleen never played with. They took the +carnations home, and Kathleen's green hair-ribbon came in beautifully +for tying them up, which was hastily done on the doorstep. + +Then discreetly Gerald knocked at the door of the drawing-room, where +Mademoiselle seemed to sit all day. + +"Entrez!" came her voice; and Gerald entered. She was not reading, as +usual, but bent over a sketch-book; on the table was an open colour-box +of un-English appearance, and a box of that slate-coloured liquid so +familiar alike to the greatest artist in water-colours and to the +humblest child with a six-penny paint-box. + +"With all of our loves," said Gerald, laying the flowers down suddenly +before her. + +"But it is that you are a dear child. For this it must that I embrace +you--no?" And before Gerald could explain that he was too old, she +kissed him with little quick French pecks on the two cheeks. + +"Are you painting?" he asked hurriedly, to hide his annoyance at being +treated like a baby. + +"I achieve a sketch of yesterday," she answered; and before he had time +to wonder what yesterday would look like in a picture she showed him a +beautiful and exact sketch of Yalding Towers. + +[Illustration: SHE KISSED HIM WITH LITTLE QUICK FRENCH PECKS.] + +"Oh, I say--ripping!" was the critic's comment. "I say, mayn't the +others come and see?" The others came, including Mabel, who stood +awkwardly behind the rest, and looked over Jimmy's shoulder. + +"I say, you are clever," said Gerald respectfully. + +"To what good to have the talent, when one must pass one's life at +teaching the infants?" said Mademoiselle. + +"It must be fairly beastly," Gerald owned. + +"You, too, see the design?" Mademoiselle asked Mabel, adding: "A friend +from the town, yes?" + +"How do you do?" said Mabel politely. "No, I'm not from the town. I live +at Yalding Towers." + +The name seemed to impress Mademoiselle very much. Gerald anxiously +hoped in his own mind that she was not a snob. + +"Yalding Towers," she repeated, "but this is very extraordinary. Is it +possible that you are then of the family of Lord Yalding?" + +"He hasn't any family," said Mabel; "he's not married." + +"I would say are you--how you say?--cousin--sister--niece?" + +"No," said Mabel, flushing hotly, "I'm nothing grand at all. I'm Lord +Yalding's housekeeper's niece." + +"But you know Lord Yalding, is it not?" + +"No," said Mabel, "I've never seen him." + +"He comes then never to his château?" + +"Not since I've lived there. But he's coming next week." + +"Why lives he not there?" Mademoiselle asked. + +"Auntie say he's too poor," said Mabel, and proceeded to tell the tale +as she had heard it in the housekeeper's room: how Lord Yalding's uncle +had left all the money he could leave away from Lord Yalding to Lord +Yalding's second cousin, and poor Lord Yalding had only just enough to +keep the old place in repair, and to live very quietly indeed somewhere +else, but not enough to keep the house open or to live there; and how he +couldn't sell the house because it was "in tale." + +"What is it then--in tail?" asked Mademoiselle. + +"In a tale that the lawyers write out," said Mabel, proud of her +knowledge and flattered by the deep interest of the French governess; +"and when once they've put your house in one of their tales you can't +sell it or give it away, but you have to leave it to your son, even if +you don't want to." + +"But how his uncle could he be so cruel--to leave him the château and no +money?" Mademoiselle asked; and Kathleen and Jimmy stood amazed at the +sudden keenness of her interest in what seemed to them the dullest +story. + +"Oh, I can tell you that too," said Mabel. "Lord Yalding wanted to marry +a lady his uncle didn't want him to, a barmaid or a ballet lady or +something, and he wouldn't give her up, and his uncle said, 'Well +then,' and left everything to the cousin." + +"And you say he is not married." + +"No--the lady went into a convent; I expect she's bricked-up alive by +now." + +"Bricked----?" + +"In a wall, you know," said Mabel, pointing explainingly at the pink and +gilt roses of the wall-paper, "shut up to kill them. That's what they do +to you in convents." + +"Not at all," said Mademoiselle; "in convents are very kind good women; +there is but one thing in convents that is detestable--the locks on the +doors. Sometimes people cannot get out, especially when they are very +young and their relations have placed them there for their welfare and +happiness. But brick--how you say it?--enwalling ladies to kill them. +No--it does itself never. And this Lord--he did not then seek his lady?" + +"Oh, yes--he sought her right enough," Mabel assured her; "but there are +millions of convents, you know, and he had no idea where to look, and +they sent back his letters from the post-office, and----" + +"Ciel!" cried Mademoiselle, "but it seems that one knows all in the +housekeeper's saloon." + +"Pretty well all," said Mabel simply. + +"And you think he will find her? No?" + +"Oh, he'll find her all right," said Mabel, "when he's old and broken +down, you know--and dying; and then a gentle sister of charity will +soothe his pillow, and just when he's dying she'll reveal herself and +say: 'My own lost love!' and his face will light up with a wonderful joy +and he'll expire with her beloved name on his parched lips." + +Mademoiselle's was the silence of sheer astonishment. "You do the +prophesy, it appears?" she said at last. + +"Oh no," said Mabel, "I got that out of a book. I can tell you lots more +fatal love stories any time you like." + +The French governess gave a little jump, as though she had suddenly +remembered something. + +"It is nearly dinner-time," she said. "Your friend--Mabelle, yes--will +be your convivial, and in her honour we will make a little feast. My +beautiful flowers--put them to the water, Kathleen. I run to buy the +cakes. Wash the hands, all, and be ready when I return." + +Smiling and nodding to the children, she left them, and ran up the +stairs. + +"Just as if she was young," said Kathleen. + +"She _is_ young," said Mabel. "Heaps of ladies have offers of marriage +when they're no younger than her. I've seen lots of weddings too, with +much older brides. And why didn't you tell me she was so beautiful?" + +"_Is_ she?" asked Kathleen. + +"Of course she is; and what a darling to think of cakes for me, and +calling me a convivial!" + +"Look here," said Gerald, "I call this jolly decent of her. You know, +governesses never have more than the meanest pittance, just enough to +sustain life, and here she is spending her little all on us. Supposing +we just don't go out to-day, but play with her instead. I expect she's +most awfully bored really." + +"Would she really like it?" Kathleen wondered. "Aunt Emily says +grown-ups never really like playing. They do it to please us." + +"They little know," Gerald answered, "how often we do it to please +them." + +"We've got to do that dressing-up with the Princess clothes anyhow--we +said we would," said Kathleen. "Let's treat her to that." + +"Rather near tea-time," urged Jimmy, "so that there'll be a fortunate +interruption and the play won't go on for ever." + +"I suppose all the things are safe?" Mabel asked. + +"Quite. I told you where I put them. Come on, Jimmy; let's help lay the +table. We'll get Eliza to put out the best china." + +They went. + +"It was lucky," said Gerald, struck by a sudden thought, "that the +burglars didn't go for the diamonds in the treasure-chamber." + +"They couldn't," said Mabel almost in a whisper; "they didn't know about +them. I don't believe anybody knows about them, except me--and you, and +you're sworn to secrecy." This, you will remember, had been done almost +at the beginning. "I know aunt doesn't know. I just found out the +spring by accident. Lord Yalding's kept the secret well." + +"I wish I'd got a secret like that to keep," said Gerald. + +"If the burglars _do_ know," said Mabel, "it'll all come out at the +trial. Lawyers make you tell everything you know at trials, and a lot of +lies besides." + +"There won't be any trial," said Gerald, kicking the leg of the piano +thoughtfully. + +"No trial?" + +"It said in the paper." Gerald went on slowly, "'The miscreants must +have received warning from a confederate, for the admirable preparations +to arrest them as they returned for their ill-gotten plunder were +unavailing. But the police have a clue.'" + +"What a pity!" said Mabel. + +"You needn't worry--they haven't got any old clue," said Gerald, still +attentive to the piano leg. + +"I didn't mean the clue; I meant the confederate." + +"It's a pity you think he's a pity, because he was _me_," said Gerald, +standing up and leaving the piano leg alone. He looked straight before +him, as the boy on the burning deck may have looked. + +"I couldn't help it," he said. "I know you'll think I'm a criminal, but +I couldn't do it. I don't know how detectives can. I went over a prison +once, with father; and after I'd given the tip to Johnson I remembered +that, and I just couldn't. I know I'm a beast, and not worthy to be a +British citizen." + +"I think it was rather nice of you," said Mabel kindly. "How did you +warn them?" + +"I just shoved a paper under the man's door--the one that I knew where +he lived--to tell him to lie low." + +"Oh! do tell me--what did you put on it exactly?" Mabel warmed to this +new interest. + +"It said: 'The police know all except your names. Be virtuous and you +are safe. But if there's any more burgling I shall split and you may +rely on that from a friend.' I know it was wrong, but I couldn't help +it. Don't tell the others. They wouldn't understand why I did it. I +don't understand it myself." + +"I do," said Mabel: "it's because you've got a kind and noble heart." + +"Kind fiddlestick, my good child!" said Gerald, suddenly losing the +burning boy expression and becoming in a flash entirely himself. "Cut +along and wash your hands; you're as black as ink." + +"So are you," said Mabel, "and I'm not. It's dye with me. Auntie was +dyeing a blouse this morning. It told you how in _Home Drivel_--and +she's as black as ink too, and the blouse is all streaky. Pity the ring +won't make just parts of you invisible--the dirt, for instance." + +"Perhaps," Gerald said unexpectedly, "it won't make even all of you +invisible again." + +"Why not? You haven't been doing anything to it--have you?" Mabel +sharply asked. + +"No; but didn't you notice you were invisible twenty-one hours; I was +fourteen hours invisible, and Eliza only seven--that's seven less each +time. And now we've come to----" + +"How frightfully good you are at sums!" said Mabel, awestruck. + +"You see, it's got seven hours less each time, and seven from seven is +nought; it's got to be something different this time. And then +afterwards--it can't be minus seven, because I don't see how--unless it +made you more visible--thicker, you know." + +"_Don't!_" said Mabel; "you make my head go round." + +"And there's another odd thing," Gerald went on; "when you're invisible +your relations don't love you. Look at your aunt, and Cathy never +turning a hair at me going burgling. We haven't got to the bottom of +that ring yet. Crikey! here's Mademoiselle with the cakes. Run, bold +bandits--wash for your lives!" + +They ran. + +It was not cakes only; it was plums and grapes and jam tarts and +soda-water and raspberry vinegar, and chocolates in pretty boxes and +"pure, thick, rich" cream in brown jugs, also a big bunch of roses. +Mademoiselle was strangely merry, for a governess. She served out the +cakes and tarts with a liberal hand, made wreaths of the flowers for all +their heads--she was not eating much herself--drank the health of Mabel, +as the guest of the day, in the beautiful pink drink that comes from +mixing raspberry vinegar and soda-water, and actually persuaded Jimmy +to wear his wreath, on the ground that the Greek gods as well as the +goddesses always wore wreaths at a feast. + +There never was such a feast provided by any French governess since +French governesses began. There were jokes and stories and laughter. +Jimmy showed all those tricks with forks and corks and matches and +apples which are so deservedly popular. Mademoiselle told them stories +of her own school-days when she was "a quite little girl with two tight +tresses--so," and when they could not understand the tresses, called for +paper and pencil and drew the loveliest little picture of herself when +she was a child with two short fat pig-tails sticking out from her head +like knitting-needles from a ball of dark worsted. Then she drew +pictures of everything they asked for, till Mabel pulled Gerald's jacket +and whispered: "The acting!" + +"Draw us the front of a theatre," said Gerald tactfully, "a French +theatre." + +"They are the same thing as the English theatres," Mademoiselle told +him. + +"Do you like acting--the theatre, I mean?" + +"But yes--I love it." + +"All right," said Gerald briefly. "We'll act a play for you--now--this +afternoon if you like." + +"Eliza will be washing up," Cathy whispered, "and she was promised to +see it." + +"Or this evening," said Gerald; "and please, Mademoiselle, may Eliza +come in and look on?" + +"But certainly," said Mademoiselle; "amuse yourselves well, my +children." + +"But it's _you_," said Mabel suddenly, "that we want to amuse. Because +we love you very much--don't we, all of you?" + +"Yes," the chorus came unhesitatingly. Though the others would never +have thought of saying such a thing on their own account. Yet, as Mabel +said it, they found to their surprise that it was true. + +"Tiens!" said Mademoiselle, "you love the old French governess? +Impossible," and she spoke rather indistinctly. + +"You're not old," said Mabel; "at least not so very," she added +brightly, "and you're as lovely as a Princess." + +"Go then, flatteress!" said Mademoiselle, laughing; and Mabel went. The +others were already half-way up the stairs. + +[Illustration: DOWN CAME THE LOVELIEST BLUE-BLACK HAIR.] + +Mademoiselle sat in the drawing-room as usual, and it was a good thing +that she was not engaged in serious study, for it seemed that the door +opened and shut almost ceaselessly all throughout the afternoon. Might +they have the embroidered antimacassars and the sofa cushions? Might +they have the clothes-line out of the washhouse? Eliza said they +mightn't, but might they? Might they have the sheepskin hearth-rugs? +Might they have tea in the garden, because they had almost got the stage +ready in the dining-room, and Eliza wanted to set tea? Could +Mademoiselle lend them any coloured clothes--scarves or dressing-gowns, +or anything bright? Yes, Mademoiselle could, and did--silk things, +surprisingly lovely for a governess to have. Had Mademoiselle any rouge? +They had always heard that French ladies---- No. Mademoiselle +hadn't--and to judge by the colour of her face, Mademoiselle didn't need +it. Did Mademoiselle think the chemist sold rouge--or had she any false +hair to spare? At this challenge Mademoiselle's pale fingers pulled out +a dozen hairpins, and down came the loveliest blue-black hair, hanging +to her knees in straight, heavy lines. + +"No, you terrible infants," she cried. "I have not the false hair, nor +the rouge. And my teeth--you want them also, without doubt?" + +She showed them in a laugh. + +"I _said_ you were a Princess," said Mabel, "and now I know. You're +Rupunzel. Do always wear your hair like that! May we have the peacock +fans, please, off the mantelpiece, and the things that loop back the +curtains, and all the handkerchiefs you've got?" + +Mademoiselle denied them nothing. They had the fans and the +handkerchiefs and some large sheets of expensive drawing-paper out of +the school cupboard, and Mademoiselle's best sable paint-brush and her +paint-box. + +"Who would have thought," murmured Gerald, pensively sucking the brush +and gazing at the paper mask he had just painted, "that she was such a +brick in disguise? I wonder why crimson lake always tastes just like +Liebig's Extract." + +Everything was pleasant that day somehow. There are some days like that, +you know, when everything goes well from the very beginning; all the +things you want are in their places, nobody misunderstands you, and all +that you do turns out admirably. How different from those other days +which we all know too well, when your shoe-lace breaks, your comb is +mislaid, your brush spins on its back on the floor and lands under the +bed where you can't get at it--you drop the soap, your buttons come off, +an eyelash gets into your eye, you have used your last clean +handkerchief, your collar is frayed at the edge and cuts your neck, and +at the very last moment your suspender breaks, and there is no string. +On such a day as this you are naturally late for breakfast, and every +one thinks you did it on purpose. And the day goes on and on, getting +worse and worse--you mislay your exercise-book, you drop your arithmetic +in the mud, your pencil breaks, and when you open your knife to sharpen +the pencil you split your nail. On such a day you jam your thumb in +doors, and muddle the messages you are sent on by grown-ups. You upset +your tea, and your bread-and-butter won't hold together for a moment. +And when at last you get to bed--usually in disgrace--it is no comfort +at all to you to know that not a single bit of it is your own fault. + +This day was not one of those days, as you will have noticed. Even the +tea in the garden--there was a bricked bit by a rockery that made a +steady floor for the tea-table--was most delightful, though the thoughts +of four out of the five were busy with the coming play, and the fifth +had thoughts of her own that had had nothing to do with tea or acting. + +Then there was an interval of slamming doors, interesting silences, feet +that flew up and down stairs. + +It was still good daylight when the dinner-bell rang--the signal had +been agreed upon at tea-time, and carefully explained to Eliza. +Mademoiselle laid down her book and passed out of the sunset-yellowed +hall into the faint yellow gaslight of the dining-room. The giggling +Eliza held the door open before her, and followed her in. The shutters +had been closed--streaks of daylight showed above and below them. The +green-and-black tablecloths of the school dining-tables were supported +on the clothes-line from the backyard. The line sagged in a graceful +curve, but it answered its purpose of supporting the curtains which +concealed that part of the room which was the stage. + +[Illustration: SHE SAW THAT FULLY HALF A DOZEN OF THESE CHAIRS WERE +OCCUPIED, AND BY THE QUEEREST PEOPLE.] + +Rows of chairs had been placed across the other end of the room--all the +chairs in the house, as it seemed--and Mademoiselle started violently +when she saw that fully half a dozen of these chairs were occupied. And +by the queerest people, too--an old woman with a poke bonnet tied under +her chin with a red handkerchief, a lady in a large straw hat wreathed +in flowers and the oddest hands that stuck out over the chair in front +of her, several men with strange, clumsy figures, and all with hats +on. + +"But," whispered Mademoiselle, through the chinks of the tablecloths, +"you have then invited other friends? You should have asked me, my +children." + +Laughter and something like a "hurrah" answered her from behind the +folds of the curtaining tablecloths. + +"All right, Mademoiselle Rapunzel," cried Mabel; "turn the gas up. It's +only part of the entertainment." + +Eliza, still giggling, pushed through the lines of chairs, knocking off +the hat of one of the visitors as she did so, and turned up the three +incandescent burners. + +Mademoiselle looked at the figure seated nearest to her, stooped to look +more closely, half laughed, quite screamed, and sat down suddenly. + +"Oh!" she cried, "they are not alive!" + +Eliza, with a much louder scream, had found out the same thing and +announced it differently. "They ain't got no insides," said she. The +seven members of the audience seated among the wilderness of chairs had, +indeed, no insides to speak of. Their bodies were bolsters and rolled-up +blankets, their spines were broom-handles, and their arm and leg bones +were hockey sticks and umbrellas. Their shoulders were the wooden +cross-pieces that Mademoiselle used for keeping her jackets in shape; +their hands were gloves stuffed out with handkerchiefs; and their faces +were the paper masks painted in the afternoon by the untutored brush of +Gerald, tied on to the round heads made of the ends of stuffed +bolster-cases. The faces were really rather dreadful. Gerald had done +his best, but even after his best had been done you would hardly have +known they were faces, some of them, if they hadn't been in the +positions which faces visually occupy, between the collar and the hat. +Their eyebrows were furious with lamp-black frowns--their eyes the size, +and almost the shape, of five-shilling pieces, and on their lips and +cheeks had been spent much crimson lake and nearly the whole of a +half-pan of vermilion. + +"You have made yourself an auditors, yes? Bravo!" cried Mademoiselle, +recovering herself and beginning to clap. And to the sound of that +clapping the curtain went up--or, rather, apart. A voice said, in a +breathless, choked way, "Beauty and the Beast," and the stage was +revealed. + +It was a real stage too--the dining-tables pushed close together and +covered with pink-and-white counterpanes. It was a little unsteady and +creaky to walk on, but very imposing to look at. The scene was simple, +but convincing. A big sheet of cardboard, bent square, with slits cut in +it and a candle behind, represented, quite transparently, the domestic +hearth; a round hat-tin of Eliza's, supported on a stool with a +night-light under it, could not have been mistaken, save by wilful +malice, for anything but a copper. A waste-paper basket with two or +three school dusters and an overcoat in it, and a pair of blue pyjamas +over the back of a chair, put the finishing touch to the scene. It did +not need the announcement from the wings, "The laundry at Beauty's +home." It was so plainly a laundry and nothing else. + +In the wings: "They look just like a real audience, don't they?" +whispered Mabel. "Go on, Jimmy,--don't forget the Merchant has to be +pompous and use long words." + +Jimmy, enlarged by pillows under Gerald's best overcoat, which had been +intentionally bought with a view to his probable growth during the two +years which it was intended to last him, a Turkish towel turban on his +head and an open umbrella over it, opened the first act in a simple and +swift soliloquy: + +"I am the most unlucky merchant that ever was. I was once the richest +merchant in Bagdad, but I lost all my ships, and now I live in a poor +house that is all to bits; you can see how the rain comes through the +roof, and my daughters take in washing. And----" + +The pause might have seemed long, but Gerald rustled in, elegant in +Mademoiselle's pink dressing-gown and the character of the eldest +daughter. + +"A nice drying day," he minced. "Pa dear, put the umbrella the other way +up. It'll save us going out in the rain to fetch water. Come on, +sisters, dear father's got us a new wash-tub. Here's luxury!" + +Round the umbrella, now held the wrong way up, the three sisters knelt +and washed imaginary linen. Kathleen wore a violet skirt of Eliza's, a +blue blouse of her own, and a cap of knotted handkerchiefs. A white +nightdress girt with a white apron and two red carnations in Mabel's +black hair left no doubt as to which of the three was Beauty. + +The scene went very well. The final dance with waving towels was all +that there is of charming, Mademoiselle said; and Eliza was so much +amused that, as she said, she got quite a nasty stitch along of laughing +so hearty. + +You know pretty well what Beauty and the Beast would be like acted by +four children who had spent the afternoon in arranging their costumes +and so had left no time for rehearsing what they had to say. Yet it +delighted them, and it charmed their audience. And what more can any +play do, even Shakespeare's? Mabel, in her Princess clothes, was a +resplendent Beauty; and Gerald a Beast who wore the drawing-room +hearthrugs with an air of indescribable distinction. If Jimmy was not a +talkative merchant, he made it up with a stoutness practically +unlimited, and Kathleen surprised and delighted even herself by the +quickness with which she changed from one to the other of the minor +characters--fairies, servants, and messengers. It was at the end of the +second act that Mabel, whose costume, having reached the height of +elegance, could not be bettered and therefore did not need to be +changed, said to Gerald, sweltering under the weighty magnificence of +his beast-skin:-- + +"I say, you might let us have the ring back." + +"I'm going to," said Gerald, who had quite forgotten it. "I'll give it +you in the next scene. Only don't lose it, or go putting it on. You +might go out all together and never be seen again, or you might get +seven times as visible as any one else, so that all the rest of us would +look like shadows beside you, you'd be so thick, or----" + +"Ready!" said Kathleen, bustling in, once more a wicked sister. + +Gerald managed to get his hand into his pocket under his hearthrug, and +when he rolled his eyes in agonies of sentiment, and said, "Farewell, +dear Beauty! Return quickly, for if you remain long absent from your +faithful beast he will assuredly perish," he pressed a ring into her +hand and added: "This is a magic ring that will give you anything you +wish. When you desire to return to your own disinterested beast, put on +the ring and utter your wish. Instantly you will be by my side." + +Beauty-Mabel took the ring, and it was _the_ ring. + +The curtains closed to warm applause from two pairs of hands. + +The next scene went splendidly. The sisters were almost _too_ natural in +their disagreeableness, and Beauty's annoyance when they splashed her +Princess's dress with real soap and water was considered a miracle of +good acting. Even the merchant rose to something more than mere pillows, +and the curtain fell on his pathetic assurance that in the absence of +his dear Beauty he was wasting away to a shadow. And again two pairs of +hands applauded. + +"Here, Mabel, catch hold," Gerald appealed from under the weight of a +towel-horse, the tea-urn, the tea-tray, and the green baize apron of the +boot boy, which together with four red geraniums from the landing, the +pampas-grass from the drawing-room fireplace, and the indiarubber plants +from the drawing-room window were to represent the fountains and garden +of the last act. The applause had died away. + +"I wish," said Mabel, taking on herself the weight of the tea-urn, "I +wish those creatures we made were alive. We should get something like +applause then." + +"I'm jolly glad they aren't," said Gerald, arranging the baize and the +towel-horse. "Brutes! It makes me feel quite silly when I catch their +paper eyes." + +The curtains were drawn back. There lay the hearth-rug-coated beast, in +flat abandonment among the tropic beauties of the garden, the +pampas-grass shrubbery, the indiarubber plant bushes, the geranium-trees +and the urn fountain. Beauty was ready to make her great entry in all +the thrilling splendour of despair. And then suddenly it all happened. + +Mademoiselle began it: she applauded the garden scene--with hurried +little clappings of her quick French hands. Eliza's fat red palms +followed heavily, and then--some one else was clapping, six or seven +people, and their clapping made a dull padded sound. Nine faces instead +of two were turned towards the stage, and seven out of the nine were +painted, pointed paper faces. And every hand and every face was alive. +The applause grew louder as Mabel glided forward, and as she paused and +looked at the audience her unstudied pose of horror and amazement drew +forth applause louder still; but it was not loud enough to drown the +shrieks of Mademoiselle and Eliza as they rushed from the room, knocking +chairs over and crushing each other in the doorway. Two distant doors +banged, Mademoiselle's door and Eliza's door. + +"Curtain! curtain! quick!" cried Beauty-Mabel, in a voice that wasn't +Mabel's or the Beauty's. "Jerry--those things _have_ come alive. Oh, +whatever _shall_ we do?" + +Gerald in his hearthrugs leaped to his feet. Again that flat padded +applause marked the swish of cloths on clothes-line as Jimmy and +Kathleen drew the curtains. + +"What's up?" they asked as they drew. + +"You've done it this time!" said Gerald to the pink, perspiring Mabel. +"Oh, bother these strings!" + +"Can't you burst them? _I've_ done it?" retorted Mabel. "I like that!" + +"More than I do," said Gerald. + +"Oh, it's all right," said Mabel, "Come on. We must go and pull the +things to pieces--then they _can't_ go on being alive." + +"It's your fault, anyhow," said Gerald with every possible absence of +gallantry. "Don't you see? It's turned into a wishing ring. I _knew_ +something different was going to happen. Get my knife out of my +pocket--this string's in a knot. Jimmy, Cathy, those Ugly-Wuglies have +come alive--because Mabel wished it. Cut out and pull them to pieces." + +Jimmy and Cathy peeped through the curtain and recoiled with white faces +and staring eyes. "Not me!" was the brief rejoinder of Jimmy. Cathy +said, "Not much!" And she meant it, any one could see that. + +And now, as Gerald, almost free of the hearth-rugs, broke his thumb-nail +on the stiffest blade of his knife, a thick rustling and a sharp, heavy +stumping sounded beyond the curtain. + +"They're going out!" screamed Kathleen--"_walking_ out--on their +umbrella and broomstick legs. You can't stop them, Jerry, they're too +awful!" + +"Everybody in the town'll be insane by to-morrow night if we _don't_ +stop them," cried Gerald. "Here, give me the ring--I'll unwish them." + +[Illustration: A LIMP HAND WAS LAID ON HIS ARM.] + +He caught the ring from the unresisting Mabel, cried, "I wish the Uglies +_weren't_ alive," and tore through the door. He saw, in fancy, Mabel's +wish undone, and the empty hall strewed with limp bolsters, hats, +umbrellas, coats and gloves, prone abject properties from which the +brief life had gone out for ever. But the hall was crowded with live +things, strange things--all horribly short as broomsticks and umbrellas +are short. A limp hand gesticulated. A pointed white face with red +cheeks looked up at him, and wide red lips said something, he could not +tell what. The voice reminded him of the old beggar down by the bridge +who had no roof to his mouth. These creatures had no roofs to their +mouths, of course--they had no---- + +"Aa oo ré o me me oo a oo ho el?" said the voice again. And it had said +it four times before Gerald could collect himself sufficiently to +understand that this horror--alive, and most likely quite +uncontrollable--was saying, with a dreadful calm, polite persistence:-- + +"Can you recommend me to a good hotel?" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +"CAN you recommend me to a good hotel?" The speaker had no inside to his +head. Gerald had the best of reasons for knowing it. The speaker's coat +had no shoulders inside it--only the cross-bar that a jacket is slung on +by careful ladies. The hand raised in interrogation was not a hand at +all; it was a glove lumpily stuffed with pocket-handkerchiefs; and the +arm attached to it was only Kathleen's school umbrella. Yet the whole +thing was alive, and was asking a definite, and for anybody else, +anybody who really _was_ a body, a reasonable question. + +With a sensation of inward sinking, Gerald realised that now or never +was the time for him to rise to the occasion. And at the thought he +inwardly sank more deeply than before. It seemed impossible to rise in +the very smallest degree. + +"I beg your pardon" was absolutely the best he could do; and the +painted, pointed paper face turned to him once more, and once more +said:-- + +"Aa oo ré o me me oo a oo ho el?" + +"You want a hotel?" Gerald repeated stupidly, "a _good_ hotel?" + +"A oo ho el," reiterated the painted lips. + +"I'm awfully sorry," Gerald went on--one can always be polite, of +course, whatever happens, and politeness came natural to him--"but all +our hotels shut so early--about eight, I think." + +"Och em er," said the Ugly-Wugly. Gerald even now does not understand +how that practical joke--hastily wrought of hat, overcoat, paper face +and limp hands--could have managed, by just being alive, to become +perfectly respectable, apparently about fifty years old, and obviously +well off, known and respected in his own suburb--the kind of man who +travels first class and smokes expensive cigars. Gerald knew this time, +without need of repetition, that the Ugly-Wugly had said:-- + +"Knock 'em up." + +"You can't," Gerald explained; "they're all stone deaf--every single +person who keeps a hotel in this town. It's--" he wildly plunged--"it's +a County Council law. Only deaf people allowed to keep hotels. It's +because of the hops in the beer," he found himself adding; "you know, +hops are so good for earache." + +"I o wy ollo oo," said the respectable Ugly-Wugly; and Gerald was not +surprised to find that the thing did "not quite follow him." + +"It _is_ a little difficult at first," he said. The other Ugly-Wuglies +were crowding round. The lady in the poke bonnet said--Gerald found he +was getting quite clever at understanding the conversation of those who +had no roofs to their mouths:-- + +"If not a hotel, a lodging." + +"My lodging is on the cold ground," sang itself unhidden and unavailing +in Gerald's ear. Yet stay--was it unavailing? + +"I do know a lodging," he said slowly, "but----" The tallest of the +Ugly-Wuglies pushed forward. He was dressed in the old brown overcoat +and top-hat which always hung on the school hat-stand to discourage +possible burglars by deluding them into the idea that there was a +gentleman-of-the-house, and that he was at home. He had an air at once +more sporting and less reserved than that of the first speaker, and any +one could see that he was not quite a gentleman. + +"Wa I wo oo oh," he began, but the lady Ugly-Wugly in the +flower-wreathed hat interrupted him. She spoke more distinctly than the +others, owing, as Gerald found afterwards, to the fact that her mouth +had been drawn _open_, and the flap cut from the aperture had been +folded back--so that she really had something like a roof to her mouth, +though it was only a paper one. + +"What _I_ want to know," Gerald understood her to say, "is where are the +carriages we ordered?" + +"I don't know," said Gerald, "but I'll find out. But we ought to be +moving," he added; "you see, the performance is over, and they want to +shut up the house and put the lights out. Let's be moving." + +"Eh--ech e oo-ig," repeated the respectable Ugly-Wugly, and stepped +towards the front door. + +"Oo um oo," said the flower-wreathed one; and Gerald assures me that her +vermilion lips stretched in a smile. + +"I shall be delighted," said Gerald with earnest courtesy, "to do +anything, of course. Things do happen so awkwardly when you least expect +it. I could go with you, and get you a lodging, if you'd only wait a few +moments in the--in the yard. It's quite a superior sort of yard," he +went on, as a wave of surprised disdain passed over their white paper +faces--"not a common yard, you know; the pump," he added madly, "has +just been painted green all over, and the dustbin is enamelled iron." + +The Ugly-Wuglies turned to each other in consultation, and Gerald +gathered that the greenness of the pump and the enamelled character of +the dust-bin made, in their opinion, all the difference. + +"I'm awfully sorry," he urged eagerly, "to have to ask you to wait, but +you see I've got an uncle who's quite mad, and I have to give him his +gruel at half-past nine. He won't feed out of any hand but mine." Gerald +did not mind what he said. The only people one is allowed to tell lies +to are the Ugly-Wuglies; they are all clothes and have no insides, +because they are not human beings, but only a sort of very real +visions, and therefore cannot be really deceived, though they may seem +to be. + +Through the back door that has the blue, yellow, red and green glass in +it, down the iron steps into the yard, Gerald led the way, and the +Ugly-Wuglies trooped after him. Some of them had boots, but the ones +whose feet were only broomsticks or umbrellas found the open-work iron +stairs very awkward. + +"If you wouldn't _mind_," said Gerald, "just waiting _under_ the +balcony? My uncle is so _very_ mad. If he were to see--see any +strangers--I mean, even aristocratic ones--I couldn't answer for the +consequences." + +"Perhaps," said the flower-hatted lady nervously, "it would be better +for us to try and find a lodging ourselves?" + +"I wouldn't advise you to," said Gerald as grimly as he knew how; "the +police here arrest _all_ strangers. It's the new law the Liberals have +just made," he added convincingly, "and you'd get the sort of lodging +you wouldn't care for--I couldn't bear to think of you in a prison +dungeon," he added tenderly. + +"I ah wi oo er papers," said the respectable Ugly-Wugly, and added +something that sounded like "disgraceful state of things." + +However, they ranged themselves under the iron balcony. Gerald gave one +last look at them and wondered, in his secret heart, why he was not +frightened, though in his outside mind he was congratulating himself on +his bravery. For the things did look rather horrid. In that light it +was hard to believe that they were really only clothes and pillows and +sticks--with no insides. As he went up the steps he heard them talking +among themselves--in that strange language of theirs, all oo's and ah's; +and he thought he distinguished the voice of the respectable Ugly-Wugly +saying, "Most gentlemanly lad," and the wreathed-hatted lady answering +warmly: "Yes, indeed." + +The coloured-glass door closed behind him. Behind him was the yard, +peopled by seven impossible creatures. Before him lay the silent house, +peopled, as he knew very well, by five human beings as frightened as +human beings could be. You think, perhaps, that Ugly-Wuglies are nothing +to be frightened of. That's only because you have never seen one come +alive. You just make one--any old suit of your father's, and a hat that +he isn't wearing, a bolster or two, a painted paper face, a few sticks +and a pair of boots will do the trick; get your father to lend you a +wishing ring, give it back to him when it has done its work, and see how +you feel then. + +Of course the reason why Gerald was not afraid was that he had the ring; +and, as you have seen, the wearer of that is not frightened by +_anything_ unless he touches that thing. But Gerald knew well enough how +the others must be feeling. That was why he stopped for a moment in the +hall to try and imagine what would have been most soothing to him if he +had been as terrified as he knew they were. + +"Cathy! I say! What ho, Jimmy! Mabel ahoy!" he cried in a loud, cheerful +voice that sounded very unreal to himself. + +The dining-room door opened a cautious inch. + +"I say--such larks!" Gerald went on, shoving gently at the door with his +shoulder. "Look out! what are you keeping the door shut for?" + +"Are you--alone?" asked Kathleen in hushed, breathless tones. + +"Yes, of course. Don't be a duffer!" + +The door opened, revealing three scared faces and the disarranged chairs +where that odd audience had sat. + +"Where are they? Have you unwished them? We heard them talking. +Horrible!" + +"They're in the yard," said Gerald with the best imitation of joyous +excitement that he could manage. "It _is_ such fun! They're just like +real people, quite kind and jolly. It's the most ripping lark. Don't let +on to Mademoiselle and Eliza. I'll square _them_. Then Kathleen and +Jimmy must go to bed, and I'll see Mabel home, and as soon as we get +outside I must find some sort of lodging for the Ugly-Wuglies--they +_are_ such fun though. I _do_ wish you could all go with me." + +"Fun?" echoed Kathleen dismally and doubting. + +"Perfectly killing," Gerald asserted resolutely. "Now, you just listen +to what I say to Mademoiselle and Eliza, and back me up for all you're +worth." + +"But," said Mabel, "you can't mean that you're going to leave me alone +directly we get out, and go off with those horrible creatures. They look +like fiends." + +"You wait till you've seen them close," Gerald advised. "Why, they're +just _ordinary_--the first thing one of them did was to ask me to +recommend it to a good hotel! I couldn't understand it at first, because +it has no roof to its mouth, of course." + +It was a mistake to say that, Gerald knew it at once. + +Mabel and Kathleen were holding hands in a way that plainly showed how a +few moments ago they had been clinging to each other in an agony of +terror. Now they clung again. And Jimmy, who was sitting on the edge of +what had been the stage, kicking his boots against the pink counterpane, +shuddered visibly. + +"It doesn't _matter_," Gerald explained--"about the roofs, I mean; you +soon get to understand. I heard them say I was a gentlemanly lad as I +was coming away. They wouldn't have cared to notice a little thing like +that if they'd been fiends, you know." + +"It doesn't matter how gentlemanly they think you; if you don't see me +home you _aren't_, that's all. Are you going to?" Mabel demanded. + +"Of course I am. We shall have no end of a lark. Now for Mademoiselle." + +He had put on his coat as he spoke and now ran up the stairs. The +others, herding in the hall, could hear his light-hearted +there's-nothing-unusual-the-matter-whatever-did-you-bolt-like-that-for +knock at Mademoiselle's door, the reassuring "It's only me--Gerald, you +know," the pause, the opening of the door, and the low-voiced parley +that followed; then Mademoiselle and Gerald at Eliza's door, voices of +reassurance; Eliza's terror, bluntly voluble, tactfully soothed. + +"Wonder what lies he's telling them," Jimmy grumbled. + +"Oh! not _lies_," said Mabel; "he's only telling them as much of the +truth as it's good for them to know." + +"If you'd been a man," said Jimmy witheringly, "you'd have been a +beastly Jesuit, and hid up chimneys." + +"If I were only just a boy," Mabel retorted, "I shouldn't be scared out +of my life by a pack of old coats." + +"I'm _so_ sorry you were frightened," Gerald's honeyed tones floated +down the staircase; "we didn't think about you being frightened. And it +_was_ a good trick, wasn't it?" + +"There!" whispered Jimmy, "he's been telling her it was a trick of +ours." + +"Well, so it was," said Mabel stoutly. + +"It was indeed a wonderful trick," said Mademoiselle; "and how did you +move the mannikins?" + +"Oh, we've often done it--with strings, you know," Gerald explained. + +"That's true, too," Kathleen whispered. + +[Illustration: "WONDER WHAT LIES HE'S TELLING THEM," JIMMY GRUMBLED.] + +"Let us see you do once again this trick so remarkable," said +Mademoiselle, arriving at the bottom-stair mat. + +"Oh, I've cleared them all out," said Gerald. ("So he has," from +Kathleen aside to Jimmy.) "We were so sorry you were startled; we +thought you wouldn't like to see them again." + +"Then," said Mademoiselle brightly, as she peeped into the untidy +dining-room and saw that the figures had indeed vanished, "if we supped +and discoursed of your beautiful piece of theatre?" + +Gerald explained fully how much his brother and sister would enjoy this. +As for him--Mademoiselle would see that it was his duty to escort Mabel +home, and kind as it was of Mademoiselle to ask her to stay the night, +it could not be, on account of the frenzied and anxious affection of +Mabel's aunt. And it was useless to suggest that Eliza should see Mabel +home, because Eliza was nervous at night unless accompanied by her +gentleman friend. + +So Mabel was hatted with her own hat and cloaked with a cloak that was +not hers; and she and Gerald went out by the front door, amid kind last +words and appointments for the morrow. + +The moment that front door was shut Gerald caught Mabel by the arm and +led her briskly to the corner of the side street which led to the yard. +Just round the corner he stopped. + +"Now," he said, "what I want to know is--are you an idiot or aren't +you?" + +"Idiot yourself!" said Mabel, but mechanically, for she saw that he was +in earnest. + +"Because _I'm_ not frightened of the Ugly-Wuglies. They're as harmless +as tame rabbits. But an idiot might be frightened, and give the whole +show away. If you're an idiot, say so, and I'll go back and tell them +you're afraid to walk home, and that I'll go and let your aunt know +you're stopping." + +"I'm not an idiot," said Mabel; "and," she added, glaring round her with +the wild gaze of the truly terror-stricken, "I'm not afraid of +_anything_." + +"I'm going to let you share my difficulties and dangers," said Gerald; +"at least, I'm inclined to let you. I wouldn't do as much for my own +brother, I can tell you. And if you queer my pitch I'll never speak to +you again or let the others either." + +"You're a beast, that's what you are! I don't need to be threatened to +make me brave. I _am_." + +"Mabel," said Gerald, in low, thrilling tones, for he saw that the time +had come to sound another note, "I _know_ you're brave. I _believe_ in +you. That's why I've arranged it like this. I'm certain you've got the +heart of a lion under that black-and-white exterior. Can I trust you? To +the death?" + +Mabel felt that to say anything but "Yes" was to throw away a priceless +reputation for courage. So "Yes" was what she said. + +"Then wait here. You're close to the lamp. And when you see me coming +with _them_ remember they're as harmless as serpents--I mean doves. +Talk to them just like you would to any one else. See?" + +He turned to leave her, but stopped at her natural question: + +"What hotel did you say you were going to take them to?" + +"Oh, Jimminy!" the harassed Gerald caught at his hair with both hands. +"There! you see, Mabel, you're a help already"; he had, even at that +moment, some tact left. "I clean forgot! I meant to ask you--isn't there +any lodge or anything in the Castle grounds where I could put them for +the night? The charm will break, you know, some time, like being +invisible did, and they'll just be a pack of coats and things that we +can easily carry home any day. Is there a lodge or anything?" + +"There's a secret passage," Mabel began--but at that moment the +yard-door opened and an Ugly-Wugly put out its head and looked anxiously +down the street. + +"Righto!"--Gerald ran to meet it. It was all Mabel could do not to run +in an opposite direction with an opposite motive. It was all she could +do, but she did it, and was proud of herself as long as ever she +remembered that night. + +And now, with all the silent precaution necessitated by the near +presence of an extremely insane uncle, the Ugly-Wuglies, a grisly band, +trooped out of the yard door. + +"Walk on your toes, dear," the bonneted Ugly-Wugly whispered to the one +with a wreath; and even at that thrilling crisis Gerald wondered how she +could, since the toes of one foot were but the end of a golf club and of +the other the end of a hockey-stick. + +Mabel felt that there was no shame in retreating to the lamp-post at the +street corner, but, once there, she made herself halt--and no one but +Mabel will ever know how much making that took. Think of it--to stand +there, firm and quiet, and wait for those hollow, unbelievable things to +come up to her, clattering on the pavement with their stumpy feet or +borne along noiselessly, as in the case of the flower-hatted lady, by a +skirt that touched the ground, and had, Mabel knew very well, nothing at +all inside it. + +She stood very still; the insides of her hands grew cold and damp, but +still she stood, saying over and over again: "They're not true--they +can't be true. It's only a dream--they aren't really true. They can't +be." And then Gerald was there, and all the Ugly-Wuglies crowding round, +and Gerald saying:-- + +"This is one of our friends, Mabel--the Princess in the play, you know. +Be a man!" he added in a whisper for her ear alone. + +Mabel, all her nerves stretched tight as banjo strings, had an awful +instant of not knowing whether she would be able to be a man or whether +she would be merely a shrieking and running little mad girl. For the +respectable Ugly-Wugly shook her limply by the hand ("He _can't_ be +true," she told herself), and the rose-wreathed one took her arm with a +soft-padded glove at the end of an umbrella arm, and said:-- + +"You dear, clever little thing! _Do_ walk with me!" in a gushing, +girlish way, and in speech almost wholly lacking in consonants. + +Then they all walked up the High Street as if, as Gerald said, they were +anybody else. + +It was a strange procession, but Liddlesby goes early to bed, and the +Liddlesby police, in common with those of most other places, wear boots +that one can hear a mile off. If such boots had been heard, Gerald would +have had time to turn back and head them off. He felt now that he could +not resist a flush of pride in Mabel's courage as he heard her polite +rejoinders to the still more polite remarks of the amiable Ugly-Wuglies. +He did not know how near she was to the scream that would throw away the +whole thing and bring the police and the residents out to the ruin of +everybody. + +They met no one, except one man, who murmured, "Guy Fawkes, swelp me!" +and crossed the road hurriedly; and when, next day, he told what he had +seen, his wife disbelieved him, and also said it was a judgment on him, +which was unreasonable. + +[Illustration: IT WAS A STRANGE PROCESSION.] + +Mabel felt as though she were taking part in a very completely arranged +nightmare, but Gerald was in it too, Gerald, who had asked if she was an +idiot. Well, she wasn't. But she soon would be, she felt. Yet she went +on answering the courteous vowel-talk of these impossible people. She +had often heard her aunt speak of impossible people. Well, now she +knew what they were like. + +Summer twilight had melted into summer moonlight. The shadows of the +Ugly-Wuglies on the white road were much more horrible than their more +solid selves. Mabel wished it had been a dark night, and then corrected +the wish with a hasty shudder. + +Gerald, submitting to a searching interrogatory from the tall-hatted +Ugly-Wugly as to his schools, his sports, pastimes, and ambitions, +wondered how long the spell would last. The ring seemed to work in +sevens. Would these things have seven hours' life--or fourteen--or +twenty-one? His mind lost itself in the intricacies of the seven-times +table (a teaser at the best of times) and only found itself with a shock +when the procession found _itself_ at the gates of the Castle grounds. + +Locked--of course. + +"You see," he explained, as the Ugly-Wuglies vainly shook the iron gates +with incredible hands; "it's so very late. There _is_ another way. But +you have to climb through a hole." + +"The ladies," the respectable Ugly-Wugly began objecting; but the ladies +with one voice affirmed that they loved adventures. "So frightfully +thrilling," added the one who wore roses. + +So they went round by the road, and coming to the hole--it was a little +difficult to find in the moonlight, which always disguises the most +familiar things--Gerald went first with the bicycle lantern which he +had snatched as his pilgrims came out of the yard; the shrinking Mabel +followed, and then the Ugly-Wuglies, with hollow rattlings of their +wooden limbs against the stone, crept through, and with strange +vowel-sounds of general amazement, manly courage, and feminine +nervousness, followed the light along the passage through the fern-hung +cutting and under the arch. + +When they emerged on the moonlit enchantment of the Italian garden a +quite intelligible "Oh!" of surprised admiration broke from more than +one painted paper lip; and the respectable Ugly-Wugly was understood to +say that it must be quite a show-place--by George, sir! yes. + +Those marble terraces and artfully serpentining gravel walks surely +never had echoed to steps so strange. No shadows so wildly unbelievable +had, for all its enchantments, ever fallen on those smooth, gray, dewy +lawns. Gerald was thinking this, or something like it (what he really +thought was, "I bet there never was such a go as this, even here!"), +when he saw the statue of Hermes leap from its pedestal and run towards +him and his company with all the lively curiosity of a street boy eager +to be in at a street fight. He saw, too, that he was the only one who +perceived that white advancing presence. And he knew that it was the +ring that let him see what by others could not be seen. He slipped it +from his finger. Yes; Hermes was on his pedestal, still as the snow man +you make in the Christmas holidays. He put the ring on again, and there +was Hermes, circling round the group and gazing deep in each unconscious +Ugly-Wugly face. + +"This seems a very superior hotel," the tall-hatted Ugly-Wugly was +saying; "the grounds are laid out with what you might call taste." + +"We should have to go in by the back door," said Mabel suddenly. "The +front door's locked at half-past nine." + +A short, stout Ugly-Wugly in a yellow and blue cricket cap, who had +hardly spoken, muttered something about an escapade, and about feeling +quite young again. + +And now they had skirted the marble-edged pool where the gold fish swam +and glimmered, and where the great prehistoric beast had come down to +bathe and drink. The water flashed white diamonds in the moonlight, and +Gerald alone of them all saw that the scaly-plated vast lizard was even +now rolling and wallowing there among the lily pads. + +They hastened up the steps of the Temple of Flora. The back of it, where +no elegant arch opened to the air, was against one of those sheer hills, +almost cliffs, that diversified the landscape of that garden. Mabel +passed behind the statue of the goddess, fumbled a little, and then +Gerald's lantern, flashing like a search-light, showed a very high and +very narrow doorway: the stone that was the door, and that had closed +it, revolved slowly under the touch of Mabel's fingers. + +"This way," she said, and panted a little. The back of her neck felt +cold and goose-fleshy. + +"You lead the way, my lad, with the lantern," said the suburban +Ugly-Wugly in his bluff, agreeable way. + +"I--I must, stay behind to close the door," said Gerald. + +"The Princess can do that. _We'll_ help her," said the wreathed one with +effusion; and Gerald thought her horribly officious. + +He insisted gently that he would be the one responsible for the safe +shutting of that door. + +"You wouldn't like me to get into trouble, I'm sure," he urged; and the +Ugly-Wuglies, for the last time kind and reasonable, agreed that this, +of all things, they would most deplore. + +"_You_ take it," Gerald urged, pressing the bicycle lamp on the elderly +Ugly-Wugly; "you're the natural leader. Go straight ahead. Are there any +steps?" he asked Mabel in a whisper. + +"Not for ever so long," she whispered back. "It goes on for ages, and +then twists round." + +"Whispering," said the smallest Ugly-Wugly suddenly, "ain't manners." + +"_He_ hasn't any, anyhow," whispered the lady Ugly-Wugly; "don't mind +him--quite a self-made man," and squeezed Mabel's arm with horrible +confidential flabbiness. + +The respectable Ugly-Wugly leading with the lamp, the others following +trustfully, one and all disappeared into that narrow doorway; and Gerald +and Mabel standing without, hardly daring to breathe lest a breath +should retard the procession, almost sobbed with relief. Prematurely, as +it turned out. For suddenly there was a rush and a scuffle inside the +passage, and as they strove to close the door the Ugly-Wuglies fiercely +pressed to open it again. Whether they saw something in the dark passage +that alarmed them, whether they took it into their empty heads that this +could not be the back way to any really respectable hotel, or whether a +convincing sudden instinct warned them that they were being tricked, +Mabel and Gerald never knew. But they knew that the Ugly-Wuglies were no +longer friendly and commonplace, that a fierce change had come over +them. Cries of "No, No!" "We won't go on!" "Make _him_ lead!" broke the +dreamy stillness of the perfect night. There were screams from ladies' +voices, the hoarse, determined shouts of strong Ugly-Wuglies roused to +resistance, and, worse than all, the steady pushing open of that narrow +stone door that had almost closed upon the ghastly crew. Through the +chink of it they could be seen, a writhing black crowd against the light +of the bicycle lamp; a padded hand reached round the door; stick-boned +arms stretched out angrily towards the world that that door, if it +closed, would shut them off from for ever. And the tone of their +consonantless speech was no longer conciliatory and ordinary; it was +threatening, full of the menace of unbearable horrors. + +The padded hand fell on Gerald's arm, and instantly all the terrors +that he had, so far, only known in imagination became real to him, and +he saw, in the sort of flash that shows drowning people their past +lives, what it was that he had asked of Mabel, and that she had given. + +"Push, push for your life!" he cried, and setting his heel against the +pedestal of Flora, pushed manfully. + +"I can't any more--oh. I can't!" moaned Mabel, and tried to use her heel +likewise, but her legs were too short. + +"They mustn't get out, they mustn't!" Gerald panted. + +"You'll know it when we do," came from inside the door in tones which +fury and mouth-rooflessness would have made unintelligible to any ears +but those sharpened by the wild fear of that unspeakable moment. + +"What's up, there?" cried suddenly a new voice--a voice with all its +consonants comforting, clean-cut, and ringing, and abruptly a new shadow +fell on the marble floor of Flora's temple. + +"Come and help push!" Gerald's voice only just reached the newcomer. "If +they get out they'll kill us all." + +A strong, velveteen-covered shoulder pushed suddenly between the +shoulders of Gerald and Mabel; a stout man's heel sought the aid of the +goddess's pedestal; the heavy, narrow door yielded slowly, it closed, +its spring clicked, and the furious, surging, threatening mass of +Ugly-Wuglies was shut in, and Gerald and Mabel--oh, incredible +relief!--were shut out. Mabel threw herself on the marble floor, sobbing +slow, heavy sobs of achievement and exhaustion. If I had been there I +should have looked the other way, so as not to see whether Gerald +yielded himself to the same abandonment. + +The newcomer he appeared to be a gamekeeper, Gerald decided +later--looked down on--well, certainly on Mabel, and said: + +"Come on, don't be a little duffer." (He may have said, "a couple of +little duffers.") "Who is it, and what's it all about?" + +"I can't possibly tell you," Gerald panted. + +"We shall have to see about that, shan't we," said the newcomer amiably. +"Come out into the moonlight and let's review the situation." + +Gerald, even in that topsy-turvy state of his world, found time to think +that a gamekeeper who used such words as that had most likely a romantic +past. But at the same time he saw that such a man would be far less easy +to "square" with an unconvincing tale than Eliza, or Johnson, or even +Mademoiselle. In fact, he seemed, with the only tale that they had to +tell, practically unsquarable. + +Gerald got up--if he was not up already, or still up--and pulled at the +limp and now hot hand of the sobbing Mabel; and as he did so the +unsquarable one took _his_ hand, and thus led both children out from +under the shadow of Flora's dome into the bright white moonlight that +carpeted Flora's steps. Here he sat down, a child on each side of him, +drew a hand of each through his velveteen arm, pressed them to his +velveteen sides in a friendly, reassuring way, and said: "Now then! Go +ahead!" + +Mabel merely sobbed. We must excuse her. She had been very brave, and I +have no doubt that all heroines, from Joan of Arc to Grace Darling, have +had their sobbing moments. + +But Gerald said: "It's no use. If I made up a story you'd see through +it." + +"That's a compliment to my discernment, anyhow," said the stranger. +"What price telling me the truth?" + +"If we told you the truth," said Gerald, "you wouldn't believe it." + +"Try me," said the velveteen one. He was clean-shaven, and had large +eyes that sparkled when the moonlight touched them. + +"I _can't_," said Gerald, and it was plain that he spoke the truth. +"You'd either think we were mad, and get us shut up, or else--oh, it's +no good. Thank you for helping us, and do let us go home." + +"I wonder," said the stranger musingly, "whether you have any +imagination." + +"Considering that we invented them," Gerald hotly began, and stopped +with late prudence. + +"If by 'them' you mean the people whom I helped you to imprison in +yonder tomb," said the stranger, loosing Mabel's hand to put his arm +round her, "remember that I saw and heard them. And with all respect to +your imagination, I doubt whether any invention of yours would be quite +so convincing." + +Gerald put his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. + +"Collect yourself," said the one in velveteen; "and while you are +collecting, let me just put the thing from my point of view. I think you +hardly realise my position. I come down from London to take care of a +big estate." + +"I _thought_ you were a gamekeeper," put in Gerald. + +Mabel put her head on the stranger's shoulder. "Hero in disguise, then, +_I_ know," she sniffed. + +"Not at all," said he; "bailiff would be nearer the mark. On the very +first evening I go out to take the moonlit air, and approaching a white +building, hear sounds of an agitated scuffle, accompanied by frenzied +appeals for assistance. Carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment, I +_do_ assist and shut up goodness knows who behind a stone door. Now, is +it unreasonable that I should ask who it is that I've shut up--helped to +shut up, I mean, and who it is that I've assisted?" + +"It's reasonable enough," Gerald admitted. + +"Well then," said the stranger. + +"Well then," said Gerald, "the fact is---- No," he added after a pause, +"the fact is, I simply can't tell you." + +"Then I must ask the other side," said Velveteens. "Let me go--I'll undo +that door and find out for myself." + +"Tell him," said Mabel, speaking for the first time. "Never mind if he +believes or not. We can't have them let out." + +"Very well," said Gerald, "I'll tell him. Now look here, Mr. Bailiff, +will you promise us on an English gentleman's word of honour--because, +of course, I can see you're _that_, bailiff or not--will you promise +that you won't tell any one what we tell you and that you won't have us +put in a lunatic asylum, however mad we sound?" + +"Yes," said the stranger, "I think I can promise that. But if you've +been having a sham fight or anything and shoved the other side into that +hole, don't you think you'd better let them out? They'll be most awfully +frightened, you know. After all, I suppose they are only children." + +"Wait till you hear," Gerald answered. "They're not children--not much! +Shall I just tell about them or begin at the beginning?" + +"The beginning, of course," said the stranger. + +Mabel lifted her head from his velveteen shoulder and said, "Let me +begin, then. I found a ring, and I said it would make me invisible. I +said it in play. And it _did_. I was invisible twenty-one hours. Never +mind where I got the ring. Now, Gerald, you go on." + +Gerald went on; for quite a long time he went on, for the story was a +splendid one to tell. + +"And so," he ended, "we got them in there; and when seven hours are +over, or fourteen, or twenty-one, or something with a seven in it, +they'll just be old coats again. They came alive at half-past nine. _I_ +think they'll stop being it in seven hours--that's half-past four. +_Now_ will you let us go home?" + +"I'll see you home," said the stranger in a quite new tone of +exasperating gentleness. "Come--let's be going." + +"You don't believe us," said Gerald. "Of course you don't. Nobody could. +But I could make you believe if I chose." + +All three stood up, and the stranger stared in Gerald's eyes till Gerald +answered his thought. + +"No, I don't look mad, do I?" + +"No, you aren't. But, come, you're an extraordinarily sensible boy; +don't you think you may be sickening for a fever or something?" + +"And Cathy and Jimmy and Mademoiselle and Eliza, and the man who said +'Guy Fawkes, swelp me!' and _you_, you saw them move--you heard them +call out. Are you sickening for anything?" + +"No--or at least not for anything but information. Come, and I'll see +you home." + +"Mabel lives at the Towers," said Gerald, as the stranger turned into +the broad drive that leads to the big gate. + +"No relation to Lord Yalding," said Mabel hastily--"housekeeper's +niece." She was holding on to his hand all the way. At the servants' +entrance she put up her face to be kissed, and went in. + +"Poor little thing!" said the bailiff, as they went down the drive +towards the gate. + +He went with Gerald to the door of the school. + +"Look here," said Gerald at parting. "I know what you're going to do. +You're going to try to undo that door." + +"Discerning!" said the stranger. + +"Well--don't. Or, any way, wait till daylight and let us be there. We +can get there by ten." + +"All right--I'll meet you there by ten," answered the stranger. "By +George! you're the rummest kids I ever met." + +"We are rum," Gerald owned, "but so would you be if---- Good night." + + * * * * * + +As the four children went over the smooth lawn towards Flora's Temple +they talked, as they had talked all the morning, about the adventures of +last night and of Mabel's bravery. It was not ten, but half-past twelve; +for Eliza, backed by Mademoiselle, had insisted on their "clearing up," +and clearing up very thoroughly, the "litter" of last night. + +"You're a Victoria Cross heroine, dear," said Cathy warmly. "You ought +to have a statue put up to you." + +"It would come alive if you put it here," said Gerald grimly. + +"_I_ shouldn't have been afraid," said Jimmy. + +"By daylight," Gerald assured him, "everything looks so jolly +different." + +"I do hope he'll be there," Mabel said; "he _was_ such a dear, Cathy--a +perfect bailiff, with the soul of a gentleman." + +[Illustration: A PAINTED POINTED PAPER FACE PEERED OUT.] + +"He isn't there, though," said Jimmy. "I believe you just dreamed him, +like you did the statues coming alive." + +They went up the marble steps in the sunshine, and it was difficult to +believe that this was the place where only in last night's moonlight +fear had laid such cold hands on the hearts of Mabel and Gerald. + +"Shall we open the door," suggested Kathleen, "and begin to carry home +the coats?" + +"Let's listen first," said Gerald; "perhaps they aren't only coats yet." + +They laid ears to the hinges of the stone door, behind which last night +the Ugly-Wuglies had shrieked and threatened. All was still as the sweet +morning itself. It was as they turned away that they saw the man they +had come to meet. He was on the other side of Flora's pedestal. But he +was not standing up. He lay there, quite still, on his back, his arms +flung wide. + +"Oh, look!" cried Cathy, and pointed. His face was a queer greenish +colour, and on his forehead there was a cut; its edges were blue, and a +little blood had trickled from it on to the white of the marble. + +At the same time Mabel pointed too--but she did not cry out as Cathy had +done. And what she pointed at was a big glossy-leaved rhododendron bush, +from which a painted pointed paper face peered out--very white, very +red, in the sunlight--and, as the children gazed, shrank back into the +cover of the shining leaves. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +IT was but too plain. The unfortunate bailiff must have opened the door +before the spell had faded, while yet the Ugly-Wuglies were something +more than mere coats and hats and sticks. They had rushed out upon him, +and had done this. He lay there insensible--was it a golf-club or a +hockey-stick that had made that horrible cut on his forehead? Gerald +wondered. The girls had rushed to the sufferer; already his head was in +Mabel's lap. Kathleen had tried to get it on to hers, but Mabel was too +quick for her. + +Jimmy and Gerald both knew what was the first thing needed by the +unconscious, even before Mabel impatiently said: "Water! water!" + +"What in?" Jimmy asked, looking doubtfully at his hands, and then down +the green slope to the marble-bordered pool where the water-lilies were. + +"Your hat--anything," said Mabel. + +The two boys turned away. + +"Suppose they come after us," said Jimmy. + +"_What_ come after us?" Gerald snapped rather than asked. + +"The Ugly-Wuglies," Jimmy whispered. + +"Who's afraid?" Gerald inquired. + +But he looked to right and left very carefully, and chose the way that +did not lead near the bushes. He scooped water up in his straw hat and +returned to Flora's Temple, carrying it carefully in both hands. When he +saw how quickly it ran through the straw he pulled his handkerchief from +his breast pocket with his teeth and dropped it into the hat. It was +with this that the girls wiped the blood from the bailiff's brow. + +"We ought to have smelling salts," said Kathleen, half in tears. "I know +we ought." + +"They would be good," Mabel owned. + +"Hasn't your aunt any?" + +"Yes, but----" + +"Don't be a coward," said Gerald; "think of last night. _They_ wouldn't +hurt you. He must have insulted them or something. Look here, you run. +We'll see that nothing runs after you." + +There was no choice but to relinquish the head of the interesting +invalid to Kathleen; so Mabel did it, cast one glaring glance round the +rhododendron bordered slope, and fled towards the castle. + +The other three bent over the still unconscious bailiff. + +"He's not dead, is he?" asked Jimmy anxiously. + +"No," Kathleen reassured him, "his heart's beating. Mabel and I felt it +in his wrist, where doctors do. How frightfully good-looking he is!" + +"Not so dusty," Gerald admitted. + +"I never know what you mean by good-looking," said Jimmy, and suddenly a +shadow fell on the marble beside them and a fourth voice spoke--not +Mabel's; her hurrying figure, though still in sight, was far away. + +"Quite a personable young man," it said. + +The children looked up--into the face of the eldest of the Ugly-Wuglies, +the respectable one. Jimmy and Kathleen screamed. I am sorry, but they +did. + +"Hush!" said Gerald savagely: he was still wearing the ring. "Hold your +tongues! I'll get him away," he added in a whisper. + +"Very sad affair this," said the respectable Ugly-Wugly. He spoke with a +curious accent; there was something odd about his r's, and his m's and +n's were those of a person labouring under an almost intolerable cold in +the head. But it was not the dreadful "oo" and "ah" voice of the night +before. Kathleen and Jimmy stooped over the bailiff. Even that prostrate +form, being human, seemed some little protection. But Gerald, strong in +the fearlessness that the ring gave to its wearer, looked full into the +face of the Ugly-Wugly--and started. For though the face was almost the +same as the face he had himself painted on the school drawing-paper, it +was not the same. For it was no longer paper. It was a real face, and +the hands, lean and almost transparent as they were, were real hands. +As it moved a little to get a better view of the bailiff it was plain +that it had legs, arms--live legs and arms, and a self-supporting +backbone. It was alive indeed--with a vengeance. + +"How did it happen?" Gerald asked with an effort at calmness--a +successful effort. + +"Most regrettable," said the Ugly-Wugly. "The others must have missed +the way last night in the passage. They never found the hotel." + +"Did _you_?" asked Gerald blankly. + +"Of course," said the Ugly-Wugly. "Most respectable, exactly as you +said. Then when I came away--I didn't come the front way because I +wanted to revisit this sylvan scene by daylight, and the hotel people +didn't seem to know how to direct me to it--I found the others all at +this door, very angry. They'd been here all night, trying to get out. +Then the door opened--this gentleman must have opened it--and before I +could protect him, that underbred man in the high hat--you remember----" + +Gerald remembered. + +"Hit him on the head, and he fell where you see him. The others +dispersed, and I myself was just going for assistance when I saw you." + +Here Jimmy was discovered to be in tears and Kathleen white as any +drawing-paper. + +"What's the matter, my little man?" said the respectable Ugly-Wugly +kindly. Jimmy passed instantly from tears to yells. + +"Here, take the ring!" said Gerald in a furious whisper, and thrust it +on to Jimmy's hot, damp, resisting finger. Jimmy's voice stopped short +in the middle of a howl. And Gerald in a cold flash realised what it was +that Mabel had gone through the night before. But it was daylight, and +Gerald was not a coward. + +"We must find the others," he said. + +"I imagine," said the elderly Ugly-Wugly, "that they have gone to bathe. +Their clothes are in the wood." + +He pointed stiffly. + +"You two go and see," said Gerald. "I'll go on dabbing this chap's +head." + +In the wood Jimmy, now fearless as any lion, discovered four heaps of +clothing, with broomsticks, hockey-sticks, and masks complete, all that +had gone to make up the gentlemen Ugly-Wuglies of the night before. On a +stone seat well in the sun sat the two lady Ugly-Wuglies, and Kathleen +approached them gingerly. Valour is easier in the sunshine than at +night, as we all know. When she and Jimmy came close to the bench, they +saw that the Ugly-Wuglies were only Ugly-Wuglies such as they had often +made. There was no life in them. Jimmy shook them to pieces, and a sigh +of relief burst from Kathleen. + +"The spell's broken, you see," she said; "and that old gentleman, he's +real. He only happens to be like the Ugly-Wugly we made." + +"He's got the coat that hung in the hall on, anyway," said Jimmy. + +[Illustration: JIMMY SHOOK THEM TO PIECES.] + +"No, it's only like it. Let's get back to the unconscious stranger." + +They did, and Gerald begged the elderly Ugly-Wugly to retire among the +bushes with Jimmy; "because," said he, "I think the poor bailiff's +coming round, and it might upset him to see strangers--and Jimmy'll keep +you company. He's the best one of us to go with you," he added hastily. + +And this, since Jimmy had the ring, was certainly true. + +So the two disappeared behind the rhododendrons. Mabel came back with +the salts just as the bailiff opened his eyes. + +"It's just like life," she said; "I might just as well not have gone. +However----" She knelt down at once and held the bottle under the +sufferer's nose till he sneezed and feebly pushed her hand away with the +faint question: + +"What's up now?" + +"You've hurt your head," said Gerald. "Lie still." + +"No--more--smelling-bottle," he said weakly, and lay. + +Quite soon he sat up and looked round him. There was an anxious silence. +Here was a grown-up who knew last night's secret, and none of the +children were at all sure what the utmost rigour of the law might be in +a case where people, no matter how young, made Ugly-Wuglies, and brought +them to life--dangerous, fighting, angry life. What would he say--what +would he do? He said: "What an odd thing! Have I been insensible long?" + +"Hours," said Mabel earnestly. + +"Not long," said Kathleen. + +"We don't know. We found you like it," said Gerald. + +"I'm all right now," said the bailiff, and his eye fell on the +blood-stained handkerchief. "I say, I did give my head a bang. And +you've been giving me first aid. Thank you most awfully. But it is rum." + +"What's rum?" politeness obliged Gerald to ask. + +"Well, I suppose it isn't really rum--I expect I saw you just before I +fainted, or whatever it was--but I've dreamed the most extraordinary +dream while I've been insensible, and you were in it." + +"Nothing but us?" asked Mabel breathlessly. + +"Oh, lots of things--impossible things--but _you_ were real enough." + +Every one breathed deeply in relief. It was indeed, as they agreed +later, a lucky let-off. + +"Are you _sure_ you're all right?" they all asked, as he got on his +feet. + +"Perfectly, thank you." He glanced behind Flora's statue as he spoke. +"Do you know, I dreamed there was a door there, but of course there +isn't. I don't know how to thank you," he added, looking at them with +what the girls called his beautiful, kind eyes; "it's lucky for me you +came along. You come here whenever you like, you know," he added. "I +give you the freedom of the place." + +"You're the new bailiff, aren't you?" said Mabel. + +"Yes. How did you know?" he asked quickly; but they did not tell him how +they knew. Instead, they found out which way he was going, and went the +other way after warm hand-shakes and hopes on both sides that they would +meet again soon. + +"I'll tell you what," said Gerald, as they watched the tall, broad +figure of the bailiff grow smaller across the hot green of the grass +slope, "have you got any idea of how we're going to spend the day? +Because I have." + +The others hadn't. + +"We'll get rid of that Ugly-Wugly--oh, we'll find a way right +enough--and directly we've done it we'll go home and seal up the ring in +an envelope so that its teeth'll be drawn and it'll be powerless to have +unforeseen larks with us. Then we'll get out on the roof, and have a +quiet day--books and apples. I'm about fed up with adventures, so I tell +you." + +The others told him the same thing. + +"Now, _think_," said he--"think as you never thought before--how to get +rid of that Ugly-Wugly." + +Every one thought, but their brains were tired with anxiety and +distress, and the thoughts they thought were, as Mabel said, not worth +thinking, let alone saying. + +"I suppose Jimmy's all right," said Kathleen anxiously. + +"Oh, _he's_ all right: he's got the ring," said Gerald. + +"I hope he won't go wishing anything rotten," said Mabel, but Gerald +urged her to shut up and let him think. + +"I think I think best sitting down," he said, and sat; "and sometimes +you can think best aloud. The Ugly-Wugly's _real_--don't make any +mistake about that. And he got made real inside that passage. If we +could get him back there he might get changed again, and then we could +take the coats and things back." + +"Isn't there any other way?" Kathleen asked; and Mabel, more candid, +said bluntly: "I'm not going into that passage, so there!" + +"Afraid! In broad daylight," Gerald sneered. + +"It wouldn't be broad daylight in there," said Mabel, and Kathleen +shivered. + +"If we went to him and suddenly tore his coat off," said she--"he _is_ +only coats--he couldn't go on being real then." + +"_Couldn't_ he!" said Gerald. "You don't know what he's like under the +coat." + +Kathleen shivered again. And all this time the sun was shining gaily and +the white statues and the green trees and the fountains and terraces +looked as cheerfully romantic as a scene in a play. + +"Any way," said Gerald, "we'll try to get him back, and shut the door. +That's the most we can hope for. And then apples, and 'Robinson Crusoe' +or the 'Swiss Family,' or any book you like that's got no magic in it. +Now, we've just got to do it. And he's not horrid now; _really_ he +isn't. He's real, you see." + +"I suppose that makes all the difference," said Mabel, and tried to feel +that perhaps it did. + +"And it's broad daylight--just look at the sun," Gerald insisted. "Come +on!" + +He took a hand of each, and they walked resolutely towards the bank of +rhododendrons behind which Jimmy and the Ugly-Wugly had been told to +wait, and as they went Gerald said: "He's real"--"The sun's +shining"--"It'll all be over in a minute." And he said these things +again and again, so that there should be no mistake about them. + +As they neared the bushes the shining leaves rustled, shivered, and +parted, and before the girls had time to begin to hang back Jimmy came +blinking out into the sunlight. The boughs closed behind him, and they +did not stir or rustle for the appearance of any one else. Jimmy was +alone. + +"Where is it?" asked the girls in one breath. + +"Walking up and down in a fir-walk," said Jimmy, "doing sums in a book. +He says he's most frightfully rich, and he's got to get up to town to +the Stocks or something--where they change papers into gold if you're +clever, he says. I should like to go to the Stocks-change, wouldn't +you?" + +"I don't seem to care very much about changes," said Gerald. "I've had +enough. Show us where he is--we must get rid of him." + +"He's got a motor-car," Jimmy went on, parting the warm +varnished-looking rhododendron leaves, "and a garden with a tennis-court +and a lake and a carriage and pair, and he goes to Athens for his +holiday sometimes, just like other people go to Margate." + +"The best thing," said Gerald, following through the bushes, "will be to +tell him the shortest way out is through that hotel that he thinks he +found last night. Then we get him into the passage, give him a push, fly +back, and shut the door." + +"He'll starve to death in there," said Kathleen, "if he's really real." + +"I expect it doesn't last long, the ring magics don't--anyway, it's the +only thing I can think of." + +"He's frightfully rich," Jimmy went on unheeding amid the cracking of +the bushes; "he's building a public library for the people where he +lives, and having his portrait painted to put in it. He thinks they'll +like that." + +The belt of rhododendrons was passed, and the children had reached a +smooth grass walk bordered by tall pines and firs of strange different +kinds. "He's just round that corner," said Jimmy. "He's simply rolling +in money. He doesn't know what to do with it. He's been building a +horse-trough and drinking fountain with a bust of himself on top. Why +doesn't he build a private swimming-bath close to his bed, so that he +can just roll off into it of a morning? I wish _I_ was rich; I'd soon +show him----" + +"That's a sensible wish," said Gerald. "I wonder we didn't think of +doing that. Oh, criky!" he added, and with reason. For there, in the +green shadows of the pine-walk, in the woodland silence, broken only by +rustling leaves and the agitated breathing of the three unhappy others, +Jimmy got his wish. By quick but perfectly plain-to-be-seen degrees +Jimmy became rich. And the horrible thing was that though they could see +it happening they did not know what was happening, and could not have +stopped it if they had. All they could see was Jimmy, their own Jimmy, +whom they had larked with and quarrelled with and made it up with ever +since they could remember, Jimmy continuously and horribly growing old. +The whole thing was over in a few seconds. Yet in those few seconds they +saw him grow to a youth, a young man, a middle-aged man; and then, with +a sort of shivering shock, unspeakably horrible and definite, he seemed +to settle down into an elderly gentleman, handsomely but rather dowdily +dressed, who was looking down at them through spectacles and asking them +the nearest way to the railway-station. If they had not seen the change +take place, in all its awful details, they would never have guessed that +this stout, prosperous, elderly gentleman with the high hat, the +frock-coat, and the large red seal dangling from the curve of a portly +waistcoat, was their own Jimmy. But, as they _had_ seen it, they knew +the dreadful truth. + +"Oh, Jimmy, _don't_!" cried Mabel desperately. + +Gerald said: "This is perfectly beastly," and Kathleen broke into wild +weeping. + +"Don't cry, little girl!" said That-which-had-been-Jimmy; "and you, boy, +can't you give a civil answer to a civil question?" + +"He doesn't know us!" wailed Kathleen. + +"Who doesn't know you?" said That-which-had-been impatiently. + +"Y--y--_you_ don't!" Kathleen sobbed. + +"I certainly don't," returned That-which----"but surely that need not +distress you so deeply." + +"Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy!" Kathleen sobbed louder than before. + +"He _doesn't_ know us," Gerald owned, "or--look here, Jimmy, y--you +aren't kidding, are you? Because if you are it's simply abject rot----" + +"My name is Mr. ----," said That-which-had-been-Jimmy, and gave the name +correctly. By the way, it will perhaps be shorter to call this elderly +stout person who was Jimmy grown rich by some simpler name than I have +just used. Let us call him "That"--short for "That-which-had-been-Jimmy." + +"What _are_ we to do?" whispered Mabel, awestruck; and aloud she said: +"Oh, Mr. James, or whatever you call yourself, _do_ give me the ring." +For on That's finger the fatal ring showed plain. + +"Certainly not," said That firmly. "You appear to be a very grasping +child." + +"But what are you going to _do_?" Gerald asked in the flat tones of +complete hopelessness. + +"Your interest is very flattering," said That. "Will you tell me, or +won't you, the way to the nearest railway-station?" + +"No," said Gerald, "we won't." + +"Then," said That, still politely, though quite plainly furious, +"perhaps you'll tell me the way to the nearest lunatic asylum?" + +"Oh, no, no, no!" cried Kathleen. "You're not so bad as that." + +"Perhaps not. But _you_ are," That retorted; "if you're not lunatics +you're idiots. However, I see a gentleman ahead who is perhaps sane. In +fact, I seem to recognise him." A gentleman, indeed, was now to be seen +approaching. It was the elderly Ugly-Wugly. + +"Oh! don't you remember Jerry?" Kathleen cried, "and Cathy, your own +Cathy Puss Cat? Dear, dear Jimmy, _don't_ be so silly!" + +"Little girl," said That, looking at her crossly through his spectacles, +"I am sorry you have not been better brought up." And he walked stiffly +towards the Ugly-Wugly. Two hats were raised, a few words were +exchanged, and two elderly figures walked side by side down the green +pine-walk, followed by three miserable children, horrified, bewildered, +alarmed, and, what is really worse than anything, quite at their wits' +end. + +"He wished to be rich, so of course he is," said Gerald; "he'll have +money for tickets and everything." + +[Illustration: TWO HATS WERE RAISED.] + +"And when the spell breaks--it's sure to break, isn't it?--he'll find +himself somewhere awful--perhaps in a really good hotel--and not know +how he got there." + +"I wonder how long the Ugly-Wuglies lasted," said Mabel. + +"Yes," Gerald answered, "that reminds me. You two _must_ collect the +coats and things. Hide them, anywhere you like, and we'll carry them +home to-morrow--if there _is_ any to-morrow," he added darkly. + +"Oh, don't!" said Kathleen, once more breathing heavily on the verge of +tears: "you wouldn't think everything _could_ be so awful, and the sun +shining like it does." + +"Look here," said Gerald, "of course I must stick to Jimmy. You two must +go home to Mademoiselle and tell her Jimmy and I have gone off in the +train with a gentleman--say he looked like an uncle. He does--some kinds +of uncle. There'll be a beastly row afterwards, but it's got to be +done." + +"It all seems thick with lies," said Kathleen; "you don't seem to be +able to get a word of truth in edgewise hardly." + +"Don't you worry," said her brother; "they aren't lies--they're as true +as anything else in this magic rot we've got mixed up in. It's like +telling lies in a dream; you can't help it." + +"Well, all I know is I wish it would stop." + +"Lot of use your wishing _that_ is," said Gerald, exasperated. "So long. +I've _got_ to go, and you've _got_ to stay. If it's any comfort to you, +I don't believe _any_ of it's real: it can't be; it's too thick. Tell +Mademoiselle Jimmy and I will be back to tea. If we don't happen to be I +can't help it. I can't help _anything_, except perhaps Jimmy." He +started to run, for the girls had lagged, and the Ugly-Wugly and That +(late Jimmy) had quickened their pace. + +The girls were left looking after them. + +"We've _got_ to find these clothes," said Mabel, "simply got to. I used +to want to be a heroine. It's different when it really comes to being, +isn't it?" + +"Yes, very," said Kathleen. "Where shall we hide the clothes when we've +got them? Not--not that passage?" + +"Never!" said Mabel firmly: "we'll hide them inside the great stone +dinosaurus. He's hollow." + +"He comes alive--in his stone," said Kathleen. + +"Not in the sunshine he doesn't," Mabel told her confidently, "and not +without the ring." + +"There won't be any apples and books to-day," said Kathleen. + +"No, but we'll do the babiest thing we _can_ do the minute we get home. +We'll have a dolls' tea-party. That'll make us feel as if there wasn't +really any magic." + +"It'll have to be a very strong tea party, then," said Kathleen +doubtfully. + + * * * * * + +And now we see Gerald, a small but quite determined figure, paddling +along in the soft white dust of the sunny road, in the wake of two +elderly gentlemen. His hand, in his trousers pocket, buries itself with +a feeling of satisfaction in the heavy mixed coinage that is his share +of the profits of his conjuring at the fair. His noiseless tennis-shoes +bear him to the station, where, unobserved, he listens at the ticket +office to the voice of That-which-was-James. "One first London," it +says; and Gerald, waiting till That and the Ugly-Wugly have strolled on +to the platform, politely conversing of politics and the Kaffir market, +takes a third return to London. The train strides in, squeaking and +puffing. The watched take their seats in a carriage blue-lined. The +watcher springs into a yellow wooden compartment. A whistle sounds, a +flag is waved. The train pulls itself together, strains, jerks, and +starts. + +[Illustration: MABEL HANDS UP THE CLOTHES AND THE STICKS.] + +"I don't understand," says Gerald, alone in his third-class carriage, +"how railway trains and magic _can_ go on at the same time." + +And yet they do. + + * * * * * + +Mabel and Kathleen, nervously peering among the rhododendron bushes and +the bracken and the fancy fir-trees, find six several heaps of coats, +hats, skirts, gloves, golf-clubs, hockey-sticks, broom-handles. They +carry them, panting and damp, for the mid-day sun is pitiless, up the +hill to where the stone dinosaurus looms immense among a forest of +larches. The dinosaurus has a hole in his stomach. Kathleen shows Mabel +how to "make a back" and climbs up on it into the cold, stony inside +of the monster. Mabel hands up the clothes and the sticks. + +"There's lots of room," says Kathleen; "its tail goes down into the +ground. It's like a secret passage." + +"Suppose something comes out of it and jumps out at you," says Mabel, +and Kathleen hurriedly descends. + +The explanations to Mademoiselle promise to be difficult, but, as +Kathleen said afterwards, any little thing is enough to take a +grown-up's attention off. A figure passes the window just as they are +explaining that it really did look exactly like an uncle that the boys +have gone to London with. + +"Who's that?" says Mademoiselle suddenly, pointing, too, which every one +knows is not manners. + +It is the bailiff coming back from the doctor's with antiseptic plaster +on that nasty cut that took so long a-bathing this morning. They tell +her it is the bailiff at Yalding Towers, and she says, "Sky!" (_Ciel!_) +and asks no more awkward questions about the boys. Lunch--very late--is +a silent meal. After lunch Mademoiselle goes out, in a hat with many +pink roses, carrying a rose-lined parasol. The girls, in dead silence, +organise a dolls' tea-party, with real tea. At the second cup Kathleen +bursts into tears. Mabel, also weeping, embraces her. + +"I wish," sobs Kathleen, "oh, I _do_ wish I knew where the boys were! +It _would_ be such a comfort." + + * * * * * + +Gerald knew where the boys were, and it was no comfort to him at all. If +you come to think of it, he was the only person who could know where +they were, because Jimmy didn't know that he was a boy--and indeed he +wasn't really--and the Ugly-Wugly couldn't be expected to know anything +real, such as where boys were. At the moment when the second cup of +dolls' tea--very strong, but not strong enough to drown care in--was +being poured out by the trembling hand of Kathleen, Gerald was +lurking--there really is no other word for it--on the staircase of +Aldermanbury Buildings, Old Broad Street. On the floor below him was a +door bearing the legend "Mr. U. W. Ugli, Stock and Share Broker. And at +the Stock Exchange," and on the floor above was another door, on which +was the name of Gerald's little brother, now grown suddenly rich in so +magic and tragic a way. There were no explaining words under Jimmy's +name. Gerald could not guess what walk in life it was to which That +(which had been Jimmy) owed its affluence. He had seen, when the door +opened to admit his brother, a tangle of clerks and mahogany desks. +Evidently That had a large business. + +What was Gerald to do? What _could_ he do? + +It is almost impossible, especially for one so young as Gerald, to enter +a large London office and explain that the elderly and respected head +of it is not what he seems, but is really your little brother, who has +been suddenly advanced to age and wealth by a tricky wishing ring. If +you think it's a possible thing, try it, that's all. Nor could he knock +at the door of Mr. U. W. Ugli, Stock and Share Broker (and at the Stock +Exchange), and inform _his_ clerks that their chief was really nothing +but old clothes that had accidentally come alive, and by some magic, +which he couldn't attempt to explain, become real during a night spent +at a really good hotel which had no existence. + +The situation bristled, as you see, with difficulties. And it was so +long past Gerald's proper dinner-time that his increasing hunger was +rapidly growing to seem the most important difficulty of all. It is +quite possible to starve to death on the staircase of a London building +if the people you are watching for only stay long enough in their +offices. The truth of this came home to Gerald more and more painfully. + +A boy with hair like a new front door mat came whistling up the stairs. +He had a dark blue bag in his hands. + +"I'll give you a tanner for yourself if you'll get me a tanner's worth +of buns," said Gerald, with that prompt decision common to all great +commanders. + +"Show us yer tanners," the boy rejoined with at least equal promptness. +Gerald showed them. "All right; hand over." + +"Payment on delivery," said Gerald, using words from the drapers which +he had never thought to use. + +The boy grinned admiringly. + +"Knows 'is wy abaht," he said; "ain't no flies on 'im." + +"Not many," Gerald owned with modest pride. "Cut along, there's a good +chap. I've _got_ to wait here. I'll take care of your bag if you like." + +"Nor yet there ain't no flies on me neither," remarked the boy, +shouldering it. "I been up to the confidence trick for years--ever since +I was your age." + +With this parting shot he went, and returned in due course bun-laden. +Gerald gave the sixpence and took the buns. When the boy, a minute +later, emerged from the door of Mr. U. W. Ugli, Stock and Share Broker +(and at the Stock Exchange), Gerald stopped him. + +"What sort of chap's that?" he asked, pointing the question with a jerk +of an explaining thumb. + +"Awful big pot," said the boy; "up to his eyes in oof. Motor and all +that." + +"Know anything about the one on the next landing?" + +"He's bigger than what this one is. Very old firm--special cellar in the +Bank of England to put his chink in--all in bins like against the wall +at the corn-chandler's. Jimminy, I wouldn't mind 'alf an hour in there, +and the doors open and the police away at a beano. Not much! Neither. +You'll bust if you eat all them buns." + +"Have one?" Gerald responded, and held out the bag. + +"They say in our office," said the boy, paying for the bun honourably +with unasked information, "as these two is all for cutting each other's +throats--oh, only in the way of business--been at it for years." + +Gerald wildly wondered what magic and how much had been needed to +give history and a past to these two things of yesterday, the rich +Jimmy and the Ugly-Wugly. If he could get them away would all memory +of them fade--in this boy's mind, for instance, in the minds of all +the people who did business with them in the City? Would the +mahogany-and-clerk-furnished offices fade away? Were the clerks +real? Was the mahogany? Was he himself real? Was the boy? + +"Can you keep a secret?" he asked the other boy. "Are you on for a +lark?" + +"I ought to be getting back to the office," said the boy. + +"Get then!" said Gerald. + +"Don't you get stuffy," said the boy. "I was just agoing to say it +didn't matter. I know how to make my nose bleed if I'm a bit late." + +Gerald congratulated him on this accomplishment, at once so useful and +so graceful, and then said:-- + +"Look here. I'll give you five bob--honest." + +"What for?" was the boy's natural question. + +"If you'll help me." + +"Fire ahead." + +"I'm a private inquiry," said Gerald. + +"'Tec? You don't look it." + +"What's the good of being one if you look it?" Gerald asked impatiently, +beginning on another bun. "That old chap on the floor above--he's +_wanted_." + +"Police?" asked the boy with fine carelessness. + +"No--sorrowing relations." + +"'Return to,'" said the boy; "'all forgotten and forgiven.' I see." + +"And I've got to get him to them, somehow. Now, if you could go in and +give him a message from some one who wanted to meet him on business----" + +"Hold on!" said the boy. "I know a trick worth two of that. You go in +and see old Ugli. He'd give his ears to have the old boy out of the way +for a day or two. They were saying so in our office only this morning." + +"Let me think," said Gerald, laying down the last bun on his knee +expressly to hold his head in his hands. + +"Don't you forget to think about my five bob," said the boy. + +Then there was a silence on the stairs, broken only by the cough of a +clerk in That's office, and the clickety-clack of a typewriter in the +office of Mr. U. W. Ugli. + +Then Gerald rose up and finished the bun. + +"You're right," he said. "I'll chance it. Here's your five bob." + +He brushed the bun crumbs from his front, cleared his throat, and +knocked at the door of Mr. U. W. Ugli. It opened and he entered. + +The door-mat boy lingered, secure in his power to account for his long +absence by means of his well-trained nose, and his waiting was rewarded. +He went down a few steps, round the bend of the stairs, and heard the +voice of Mr. U. W. Ugli, so well known on that staircase (and on the +Stock Exchange) say in soft, cautious accents:-- + +"Then I'll ask him to let me look at the ring--and I'll drop it. You +pick it up. But remember, it's a pure accident, and you don't know me. I +can't have my name mixed up in a thing like this. You're _sure_ he's +really unhinged?" + +"Quite," said Gerald; "he's quite mad about that ring. He'll follow it +anywhere. I know he will. And think of his sorrowing relations." + +"I do--I do," said Mr. Ugli kindly; "that's all I _do_ think of, of +course." + +He went up the stairs to the other office, and Gerald heard the voice of +That telling his clerks that he was going out to lunch. Then the +horrible Ugly-Wugly and Jimmy, hardly less horrible in the eyes of +Gerald, passed down the stairs where, in the dusk of the lower landing, +two boys were making themselves as undistinguishable as possible, and so +out into the street, talking of stocks and shares, bears and bulls. The +two boys followed. + +"I say," the door-mat-headed boy whispered admiringly, "whatever are you +up to?" + +"You'll see," said Gerald recklessly. "Come on!" + +"You tell me. I must be getting back." + +"Well, I'll tell you, but you won't believe me. That old gentleman's not +really old at all--he's my young brother suddenly turned into what you +see. The other's not real at all. He's only just old clothes and nothing +inside." + +"He looks it, I must say," the boy admitted; "but I say--you do stick it +on, don't you?" + +"Well, my brother was turned like that by a magic ring." + +"There ain't no such thing as magic," said the boy. "I learnt that at +school." + +"All right," said Gerald. "Goodbye." + +"Oh, go ahead!" said the boy; "you do stick it on, though." + +"Well, that magic ring. If I can get hold of it I shall just wish we +were all in a certain place. And we shall be. And then I can deal with +both of them." + +"Deal?" + +"Yes, the ring won't _unwish_ anything you've wished. That undoes itself +with time, like a spring uncoiling. But it'll give you a brand-new +wish--I'm almost certain of it. Anyhow, I'm going to chance it." + +"You are a rotter, aren't you?" said the boy respectfully. + +"You wait and see," Gerald repeated. + +"I say, you aren't going into this swell place! you _can't_?" + +The boy paused, appalled at the majesty of Pym's. + +"Yes, I am--they can't turn us out as long as we behave. You come along, +too. I'll stand lunch." + +I don't know why Gerald clung so to this boy. He wasn't a very nice boy. +Perhaps it was because he was the only person Gerald knew in London, to +speak to--except That-which-had-been-Jimmy and the Ugly-Wugly; and he +did not want to talk to either of them. + +What happened next happened so quickly that, as Gerald said later, it +was "just like magic." The restaurant was crowded--busy men were hastily +bolting the food hurriedly brought by busy waitresses. There was a clink +of forks and plates, the gurgle of beer from bottles, the hum of talk, +and the smell of many good things to eat. + +"Two chops, please," Gerald had just said, playing with a plainly shown +handful of money, so as to leave no doubt of his honourable intentions. +Then at the next table he heard the words, "Ah, yes, curious old family +heirloom," the ring was drawn off the finger of That, and Mr. U. W. +Ugli, murmuring something about a unique curio, reached his impossible +hand out for it. The door-mat-headed boy was watching breathlessly. + +"There's a ring right enough," he owned. And then the ring slipped from +the hand of Mr. U. W. Ugli and skidded along the floor. Gerald pounced +on it like a greyhound on a hare. He thrust the dull circlet on his +finger and cried out aloud in that crowded place:-- + +"I wish Jimmy and I were inside that door behind the statue of Flora." + +It was the only safe place he could think of. + +The lights and sounds and scents of the restaurant died away as a +wax-drop dies in fire--a rain-drop in water. I don't know, and Gerald +never knew, what happened in that restaurant. There was nothing about it +in the papers, though Gerald looked anxiously for "Extraordinary +Disappearance of well-known City Man." What the door-mat-headed boy did +or thought I don't know either. No more does Gerald. But he would like +to know, whereas I don't care tuppence. The world went on all right, +anyhow, whatever he thought or did. The lights and the sounds and the +scents of Pym's died out. In place of the light there was darkness; in +place of the sounds there was silence; and in place of the scent of +beef, pork, mutton, fish, veal, cabbage, onions, carrots, beer, and +tobacco there was the musty, damp scent of a place underground that has +been long shut up. + +[Illustration: HE CRIED OUT ALOUD IN THAT CROWDED PLACE: "I WISH JIMMY +AND I WERE INSIDE THAT DOOR BEHIND THE STATUE OF FLORA."] + +Gerald felt sick and giddy, and there was something at the back of his +mind that he knew would make him feel sicker and giddier as soon as he +should have the sense to remember what it was. Meantime it was important +to think of proper words to soothe the City man that had once been +Jimmy--to keep him quiet till Time, like a spring uncoiling, should +bring the reversal of the spell--make all things as they were and as +they ought to be. But he fought in vain for words. There were none. Nor +were they needed. For through the deep darkness came a voice--and it was +not the voice of that City man who had been Jimmy, but the voice of that +very Jimmy who was Gerald's little brother, and who had wished that +unlucky wish for riches that could only be answered by changing all that +was Jimmy, young and poor, to all that Jimmy, rich and old, would have +been. Another voice said: "Jerry, Jerry! Are you awake?--I've had such a +rum dream." + +And then there was a moment when nothing was said or done. + +Gerald felt through the thick darkness, and the thick silence, and the +thick scent of old earth shut up, and he got hold of Jimmy's hand. + +"It's all right, Jimmy, old chap," he said; "it's not a dream now. It's +that beastly ring again. I had to wish us here, to get you back at all +out of your dream." + +"Wish us where?" Jimmy held on to the hand in a way that in the daylight +of life he would have been the first to call babyish. + +"Inside the passage--behind the Flora statue," said Gerald, adding, +"it's all right, really." + +"Oh, I daresay it's all right," Jimmy answered through the dark, with an +irritation not strong enough to make him loosen his hold of his +brother's hand. "_But how are we going to get out?_" + +Then Gerald knew what it was that was waiting to make him feel more +giddy than the lightning flight from Cheapside to Yalding Towers had +been able to make him. But he said stoutly: + +"I'll wish us out, of course." Though all the time he knew that the ring +would not undo its given wishes. + +It didn't. + +Gerald wished. He handed the ring carefully to Jimmy, through the thick +darkness. And Jimmy wished. + +And there they still were, in that black passage behind Flora, that had +led--in the case of one Ugly-Wugly at least--to "a good hotel." And the +stone door was shut. And they did not know even which way to turn to it. + +"If I only had some matches!" said Gerald. + +"Why didn't you leave me in the dream?" Jimmy almost whimpered. "It was +light there, and I was just going to have salmon and cucumber." + +"I," rejoined Gerald in gloom, "was just going to have steak and fried +potatoes." + +The silence, and the darkness, and the earthy scent were all they had +now. + +"I always wondered what it would be like," said Jimmy in low, even +tones, "to be buried alive. And now I know! Oh!" his voice suddenly rose +to a shriek, "it isn't true, it isn't! It's a dream--that's what it +is!" + +There was a pause while you could have counted ten. Then-- + +"Yes," said Gerald bravely, through the scent and the silence and the +darkness, "it's just a dream, Jimmy, old chap. We'll just hold on, and +call out now and then just for the lark of the thing. But it's really +only a dream, of course." + +"Of course," said Jimmy in the silence and the darkness and the scent of +old earth. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +THERE is a curtain, thin as gossamer, clear as glass, strong as iron, +that hangs for ever between the world of magic and the world that seems +to us to be real. And when once people have found one of the little weak +spots in that curtain which are marked by magic rings, and amulets, and +the like, almost anything may happen. Thus it is not surprising that +Mabel and Kathleen, conscientiously conducting one of the dullest dolls' +tea-parties at which either had ever assisted, should suddenly, and both +at once, have felt a strange, unreasonable, but quite irresistible +desire to return instantly to the Temple of Flora--even at the cost of +leaving the dolls' tea-service in an unwashed state, and only half the +raisins eaten. They went--as one has to go when the magic impulse drives +one--against their better judgment, against their wills almost. + +And the nearer they came to the Temple of Flora, in the golden hush of +the afternoon, the more certain each was that they could not possibly +have done otherwise. + +And this explains exactly how it was that when Gerald and Jimmy, +holding hands in the darkness of the passage, uttered their first +concerted yell, "just for the lark of the thing," that yell was +instantly answered from outside. + +A crack of light showed in that part of the passage where they had least +expected the door to be. The stone door itself swung slowly open, and +they were out of it, in the Temple of Flora, blinking in the good +daylight, an unresisting prey to Kathleen's embraces and the +questionings of Mabel. + +"And you left that Ugly-Wugly loose in London," Mabel pointed out; "you +might have wished it to be with you, too." + +"It's all right where it is," said Gerald. "I couldn't think of +everything. And besides, no, thank you! Now we'll go home and seal up +the ring in an envelope." + +"_I_ haven't done anything with the ring yet," said Kathleen. + +"I shouldn't think you'd want to when you see the sort of things it does +with you," said Gerald. + +"It wouldn't do things like that if _I_ was wishing with it," Kathleen +protested. + +"Look here," said Mabel, "let's just put it back in the treasure-room +and have done with it. I oughtn't ever to have taken it away, really. +It's a sort of stealing. It's quite as bad, really, as Eliza borrowing +it to astonish her gentleman friend with." + +"I don't mind putting it back if you like," said Gerald, "only if any of +us do think of a sensible wish you'll let us have it out again, of +course?" + +"Of course, of course," Mabel agreed. + +So they trooped up to the castle, and Mabel once more worked the spring +that let down the panelling and showed the jewels, and the ring was put +back among the odd dull ornaments that Mabel had once said were magic. + +"How innocent it looks!" said Gerald. "You wouldn't think there was any +magic about it. It's just like an old silly ring. I wonder if what Mabel +said about the other things is true! Suppose we try." + +"_Don't!_" said Kathleen. "_I_ think magic things are spiteful. They +just enjoy getting you into tight places." + +"I'd like to try," said Mabel, "only--well, everything's been rather +upsetting, and I've forgotten what I said anything was." + +So had the others. Perhaps that was why, when Gerald said that a bronze +buckle laid on the foot would have the effect of seven-league boots, it +didn't; when Jimmy, a little of the City man he had been clinging to him +still, said that the steel collar would ensure your always having money +in your pockets, his own remained empty; and when Mabel and Kathleen +invented qualities of the most delightful nature for various rings and +chains and brooches, nothing at all happened. + +"It's only the ring that's magic," said Mabel at last; "and, I say!" she +added, in quite a different voice. + +"What?" + +"Suppose even the ring isn't!" + +"But we know it is." + +"I don't," said Mabel. "I believe it's not to-day at all. I believe it's +the other day--we've just dreamed all these things. It's the day I made +up that nonsense about the ring." + +"No, it isn't," said Gerald; "you were in your Princess-clothes then." + +"What Princess-clothes?" said Mabel, opening her dark eyes very wide. + +"Oh, don't be silly," said Gerald wearily. + +"I'm not silly," said Mabel; "and I think it's time you went. I'm sure +Jimmy wants his tea." + +"Of course I do," said Jimmy. "But you had got the Princess-clothes that +day. Come along; let's shut up the shutters and leave the ring in its +long home." + +"What ring?" said Mabel. + +"Don't take any notice of her," said Gerald. "She's only trying to be +funny." + +"No, I'm not," said Mabel; "but I'm inspired like a Python or a +Sibylline lady. What ring?" + +"The wishing-ring," said Kathleen; "the invisibility ring." + +"Don't you see _now_," said Mabel, her eyes wider than ever, "the ring's +what you _say_ it is? That's how it came to make us invisible--I just +said it. Oh, we can't leave it here, if that's what it is. It isn't +stealing, really, when it's as valuable as that, you see. Say what it +is." + +"It's a wishing-ring," said Jimmy. + +"We've had that before--and you had your silly wish," said Mabel, more +and more excited. "I say it isn't a wishing-ring. I say it's a ring that +makes the wearer four yards high." + +She had caught up the ring as she spoke, and even as she spoke the ring +showed high above the children's heads on the finger of an impossible +Mabel, who was, indeed, twelve feet high. + +"Now you've done it!" said Gerald--and he was right. It was in vain that +Mabel asserted that the ring was a wishing-ring. It quite clearly +wasn't; it was what she had said it was. + +"And you can't tell at all how long the effect will last," said Gerald. +"Look at the invisibleness." This is difficult to do, but the others +understood him. + +"It may last for days," said Kathleen. "Oh, Mabel, it _was_ silly of +you!" + +"That's right, rub it in," said Mabel bitterly; "you should have +believed me when I said it was what I said it was. Then I shouldn't have +had to show you, and I shouldn't be this silly size. What am I to do +now, I should like to know?" + +"We must conceal you till you get your right size again--that's all," +said Gerald practically. + +"Yes--but _where_?" said Mabel, stamping a foot twenty-four inches long. + +"In one of the empty rooms. You wouldn't be afraid?" + +"Of course not," said Mabel. "Oh, I do wish we'd just put the ring back +and left it." + +"Well, it wasn't us that didn't," said Jimmy, with more truth than +grammar. + +"I shall put it back now," said Mabel, tugging at it. + +"I wouldn't if I were you," said Gerald thoughtfully. "You don't want to +stay that length, do you? And unless the ring's on your finger when the +time's up, I dare say it wouldn't act." + +The exalted Mabel sullenly touched the spring. The panels slowly slid +into place, and all the bright jewels were hidden. Once more the room +was merely eight-sided, panelled, sunlit, and unfurnished. + +"Now," said Mabel, "where am I to hide? It's a good thing auntie gave me +leave to stay the night with you. As it is, one of you will have to stay +the night with me. I'm not going to be left alone, the silly height I +am." + +Height was the right word; Mabel had said "four yards high"--and she +_was_ four yards high. But she was hardly any thicker than when her +height was four feet seven, and the effect was, as Gerald remarked, +"wonderfully worm-like." Her clothes had, of course, grown with her, and +she looked like a little girl reflected in one of those long bent +mirrors at Rosherville Gardens, that make stout people look so happily +slender, and slender people so sadly scraggy. She sat down suddenly on +the floor, and it was like a four-fold foot-rule folding itself up. + +"It's no use sitting there, girl," said Gerald. + +[Illustration: SHE SAT DOWN SUDDENLY ON THE FLOOR, AND IT WAS LIKE A +FOUR-FOLD FOOT-RULE FOLDING ITSELF UP.] + +"I'm not sitting here," retorted Mabel; "I only got down so as to be +able to get through the door. It'll have to be hands and knees through +most places for me now, I suppose." + +"Aren't you hungry?" Jimmy asked suddenly. + +"I don't know," said Mabel desolately; "it's--it's such a long way off!" + +"Well, I'll scout," said Gerald; "if the coast's clear----" + +"Look here," said Mabel, "I think I'd rather be out of doors till it +gets dark." + +"You _can't_. Some one's certain to see you." + +"Not if I go through the yew-hedge," said Mabel. "There's a yew-hedge +with a passage along its inside like the box-hedge in 'The Luck of the +Vails.'" + +"In _what_?" + +"'The Luck of the Vails.' It's a ripping book. It was that book first +set me on to hunt for hidden doors in panels and things. If I crept +along that on my front, like a serpent--it comes out amongst the +rhododendrons, close by the dinosaurus--we could camp there." + +"There's tea," said Gerald, who had had no dinner. + +"That's just what there isn't," said Jimmy, who had had none either. + +"Oh, you _won't_ desert me!" said Mabel. "Look here--I'll write to +auntie. She'll give you the things for a picnic, if she's there and +awake. If she isn't, one of the maids will." + +So she wrote on a leaf of Gerald's invaluable pocket-book:-- + + "DEAREST AUNTIE,-- + + "Please may we have some things for a picnic? + Gerald will bring them. I would come myself, but I + am a little tired. I think I have been growing + rather fast.--Your loving niece, + + "MABEL." + + "P.S.--Lots, please, because some of us are very + hungry." + +It was found difficult, but possible, for Mabel to creep along the +tunnel in the yew-hedge. Possible, but slow, so that the three had +hardly had time to settle themselves among the rhododendrons and to +wonder bitterly what on earth Gerald was up to, to be such a time gone, +when he returned, panting under the weight of a covered basket. He +dumped it down on the fine grass carpet, groaned, and added, "But it's +worth it. Where's our Mabel?" + +The long, pale face of Mabel peered out from rhododendron leaves, very +near the ground. + +"I look just like anybody else like this, don't I?" she asked anxiously; +"all the rest of me's miles away, under different bushes." + +"We've covered up the bits between the bushes with bracken and leaves," +said Kathleen, avoiding the question; "don't wriggle, Mabel, or you'll +waggle them off." + +Jimmy was eagerly unpacking the basket. It was a generous tea. A long +loaf, butter in a cabbage-leaf, a bottle of milk, a bottle of water, +cake, and large, smooth, yellow gooseberries in a box that had once held +an extra-sized bottle of somebody's matchless something for the hair +and moustache. Mabel cautiously advanced her incredible arms from the +rhododendron and leaned on one of her spindly elbows, Gerald cut bread +and butter, while Kathleen obligingly ran round, at Mabel's request, to +see that the green coverings had not dropped from any of the remoter +parts of Mabel's person. Then there was a happy, hungry silence, broken +only by those brief, impassioned suggestions natural to such an +occasion:-- + +"More cake, please." + +"Milk ahoy, there." + +"Chuck us the goosegogs." + +Everyone grew calmer--more contented with their lot. A pleasant feeling, +half tiredness and half restfulness, crept to the extremities of the +party. Even the unfortunate Mabel was conscious of it in her remote +feet, that lay crossed under the third rhododendron to the +north-north-west of the tea-party. Gerald did but voice the feelings of +the others when he said, not without regret:-- + +"Well, I'm a new man, but I couldn't eat so much as another goosegog if +you paid me." + +"_I_ could," said Mabel: "yes, I know they're all gone, and I've had my +share. But I _could_. It's me being so long, I suppose." + +A delicious after-food peace filled the summer air. At a little distance +the green-lichened grey of the vast stone dinosaurus showed through the +shrubs. He, too, seemed peaceful and happy. Gerald caught his stone eye +through a gap in the foliage. His glance seemed somehow sympathetic. + +"I dare say he liked a good meal in his day," said Gerald, stretching +luxuriously. + +"Who did?" + +"The dino what's-his-name," said Gerald. + +"He had a meal to-day," said Kathleen, and giggled. + +"Yes--didn't he?" said Mabel, giggling also. + +"You mustn't laugh lower than your chest," said Kathleen anxiously, "or +your green stuff will joggle off." + +"What do you mean--a meal?" Jimmy asked suspiciously. "What are you +sniggering about?" + +"He had a meal. Things to put in his inside," said Kathleen, still +giggling. + +"Oh, be funny if you want to," said Jimmy, suddenly cross. "We don't +want to know--do we, Jerry?" + +"I do," said Gerald witheringly; "I'm _dying_ to know. Wake me, you +girls, when you've finished pretending you're not going to tell." + +He tilted his hat over his eyes, and lay back in the attitude of +slumber. + +"Oh, don't be stupid!" said Kathleen hastily. "It's only that we fed the +dinosaurus through the hole in his stomach with the clothes the +Ugly-Wuglies were made of!" + +"We can take them home with us, then," said Gerald, chewing the white +end of a grass stalk, "so that's all right." + +"Look here," said Kathleen suddenly; "I've got an idea. Let me have the +ring a bit. I won't say what the idea is, in case it doesn't come off, +and then you'd say I was silly. I'll give it back before we go." + +"Oh, but you aren't going yet!" said Mabel, pleading. She pulled off the +ring. "Of course," she added earnestly, "I'm only too glad for you to +try any idea, however silly it is." + +Now, Kathleen's idea was quite simple. It was only that perhaps the ring +would change its powers if some one else renamed it--some one who was +not under the power of its enchantment. So the moment it had passed from +the long, pale hand of Mabel to one of her own fat, warm, red paws, she +jumped up, crying, "Let's go and empty the dinosaurus _now_," and +started to run swiftly towards that prehistoric monster. She had a good +start. She wanted to say aloud, yet so that the others could not hear +her, "This is a wishing-ring. It gives you any wish you choose." And she +did say it. And no one heard her, except the birds and a squirrel or +two, and perhaps a stone faun, whose pretty face seemed to turn a +laughing look on her as she raced past its pedestal. + +The way was uphill; it was sunny, and Kathleen had run her hardest, +though her brothers caught her up before she reached the great black +shadow of the dinosaurus. So that when she did reach that shadow she was +very hot indeed and not in any state to decide calmly on the best wish +to ask for. + +"I'll get up and move the things down, because I know exactly where I +put them," she said. + +Gerald made a back, Jimmy assisted her to climb up, and she disappeared +through the hole into the dark inside of the monster. In a moment a +shower began to descend from the opening--a shower of empty waistcoats, +trousers with wildly waving legs, and coats with sleeves uncontrolled. + +"Heads below!" called Kathleen, and down came walking-sticks and +golf-sticks and hockey-sticks and broom-sticks, rattling and chattering +to each other as they came. + +"Come on," said Jimmy. + +"Hold on a bit," said Gerald. "I'm coming up." He caught the edge of the +hole above in his hands and jumped. Just as he got his shoulders through +the opening and his knees on the edge he heard Kathleen's boots on the +floor of the dinosaurus's inside, and Kathleen's voice saying: + +"Isn't it jolly cool in here? I suppose statues are always cool. I do +wish I was a statue. Oh!" + +The "oh" was a cry of horror and anguish. And it seemed to be cut off +very short by a dreadful stony silence. + +"What's up?" Gerald asked. But in his heart he knew. He climbed up into +the great hollow. In the little light that came up through the hole he +could see something white against the grey of the creature's sides. He +felt in his pockets, still kneeling, struck a match, and when the blue +of its flame changed to clear yellow he looked up to see what he had +known he would see--the face of Kathleen, white, stony, and lifeless. +Her hair was white, too, and her hands, clothes, shoes--everything was +white, with the hard, cold whiteness of marble. Kathleen had her wish: +she was a statue. There was a long moment of perfect stillness in the +inside of the dinosaurus. Gerald could not speak. It was too sudden, too +terrible. It was worse than anything that had happened yet. Then he +turned and spoke down out of that cold, stony silence to Jimmy, in the +green, sunny, rustling, live world outside. + +"Jimmy," he said, in tones perfectly ordinary and matter of fact, +"Kathleen's gone and said that ring was a wishing-ring. And so it was, +of course. I see now what she was up to, running like that. And then the +young duffer went and wished she was a statue." + +"And is she?" asked Jimmy, below. + +"Come up and have a look," said Gerald. And Jimmy came, partly with a +pull from Gerald and partly with a jump of his own. + +"She's a statue, right enough," he said, in awestruck tones. "Isn't it +awful!" + +"Not at all," said Gerald firmly. "Come on--let's go and tell Mabel." + +To Mabel, therefore, who had discreetly remained with her long length +screened by rhododendrons, the two boys returned and broke the news. +They broke it as one breaks a bottle with a pistol-shot. + +[Illustration: KATHLEEN HAD HER WISH: SHE WAS A STATUE.] + +"Oh, my goodness!" said Mabel, and writhed through her long length so +that the leaves and fern tumbled off in little showers, and she felt the +sun suddenly hot on the backs of her legs. "What next? Oh, my goodness!" + +"She'll come all right," said Gerald, with outward calm. + +"Yes; but what about _me_?" Mabel urged. "I haven't got the ring. And my +time will be up before hers is. Couldn't you get it back? Can't you get +it off her hand? I'd put it back on her hand the very minute I was my +right size again--faithfully I would." + +"Well, it's nothing to blub about," said Jimmy, answering the sniffs +that had served her in this speech for commas and full-stops; "not for +you, anyway." + +"Ah! you don't know," said Mabel; "you don't know what it is to be as +long as I am. Do--do try and get the ring. After all, it is my ring more +than any of the rest of yours, anyhow, because I did find it, and I did +say it was magic." + +The sense of justice always present in the breast of Gerald awoke to +this appeal. + +"I expect the ring's turned to stone--her boots have, and all her +clothes. But I'll go and see. Only if I can't, I can't, and it's no use +your making a silly fuss." + +The first match lighted inside the dinosaurus showed the ring dark on +the white hand of the statuesque Kathleen. + +The fingers were stretched straight out. Gerald took hold of the ring, +and, to his surprise, it slipped easily off the cold, smooth marble +finger. + +"I say, Cathy, old girl, I am sorry," he said, and gave the marble hand +a squeeze. Then it came to him that perhaps she could hear him. So he +told the statue exactly what he and the others meant to do. This helped +to clear up his ideas as to what he and the others did mean to do. So +that when, after thumping the statue hearteningly on its marble back, he +returned to the rhododendrons, he was able to give his orders with the +clear precision of a born leader, as he later said. And since the others +had, neither of them, thought of any plan, his plan was accepted, as the +plans of born leaders are apt to be. + +"Here's your precious ring," he said to Mabel. "Now you're not +frightened of anything, are you?" + +"No," said Mabel, in surprise. "I'd forgotten that. Look here, I'll stay +here or farther up in the wood if you'll leave me all the coats, so that +I sha'n't be cold in the night. Then I shall be here when Kathleen comes +out of the stone again." + +"Yes," said Gerald, "that was exactly the born leader's idea." + +"You two go home and tell Mademoiselle that Kathleen's staying at the +Towers. She is." + +"Yes," said Jimmy, "she certainly is." + +"The magic goes in seven-hour lots," said Gerald; "your invisibility was +twenty-one hours, mine fourteen, Eliza's seven. When it was a +wishing-ring it began with seven. But there's no knowing what number it +will be really. So there's no knowing which of you will come right +first. Anyhow, we'll sneak out by the cistern window and come down the +trellis, after we've said good-night to Mademoiselle, and come and have +a look at you before we go to bed. I think you'd better come close up to +the dinosaurus and we'll leaf you over before we go." + +Mabel crawled into cover of the taller trees, and there stood up looking +as slender as a poplar and as unreal as the wrong answer to a sum in +long division. It was to her an easy matter to crouch beneath the +dinosaurus, to put her head up through the opening, and thus to behold +the white form of Kathleen. + +"It's all right, dear,"' she told the stone image; "I shall be quite +close to you. You call me as soon as you feel you're coming right +again." + +[Illustration: MABEL LAY DOWN, WAS COVERED UP, AND LEFT.] + +The statue remained motionless, as statues usually do, and Mabel +withdrew her head, lay down, was covered up, and left. The boys went +home. It was the only reasonable thing to do. It would never have done +for Mademoiselle to become anxious and set the police on their track. +Every one felt that. The shock of discovering the missing Kathleen, not +only in a dinosaurus's stomach, but, further, in a stone statue of +herself, might well have unhinged the mind of any constable, to say +nothing of the mind of Mademoiselle, which, being foreign, would +necessarily be a mind more light and easy to upset. While as for +Mabel---- + +"Well, to look at her as she is now," said Gerald, "why, it would send +any one off their chump--except us." + +"We're different," said Jimmy; "our chumps have had to jolly well get +used to things. It would take a lot to upset us now." + +"Poor old Cathy! all the same," said Gerald. + +"Yes, of course," said Jimmy. + += = = = = + +The sun had died away behind the black trees and the moon was rising. +Mabel, her preposterous length covered with coats, waistcoats, and +trousers laid along it, slept peacefully in the chill of the evening. +Inside the dinosaurus Kathleen, alive in her marble, slept too. She had +heard Gerald's words--had seen the lighted matches. She was Kathleen +just the same as ever, only she was Kathleen in a case of marble that +would not let her move. It would not have let her cry, even if she +wanted to. But she had not wanted to cry. Inside, the marble was not +cold or hard. It seemed, somehow, to be softly lined with warmth and +pleasantness and safety. Her back did not ache with stooping. Her limbs +were not stiff with the hours that they had stayed moveless. Everything +was well--better than well. One had only to wait quietly and quite +comfortably and one would come out of this stone case, and once more be +the Kathleen one had always been used to being. So she waited happily +and calmly, and presently waiting changed to not waiting--to not +anything; and, close held in the soft inwardness of the marble, she +slept as peacefully and calmly as though she had been lying in her own +bed. + +She was awakened by the fact that she was not lying in her own bed--was +not, indeed, lying at all--by the fact that she was standing and that +her feet had pins and needles in them. Her arms, too, held out in that +odd way, were stiff and tired. She rubbed her eyes, yawned, and +remembered. She had been a statue, a statue inside the stone dinosaurus. + +"Now I'm alive again," was her instant conclusion, "and I'll get out of +it." + +She sat down, put her feet through the hole that showed faintly grey in +the stone beast's underside, and as she did so a long, slow lurch threw +her sideways on the stone where she sat. _The dinosaurus was moving!_ + +"_Oh!_" said Kathleen inside it, "how dreadful! It must be moonlight, +and it's come alive, like Gerald said." + +It was indeed moving. She could see through the hole the changing +surface of grass and bracken and moss as it waddled heavily along. She +dared not drop through the hole while it moved, for fear it should crush +her to death with its gigantic feet. And with that thought came another: +where was Mabel? Somewhere--somewhere _near_? Suppose one of the great +feet planted itself on some part of Mabel's inconvenient length? Mabel +being the size she was now it would be quite difficult not to step on +some part or other of her, if she should happen to be in one's +way--quite difficult, however much one tried. And the dinosaurus would +not try. Why should it? Kathleen hung in an agony over the round +opening. The huge beast swung from side to side. It was going faster; it +was no good, she dared not jump out. Anyhow, they must be quite away +from Mabel by now. Faster and faster went the dinosaurus. The floor of +its stomach sloped. They were going downhill. Twigs cracked and broke as +it pushed through a belt of evergreen oaks; gravel crunched, ground +beneath its stony feet. Then stone met stone. There was a pause. A +splash! They were close to water--the lake where by moonlight Hermes +fluttered and Janus and the dinosaurus swam together. Kathleen dropped +swiftly through the hole on to the flat marble that edged the basin, +rushed sideways, and stood panting in the shadow of a statue's pedestal. +Not a moment too soon, for even as she crouched the monster lizard +slipped heavily into the water, drowning a thousand smooth, shining lily +pads, and swam away towards the central island. + +"Be still, little lady. I leap!" The voice came from the pedestal, and +next moment Phoebus had jumped from the pedestal in his little temple, +clearing the steps, and landing a couple of yards away. + +[Illustration: MABEL LAY DOWN, WAS COVERED UP, AND LEFT.] + +"You are new," said Phoebus over his graceful shoulder. "I should +not have forgotten you if once I had seen you." + +"I am," said Kathleen, "quite, quite new. And I didn't know you could +talk." + +"Why not?" Phoebus laughed. "You can talk." + +"But I'm alive." + +"Am not I?" he asked. + +"Oh, yes, I suppose so," said Kathleen, distracted, but not afraid; +"only I thought you had to have the ring on before one could even see +you move." + +Phoebus seemed to understand her, which was rather to his credit, for +she had certainly not expressed herself with clearness. + +"Ah! that's for mortals," he said. "_We_ can hear and see each other in +the few moments when life is ours. That is a part of the beautiful +enchantment." + +"But I am a mortal," said Kathleen. + +"You are as modest as you are charming," said Phoebus Apollo absently; +"the white water calls me! I go," and the next moment rings of liquid +silver spread across the lake, widening and widening, from the spot +where the white joined hands of the Sun-god had struck the water as he +dived. + +Kathleen turned and went up the hill towards the rhododendron bushes. +She must find Mabel, and they must go home at once. If only Mabel was of +a size that one could conveniently take home with one! Most likely, at +this hour of enchantments, she was. Kathleen, heartened by the thought, +hurried on. She passed through the rhododendron bushes, remembered the +pointed painted paper face that had looked out from the glossy leaves, +expected to be frightened--and wasn't. She found Mabel easily enough, +and much more easily than she would have done had Mabel been as she +wished to find her. For quite a long way off, in the moonlight, she +could see that long and worm-like form, extended to its full twelve +feet--and covered with coats and trousers and waistcoats. Mabel looked +like a drain-pipe that has been covered in sacks in frosty weather. +Kathleen touched her long cheek gently, and she woke. + +"What's up?" she said sleepily. + +"It's only me," Kathleen explained. + +"How cold your hands are!" said Mabel. + +"Wake up," said Kathleen, "and let's talk." + +"Can't we go home now? I'm awfully tired, and it's so long since +tea-time." + +"_You're_ too long to go home yet," said Kathleen sadly, and then Mabel +remembered. + +She lay with closed eyes--then suddenly she stirred and cried out:-- + +"Oh! Cathy, I feel so funny--like one of those horn snakes when you make +it go short to get it into its box. I am--yes--I know I am----" + +She was; and Kathleen, watching her, agreed that it was exactly like the +shortening of a horn spiral snake between the closing hands of a child. +Mabel's distant feet drew near--Mabel's long, lean arms grew +shorter--Mabel's face was no longer half a yard long. + +"You're coming right--you are! Oh, I am so glad!" cried Kathleen. + +"I know _I_ am," said Mabel; and as she said it she became once more +Mabel, not only in herself, which, of course, she had been all the time, +but in her outward appearance. + +"You are all right. Oh, hooray! hooray! I _am_ so glad!" said Kathleen +kindly; "and now we'll go home at once, dear." + +"Go home?" said Mabel, slowly sitting up and staring at Kathleen with +her big dark eyes. "Go home--like that?" + +"Like what?" Kathleen asked impatiently. + +"Why, _you_," was Mabel's odd reply. + +"I'm all right," said Kathleen. "Come on." + +"Do you mean to say you don't know?" said Mabel. "Look at yourself--your +hands--your dress--everything." + +Kathleen looked at her hands. They were of marble whiteness. Her dress, +too--her shoes, her stockings, even the ends of her hair. She was white +as new-fallen snow. + +"What is it?" she asked, beginning to tremble. "What am I all this +horrid colour for?" + +"Don't you see? Oh, Cathy, don't you see? You've _not_ come right. +You're a statue still." + +"I'm not--I'm alive--I'm talking to you." + +"I know you are, darling," said Mabel, soothing her as one soothes a +fractious child. "That's because it's moonlight." + +"But you can see I'm alive." + +"Of course I can. I've got the ring." + +"But I'm all right; I _know_ I am." + +[Illustration: "WHAT IS IT?" SHE ASKED, BEGINNING TO TREMBLE. "WHAT AM I +ALL THIS HORRID COLOUR FOR?"] + +"Don't you see," said Mabel gently, taking her white marble hand, +"you're not all right? It's moonlight, and you're a statue, and you've +just come alive with all the other statues. And when the moon goes down +you'll just be a statue again. _That's_ the difficulty, dear, about our +going home again. You're just a statue still, only you've come alive +with the other marble things. Where's the dinosaurus?" + +"In his bath," said Kathleen, "and so are all the other stone beasts." + +"Well," said Mabel, trying to look on the bright side of things, "then +we've got one thing, at any rate, to be thankful for!" + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +"IF," said Kathleen, sitting disconsolate in her marble, "if I am really +a statue come alive, I wonder you're not afraid of me." + +"I've got the ring," said Mabel with decision. "Cheer up, dear! you will +soon be better. Try not to think about it." + +She spoke as you speak to a child that has cut its finger, or fallen +down on the garden path, and rises up with grazed knees to which gravel +sticks intimately. + +"I know," Kathleen absently answered. + +"And I've been thinking," said Mabel brightly, "we might find out a lot +about this magic place, if the other statues aren't too proud to talk to +us." + +"They aren't," Kathleen assured her; "at least, Phoebus wasn't, he was +most awfully polite and nice." + +"Where is he?" Mabel asked. + +"In the lake--he was," said Kathleen. + +"Then let's go down there," said Mabel. "Oh, Cathy! it is jolly being +your own proper thickness again." She jumped up, and the withered ferns +and branches that had covered her long length and had been gathered +closely upon her as she shrank to her proper size fell as forest leaves +do when sudden storms tear them. But the white Kathleen did not move. + +The two sat on the grey moonlit grass with the quiet of the night all +about them. The great park was still as a painted picture; only the +splash of the fountains and the far-off whistle of the Western express +broke the silence, which, at the same time, they deepened. + +"What cheer, little sister!" said a voice behind them--a golden voice. +They turned quick, startled heads, as birds, surprised, might turn. +There in the moonlight stood Phoebus, dripping still from the lake, +and smiling at them, very gentle, very friendly. + +"Oh, it's you!" said Kathleen. + +"None other," said Phoebus cheerfully. "Who is your friend, the +earth-child?" + +"This is Mabel," said Kathleen. + +Mabel got up and bowed, hesitated, and held out a hand. + +"I am your slave, little lady," said Phoebus, enclosing it in marble +fingers. "But I fail to understand how you can see us, and why you do +not fear." + +Mabel held up the hand that wore the ring. + +"Quite sufficient explanation," said Phoebus; "but since you have +that, why retain your mottled earthy appearance? Become a statue, and +swim with us in the lake." + +"I can't swim," said Mabel evasively. + +"Nor yet me," said Kathleen. + +"_You_ can," said Phoebus. "All statues that come to life are +proficient in all athletic exercises. And you, child of the dark eyes +and hair like night, wish yourself a statue and join our revels." + +"I'd rather not, if you will excuse me," said Mabel cautiously. "You see +... this ring ... you wish for things, and you never know how long +they're going to last. It would be jolly and all that to be a statue +_now_, but in the morning I should wish I hadn't." + +"Earth-folk often do, they say," mused Phoebus. "But, child, you seem +ignorant of the powers of your ring. Wish exactly, and the ring will +exactly perform. If you give no limit of time, strange enchantments +woven by Arithmos the outcast god of numbers will creep in and spoil the +spell. Say thus: 'I wish that till the dawn I may be a statue of living +marble, even as my child friend, and that after that time I may be as +before, Mabel of the dark eyes and night-coloured hair." + +"Oh, yes, do, it would be so jolly!" cried Kathleen. "Do, Mabel! And if +we're both statues, shall we be afraid of the dinosaurus?" + +"In the world of living marble fear is not," said Phoebus. "Are we not +brothers, we and the dinosaurus, brethren alike wrought of stone and +life?" + +"And could I swim if I did?" + +"Swim, and float, and dive--and with the ladies of Olympus spread the +nightly feast, eat of the food of the gods, drink their cup, listen to +the song that is undying, and catch the laughter of immortal lips." + +"A feast!" said Kathleen. "Oh, Mabel, do! You would if you were as +hungry as I am." + +"But it won't be real food," urged Mabel. + +"It will be real to you, as to us," said Phoebus; "there is no other +realness even in your many-coloured world." + +Still Mabel hesitated. Then she looked at Kathleen's legs and suddenly +said:-- + +"Very well, I will. But first I'll take off my shoes and stockings. +Marble boots look simply awful--especially the laces. And a marble, +stocking that's coming down--and mine _do_!" + +She had pulled off shoes and stockings and pinafore. + +"Mabel has the sense of beauty," said Phoebus approvingly. "Speak the +spell, child, and I will lead you to the ladies of Olympus." + +Mabel, trembling a little, spoke it, and there were two little live +statues in the moonlit glade. Tall Phoebus took a hand of each. + +"Come--run!" he cried. And they ran. + +"Oh--it is jolly!" Mabel panted. "Look at my white feet in the grass! I +thought it would feel stiff to be a statue, but it doesn't." + +"There is no stiffness about the immortals," laughed the Sun-god. "For +to-night you are one of us." + +And with that they ran down the slope to the lake. + +"Jump!" he cried, and they jumped, and the water splashed up round +three white, gleaming shapes. + +"Oh! I _can_ swim!" breathed Kathleen. + +"So can I," said Mabel. + +"Of course you can," said Phoebus. "Now three times round the lake, +and then make for the island." + +Side by side the three swam, Phoebus swimming gently to keep pace with +the children. Their marble clothes did not seem to interfere at all with +their swimming, as your clothes would if you suddenly jumped into the +basin of the Trafalgar Square fountains and tried to swim there. And +they swam most beautifully, with that perfect ease and absence of effort +or tiredness which you must have noticed about your own swimming--in +dreams. And it was the most lovely place to swim in; the water-lilies, +whose long, snaky stalks are so inconvenient to ordinary swimmers, did +not in the least interfere with the movements of marble arms and legs. +The moon was high in the clear sky-dome. The weeping willows, cypresses, +temples, terraces, banks of trees and shrubs, and the wonderful old +house, all added to the romantic charm of the scene. + +"This is the nicest thing the ring has brought us yet," said Mabel, +through a languid but perfect side-stroke. + +"I thought you'd enjoy it," said Phoebus kindly; "now once more round, +and then the island." + +[Illustration: SIDE BY SIDE THE THREE SWAM.] + +They landed on the island amid a fringe of rushes, yarrow, +willow-herb, loose-strife, and a few late, scented, powdery, creamy +heads of meadow-sweet. The island was bigger than it looked from the +bank, and it seemed covered with trees and shrubs. But when, Phoebus +leading the way, they went into the shadow of these, they perceived that +beyond the trees lay a light, much nearer to them than the other side of +the island could possibly be. And almost at once they were through the +belt of trees, and could see where the light came from. The trees they +had just passed among made a dark circle round a big cleared space, +standing up thick and dark, like a crowd round a football field, as +Kathleen remarked. + +First came a wide, smooth ring of lawn, then marble steps going down to +a round pool, where there were no water-lilies, only gold and silver +fish that darted here and there like flashes of quicksilver and dark +flames. And the enclosed space of water and marble and grass was lighted +with a clear, white, radiant light, seven times stronger than the +whitest moonlight, and in the still waters of the pool seven moons lay +reflected. One could see that they were only reflections by the way +their shape broke and changed as the gold and silver fish rippled the +water with moving fin and tail that steered. + +The girls looked up at the sky, almost expecting to see seven moons +there. But no, the old moon shone alone, as she had always shone on +them. + +"There are seven moons," said Mabel blankly, and pointed, which is not +manners. + +"Of course," said Phoebus kindly; "everything in our world is seven +times as much so as in yours." + +"But there aren't seven of you," said Mabel. + +"No, but I am seven times as much," said the Sun God. "You see, there's +numbers, and there's quantity, to say nothing of quality. You see that, +I'm sure." + +"Not quite," said Kathleen. + +"Explanations always weary me," Phoebus interrupted. "Shall we join +the ladies?" + +On the further side of the pool was a large group, so white, that it +seemed to make a great white hole in the trees. Some twenty or thirty +figures there were in the group--all statues and all alive. Some were +dipping their white feet among the gold and silver fish, and sending +ripples across the faces of the seven moons. Some were pelting each +other with roses--roses so sweet that the girls could smell them even +across the pool. Others were holding hands and dancing in a ring, and +two were sitting on the steps playing cat's-cradle--which is a very +ancient game indeed--with a thread of white marble. + +As the new-comers advanced a shout of greeting and gay laughter went up. + +"Late again, Phoebus!" some one called out. And another: "Did one of +your horses cast a shoe?" And yet another called out something about +laurels. + +"I bring two guests," said Phoebus, and instantly the statues crowded +round, stroking the girls' hair, patting their cheeks, and calling them +the prettiest love-names. + +"Are the wreaths ready, Hebe?" the tallest and most splendid of the +ladies called out. "Make two more!" + +And almost directly Hebe came down the steps, her round arms hung thick +with rose-wreaths. There was one for each marble head. + +Every one now looked seven times more beautiful than before, which, in +the case of the gods and goddesses, is saying a good deal. The children +remembered how at the raspberry vinegar feast Mademoiselle had said that +gods and goddesses always wore wreaths for meals. + +Hebe herself arranged the roses on the girls' heads--and Aphrodite +Urania, the dearest lady in the world, with a voice like mother's at +those moments when you love her most, took them by the hands and said:-- + +"Come, we must get the feast ready. Eros--Psyche--Hebe--Ganymede--all +you young people can arrange the fruit." + +"I don't see any fruit," said Kathleen, as four slender forms disengaged +themselves from the white crowd and came toward them. + +"You will though," said Eros, a really nice boy, as the girls instantly +agreed; "you've only got to pick it." + +"Like this," said Psyche, lifting her marble arms to a willow branch. +She reached out her hand to the children--it held a ripe pomegranate. + +"I see," said Mabel. "You just----" She laid her fingers to the willow +branch and the firm softness of a big peach was within them. + +"Yes, just that," laughed Psyche, who was a darling, as any one could +see. + +After this Hebe gathered a few silver baskets from a convenient alder, +and the four picked fruit industriously. Meanwhile the elder statues +were busy plucking golden goblets and jugs and dishes from the branches +of ash-trees and young oaks and filling them with everything nice to eat +and drink that any one could possibly want, and these were spread on the +steps. It was a celestial picnic. Then everyone sat or lay down and the +feast began. And oh! the taste of the food served on those dishes, the +sweet wonder of the drink that melted from those gold cups on the white +lips of the company! And the fruit--there is no fruit like it grown on +earth, just as there is no laughter like the laughter of those lips, no +songs like the songs that stirred the silence of that night of wonder. + +"Oh!" cried Kathleen, and through her fingers the juice of her third +peach fell like tears on the marble steps. "I do wish the boys were +here!" + +"I do wonder what they're doing," said Mabel. + +[Illustration: IT WAS A CELESTIAL PICNIC.] + +"At this moment," said Hermes, who had just made a wide ring of flight, +as a pigeon does, and come back into the circle--"at this moment they +are wandering desolately near the home of the dinosaurus, having escaped +from their home by a window, in search of you. They fear that you have +perished, and they would weep if they did not know that tears do not +become a man, however youthful." + +Kathleen stood up and brushed the crumbs of ambrosia from her marble +lap. + +"Thank you all very much," she said. "It was very kind of you to have +us, and we've enjoyed ourselves very much, but I think we ought to go +now, please." + +"If it is anxiety about your brothers," said Phoebus obligingly, "it +is the easiest thing in the world for them to join you. Lend me your +ring a moment." + +He took it from Kathleen's half-reluctant hand, dipped it in the +reflection of one of the seven moons, and gave it back. She clutched it. +"Now," said the Sun-god, "wish for them that which Mabel wished for +herself. Say----" + +"I know," Kathleen interrupted. "I wish that the boys may be statues of +living marble like Mabel and me till dawn, and afterwards be like they +are now." + +"If you hadn't interrupted," said Phoebus--"but there, we can't expect +old heads on shoulders of young marble. You should have wished them +_here_--and--but no matter. Hermes, old chap, cut across and fetch them, +and explain things as you come." + +He dipped the ring again in one of the reflected moons before he gave +it back to Kathleen. + +"There," he said, "now it's washed clean ready for the next magic." + +"It is not our custom to question guests," said Hera the queen, turning +her great eyes on the children; "but that ring excites, I am sure, the +interest of us all." + +"It is _the_ ring," said Phoebus. + +"That, of course," said Hera; "but if it were not inhospitable to ask +questions I should ask, How came it into the hands of these +earth-children?" + +"That," said Phoebus, "is a long tale. After the feast the story, and +after the story the song." + +Hermes seemed to have "explained everything" quite fully; for when +Gerald and Jimmy in marble whiteness arrived, each clinging to one of +the god's winged feet, and so borne through the air, they were certainly +quite at ease. They made their best bows to the goddesses and took their +places as unembarrassed as though they had had Olympian suppers every +night of their lives. Hebe had woven wreaths of roses ready for them, +and as Kathleen watched them eating and drinking, perfectly at home in +their marble, she was very glad that amid the welling springs of +immortal peach-juice she had not forgotten her brothers. + +"And now," said Hera, when the boys had been supplied with everything +they could possibly desire, and more than they could eat--"now for the +story." + +"Yes," said Mabel intensely; and Kathleen said, "Oh _yes_; now for the +story. How splendid!" + +"The story," said Phoebus unexpectedly, "will be told by our guests." + +"Oh _no_!" said Kathleen, shrinking. + +"The lads, maybe, are bolder," said Zeus the king, taking off his +rose-wreath, which was a little tight, and rubbing his compressed ears. + +"I really can't," said Gerald; "besides, I don't know any stories." + +"Nor yet me," said Jimmy. + +"It's the story of how we got the ring that they want," said Mabel in a +hurry. "I'll tell it if you like. Once upon a time there was a little +girl called Mabel," she added yet more hastily, and went on with the +tale--all the tale of the enchanted castle, or almost all, that you have +read in these pages. The marble Olympians listened enchanted--almost as +enchanted as the castle itself, and the soft moonlit moments fell past +like pearls dropping into a deep pool. + +"And so," Mabel ended abruptly, "Kathleen wished for the boys and the +Lord Hermes fetched them and here we all are." + +A burst of interested comment and question blossomed out round the end +of the story, suddenly broken off short by Mabel. + +"But," said she, brushing it aside, as it grew thinner, "now we want +_you_ to tell _us_." + +"To tell you----?" + +"How you come to be alive, and how you know about the ring--and +everything you _do_ know." + +"Everything I know?" Phoebus laughed--it was to him that she had +spoken--and not his lips only but all the white lips curled in laughter. +"The span of your life, my earth-child, would not contain the words I +should speak, to tell you all I know." + +"Well, about the ring anyhow, and how you come alive," said Gerald; "you +see, it's very puzzling to us." + +"Tell them, Phoebus," said the dearest lady in the world; "don't tease +the children." + +So Phoebus, leaning back against a heap of leopard-skins that Dionysus +had lavishly plucked from a spruce fir, told. + +"All statues," he said, "can come alive when the moon shines, if they so +choose. But statues that are placed in ugly cities do not choose. Why +should they weary themselves with the contemplation of the hideous?" + +"Quite so," said Gerald politely, to fill the pause. + +"In your beautiful temples," the Sun-god went on, "the images of your +priests and of your warriors who lie cross-legged on their tombs come +alive and walk in their marble about their temples, and through the +woods and fields. But only on one night in all the year can any see +them. You have beheld us because you held the ring, and are of one +brotherhood with us in your marble, but on that one night all may behold +us." + +"And when is that?" Gerald asked, again polite, in a pause. + +"At the festival of the harvest," said Phoebus. "On that night as the +moon rises it strikes one beam of perfect light on to the altar in +certain temples. One of these temples is in Hellas, buried under the +fall of a mountain which Zeus, being angry, hurled down upon it. One is +in this land; it is in this great garden." + +"Then," said Gerald, much interested, "if we were to come up to that +temple on that night, we could see you, even without being statues or +having the ring?" + +"Even so," said Phoebus. "More, any question asked by a mortal we are +on that night bound to answer." + +"And the night is--when?" + +"Ah!" said Phoebus, and laughed. "Wouldn't you like to know!" + +Then the great marble King of the Gods yawned, stroked his long beard, +and said: "Enough of stories, Phoebus. Tune your lyre." + +"But the ring," said Mabel in a whisper, as the Sun-god tuned the white +strings of a sort of marble harp that lay at his feet--"about how you +know all about the ring?" + +"Presently," the Sun-god whispered back. "Zeus must be obeyed; but ask +me again before dawn, and I will tell you all I know of it." Mabel drew +back, and leaned against the comfortable knees of one Demeter--Kathleen +and Psyche sat holding hands. Gerald and Jimmy lay at full length, chins +on elbows, gazing at the Sun-god; and even as he held the lyre, before +ever his fingers began to sweep the strings, the spirit of music hung in +the air, enchanting, enslaving, silencing all thought but the thought of +itself, all desire but the desire to listen to it. + +Then Phoebus struck the strings and softly plucked melody from them, +and all the beautiful dreams of all the world came fluttering close with +wings like doves' wings; and all the lovely thoughts that sometimes +hover near, but not so near that you can catch them, now came home as to +their nests in the hearts of those who listened. And those who listened +forgot time and space, and how to be sad, and how to be naughty, and it +seemed that the whole world lay like a magic apple in the hand of each +listener, and that the whole world was good and beautiful. + +And then, suddenly, the spell was shattered. Phoebus struck a broken +chord, followed by an instant of silence; then he sprang up, crying, +"The dawn! the dawn! To your pedestals, O gods!" + +In an instant the whole crowd of beautiful marble people had leaped to +its feet, had rushed through the belt of wood that cracked and rustled +as they went, and the children heard them splash in the water beyond. +They heard, too, the gurgling breathing of a great beast, and knew that +the dinosaurus, too, was returning to his own place. + +Only Hermes had time, since one flies more swiftly than one swims, to +hover above them for one moment, and to whisper with a mischievous +laugh:-- + +"In fourteen days from now, at the Temple of Strange Stones." + +"What's the secret of the ring?" gasped Mabel. + +"The ring is the heart of the magic," said Hermes. "Ask at the moonrise +on the fourteenth day, and you shall know all." + +With that he waved the snowy caduceus and rose in the air supported by +his winged feet. And as he went the seven reflected moons died out and a +chill wind began to blow, a grey light grew and grew, the birds stirred +and twittered, and the marble slipped away from the children like a skin +that shrivels in fire, and they were statues no more, but flesh and +blood children as they used to be, standing knee-deep in brambles and +long coarse grass. There was no smooth lawn, no marble steps, no +seven-mooned fish-pond. The dew lay thick on the grass and the brambles, +and it was very cold. + +"We ought to have gone with them," said Mabel with chattering teeth. "We +can't swim now we're not marble. And I suppose this _is_ the island?" + +It was--and they couldn't swim. + +They knew it. One always knows those sort of things somehow without +trying. For instance, you know perfectly that you can't fly. There are +some things that there is no mistake about. + +The dawn grew brighter and the outlook more black every moment. + +"There isn't a boat, I suppose?" Jimmy asked. + +"No," said Mabel, "not on this side of the lake; there's one in the +boat-house, of course--if you could swim there." + +"You know I can't," said Jimmy. + +"Can't any one think of anything?" Gerald asked, shivering. + +"When they find we've disappeared they'll drag all the water for miles +round," said Jimmy hopefully, "in case we've fallen in and sunk to the +bottom. When they come to drag this we can yell and be rescued." + +"Yes, dear, that _will_ be nice," was Gerald's bitter comment. + +"Don't be so disagreeable," said Mabel with a tone so strangely cheerful +that the rest stared at her in amazement. + +"The ring," she said. "Of course we've only got to wish ourselves home +with it. Phoebus washed it in the moon ready for the next wish." + +"You didn't tell us about that," said Gerald in accents of perfect good +temper. "Never mind. Where _is_ the ring?" + +"_You_ had it," Mabel reminded Kathleen. + +"I know I had," said that child in stricken tones, "but I gave it to +Psyche to look at--and--and she's got it on her finger!" + +Every one tried not to be angry with Kathleen. All partly succeeded. + +"If we ever get off this beastly island," said Gerald, "I suppose you +can find Psyche's statue and get it off again?" + +"No I can't," Mabel moaned. "I don't know where the statue is. I've +never seen it. It may be in Hellas, wherever that is--or anywhere, for +anything _I_ know." + +No one had anything kind to say, and it is pleasant to record that +nobody said anything. And now it was grey daylight, and the sky to the +north was flushing in pale pink and lavender. + +The boys stood moodily, hands in pockets. Mabel and Kathleen seemed to +find it impossible not to cling together, and all about their legs the +long grass was icy with dew. + +A faint sniff and a caught breath broke the silence. + +"Now, look here," said Gerald briskly, "I won't have it. Do you hear? +Snivelling's no good at all. No, I'm not a pig. It's for your own good. +Lets make a tour of the island. Perhaps there's a boat hidden somewhere +among the overhanging boughs." + +"How could there be?" Mabel asked. + +"Some one might have left it there, I suppose," said Gerald. + +"But how would they have got off the island?" + +"In another boat, of course," said Gerald; "come on." + +Downheartedly, and quite sure that there wasn't and couldn't be any +boat, the four children started to explore the island. How often each +one of them had dreamed of islands, how often wished to be stranded on +one! Well, now they were. Reality is sometimes quite different from +dreams, and not half so nice. It was worst of all for Mabel, whose shoes +and stockings were far away on the mainland. The coarse grass and +brambles were very cruel to bare legs and feet. + +They stumbled through the wood to the edge of the water, but it was +impossible to keep close to the edge of the island, the branches grew +too thickly. There was a narrow, grassy path that wound in and out among +the trees, and this they followed, dejected and mournful. Every moment +made it less possible for them to hope to get back to the school-house +unnoticed. And if they were missed and beds found in their present +unslept-in state--well, there would be a row of some sort, and, as +Gerald said, "Farewell to liberty!" + +"Of course we can get off all right," said Gerald. "Just all shout when +we see a gardener or a keeper on the mainland. But if we do, concealment +is at an end and all is absolutely up!" + +"Yes," said everyone gloomily. + +"Come, buck up!" said Gerald, the spirit of the born general beginning +to reawaken in him. "We shall get out of this scrape all right, as we've +got out of others; you know we shall. See, the sun's coming out. You +feel all right and jolly now, don't you?" + +"Yes, oh yes!" said everyone, in tones of unmixed misery. + +The sun was now risen, and through a deep cleft in the hills it sent a +strong shaft of light straight at the island. The yellow light, almost +level, struck through the stems of the trees and dazzled the children's +eyes. This, with the fact that he was not looking where he was going, as +Jimmy did not fail to point out later, was enough to account for what +now happened to Gerald, who was leading the melancholy little +procession. He stumbled, clutched at a tree-trunk, missed his clutch, +and disappeared, with a yell and a clatter; and Mabel, who came next, +only pulled herself up just in time not to fall down a steep flight of +moss-grown steps that seemed to open suddenly in the ground at her feet. + +"Oh, Gerald!" she called down the steps: "are you hurt?" + +"No," said Gerald, out of sight and crossly, for he _was_ hurt, rather +severely; "it's steps, and there's a passage." + +"There always is," said Jimmy. + +"I knew there was a passage," said Mabel; "it goes under the water and +comes out at the Temple of Flora. Even the gardeners know that, but they +won't go down, for fear of snakes." + +"Then we can get out that way--I do think you might have said so," +Gerald's voice came up to say. + +"I didn't think of it," said Mabel. "At least---- And I suppose it goes +past the place where the Ugly-Wugly found its good hotel." + +"I'm not going," said Kathleen positively, "not in the dark, I'm not. So +I tell you!" + +"Very well, baby," said Gerald sternly, and his head appeared from below +very suddenly through interlacing brambles. "No one asked you to go in +the dark. We'll leave you here if you like, and return and rescue you +with a boat. Jimmy, the bicycle lamp!" He reached up a hand for it. + +Jimmy produced from his bosom, the place where lamps are always kept in +fairy stories--see Aladdin and others--a bicycle lamp. + +"We brought it," he explained, "so as not to break our shins over bits +of long Mabel among the rhododendrons." + +"Now," said Gerald very firmly, striking a match and opening the thick, +rounded glass front of the bicycle lamp, "I don't know what the rest of +you are going to do, but I'm going down these steps and along this +passage. If we find the good hotel--well, a good hotel never hurt any +one yet." + +"It's no good, you know," said Jimmy weakly; "you know jolly well you +can't get out of that Temple of Flora door, even if you get to it." + +"I _don't_ know," said Gerald, still brisk and commander-like; "there's +a secret spring inside that door most likely. We hadn't a lamp last time +to look for it, remember." + +"If there's one thing I do hate it's under-groundness," said Mabel. + +"_You're_ not a coward," said Gerald, with what is known as diplomacy. +"_You're_ brave, Mabel. Don't I know it! You hold Jimmy's hand and I'll +hold Cathy's. Now then." + +"I won't have _my_ hand held," said Jimmy, of course. "I'm not a kid." + +"Well, Cathy will. Poor little Cathy! Nice brother Jerry'll hold poor +Cathy's hand." + +Gerald's bitter sarcasm missed fire here, for Cathy gratefully caught +the hand he held out in mockery. She was too miserable to read his mood, +as she mostly did. "Oh, thank you, Jerry dear," she said gratefully; +"you _are_ a dear, and I _will_ try not to be frightened." And for quite +a minute Gerald shamedly felt that he had not been quite, quite kind. + +So now, leaving the growing goldness of the sunrise, the four went down +the stone steps that led to the underground and underwater passage, and +everything seemed to grow dark and then to grow into a poor pretence of +light again, as the splendour of dawn gave place to the small dogged +lighting of the bicycle lamp. The steps did indeed lead to a passage, +the beginnings of it choked with the drifted dead leaves of many old +autumns. But presently the passage took a turn, there were more steps, +down, down, and then the passage was empty and straight--lined above and +below and on each side with slabs of marble, very clear and clean. +Gerald held Cathy's hand with more of kindness and less of exasperation +than he had supposed possible. + +And Cathy, on her part, was surprised to find it possible to be so much +less frightened than she expected. + +The flame of the bull'seye threw ahead a soft circle of misty +light--the children followed it silently. Till, silently and suddenly, +the light of the bull's-eye behaved as the flame of a candle does when +you take it out into the sunlight to light a bonfire, or explode a train +of gunpowder, or what not. Because now, with feelings mixed indeed, of +wonder, and interest, and awe, but no fear, the children found +themselves in a great hall, whose arched roof was held up by two rows of +round pillars, and whose every corner was filled with a soft, searching, +lovely light, filling every cranny, as water fills the rocky secrecies +of hidden sea-caves. + +"How beautiful!" Kathleen whispered, breathing hard into the tickled ear +of her brother, and Mabel caught the hand of Jimmy and whispered, "I +must hold your hand--I must hold on to something silly, or I shan't +believe it's real." + +For this hall in which the children found themselves was the most +beautiful place in the world. I won't describe it, because it does not +look the same to any two people, and you wouldn't understand me if I +tried to tell you how it looked to any one of these four. But to each it +seemed the most perfect thing possible. I will only say that all round +it were great arches. Kathleen saw them as Moorish, Mabel as Tudor, +Gerald as Norman, and Jimmy as Churchwarden Gothic. (If you don't know +what these are, ask your uncle who collects brasses, and he will +explain, or perhaps Mr. Millar will draw the different kinds of arches +for you.) And through these arches one could see many things--oh! but +many things. Through one appeared an olive garden, and in it two lovers +who held each other's hands, under an Italian moon; through another a +wild sea, and a ship to whom the wild, racing sea was slave. A third +showed a king on his throne, his courtiers obsequious about him; and yet +a fourth showed a really good hotel, with the respectable Ugly-Wugly +sunning himself on the front doorsteps. There was a mother, bending over +a wooden cradle. There was an artist gazing entranced on the picture his +wet brush seemed to have that moment completed, a general dying on a +field where Victory had planted the standard he loved, and these things +were not pictures, but the truest truths, alive, and, as anyone could +see, immortal. + +Many other pictures there were that these arches framed. And all showed +some moment when life had sprung to fire and flower--the best that the +soul of man could ask or man's destiny grant. And the really good hotel +had its place here too, because there are some souls that ask no higher +thing of life than "a really good hotel." + +"Oh, I am glad we came; I am, I am!" Kathleen murmured, and held fast to +her brother's hand. + +They went slowly up the hall, the ineffectual bull'seye, held by Jimmy, +very crooked indeed, showing almost as a shadow in this big, glorious +light. + +And then, when the hall's end was almost reached, the children saw where +the light came from. It glowed and spread itself from one place, and in +that place stood the one statue that Mabel "did not know where to +find"--the statue of Psyche. They went on, slowly, quite happy, quite +bewildered. And when they came close to Psyche they saw that on her +raised hand the ring showed dark. + +Gerald let go Kathleen's hand, put his foot on the pediment, his knee on +the pedestal. He stood up, dark and human, beside the white girl with +the butterfly wings. + +"I do hope you don't mind," he said, and drew the ring off very gently. +Then, as he dropped to the ground, "Not here," he said. "I don't know +why, but not here." + +And they all passed behind the white Psyche, and once more the bicycle +lamp seemed suddenly to come to life again as Gerald held it in front of +him, to be the pioneer in the dark passage that led from the Hall of +----, but they did not know, then, what it was the Hall of. + +Then, as the twisting passage shut in on them with a darkness that +pressed close against the little light of the bicycle lamp, Kathleen +said, "Give me the ring. I know exactly what to say." + +Gerald gave it with not extreme readiness. + +"I wish," said Kathleen slowly, "that no one at home may know that we've +been out to-night, and I wish we were safe in our own beds, undressed, +and in our nightgowns, and asleep." + +And the next thing any of them knew, it was good, strong, ordinary +daylight--not just sunrise, but the kind of daylight you are used to +being called in, and all were in their own beds. Kathleen had framed the +wish most sensibly. The only mistake had been in saying "in our own +beds," because, of course, Mabel's own bed was at Yalding Towers, and to +this day Mabel's drab-haired aunt cannot understand how Mabel, who was +staying the night with that child in the town she was so taken up with, +hadn't come home at eleven, when the aunt locked up, and yet she was in +her bed in the morning. For though not a clever woman, she was not +stupid enough to be able to believe any one of the eleven fancy +explanations which the distracted Mabel offered in the course of the +morning. The first (which makes twelve) of these explanations was The +Truth, and of course the aunt was far too clever to believe That! + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +IT was show-day at Yalding Castle, and it seemed good to the children to +go and visit Mabel, and, as Gerald put it, to mingle unsuspected with +the crowd; to gloat over all the things which they knew and which the +crowd didn't know about the castle and the sliding panels, the magic +ring and the statues that came alive. Perhaps one of the pleasantest +things about magic happenings is the feeling which they give you of +knowing what other people not only don't know but wouldn't, so to speak, +believe if they did. + +On the white road outside the gates of the castle was a dark spattering +of breaks and wagonettes and dog-carts. Three or four waiting motor-cars +puffed fatly where they stood, and bicycles sprawled in heaps along the +grassy hollow by the red brick wall. And the people who had been brought +to the castle by the breaks and wagonettes, and dog-carts and bicycles +and motors, as well as those who had walked there on their own unaided +feet, were scattered about the grounds, or being shown over those parts +of the castle which were, on this one day of the week, thrown open to +visitors. + +There were more visitors than usual to-day because it had somehow been +whispered about that Lord Yalding was down, and that the holland covers +were to be taken off the state furniture, so that a rich American who +wished to rent the castle, to live in, might see the place in all its +glory. + +It certainly did look very splendid. The embroidered satin, gilded +leather and tapestry of the chairs, which had been hidden by brown +holland, gave to the rooms a pleasant air of being lived in. There were +flowering plants and pots of roses here and there on tables or +window-ledges. Mabel's aunt prided herself on her tasteful touch in the +home, and had studied the arrangement of flowers in a series of articles +in _Home Drivel_ called "How to Make Home High-class on Ninepence a +Week." + +The great crystal chandeliers, released from the bags that at ordinary +times shrouded them, gleamed with grey and purple splendour. The brown +linen sheets had been taken off the state beds, and the red ropes that +usually kept the low crowd in its proper place had been rolled up and +hidden away. + +"It's exactly as if we were calling on the family," said the grocer's +daughter from Salisbury to her friend who was in the millinery. + +"If the Yankee doesn't take it, what do you say to you and me setting up +here when we get spliced?" the draper's assistant asked his sweetheart. +And she said: "Oh, Reggie, how can you! you are _too_ funny." + +All the afternoon the crowd in its smart holiday clothes, pink blouses, +and light-coloured suits, flowery hats, and scarves beyond description +passed through and through the dark hall, the magnificent drawing-rooms +and boudoirs and picture-galleries. The chattering crowd was awed into +something like quiet by the calm, stately bedchambers, where men had +been born, and died; where royal guests had lain in long-ago summer +nights, with big bow-pots of elder-flowers set on the hearth to ward off +fever and evil spells. The terrace, where in old days dames in ruffs had +sniffed the sweetbrier and southernwood of the borders below, and +ladies, bright with rouge and powder and brocade, had walked in the +swing of their hooped skirts--the terrace now echoed to the sound of +brown boots, and the tap-tap of high-heeled shoes at two and eleven +three, and high laughter and chattering voices that said nothing that +the children wanted to hear. These spoiled for them the quiet of the +enchanted castle, and outraged the peace of the garden of enchantments. + +"It isn't such a lark after all," Gerald admitted, as from the window of +the stone summer-house at the end of the terrace they watched the loud +colours and heard the loud laughter. "I do hate to see all these people +in _our_ garden." + +"I said that to that nice bailiff-man this morning," said Mabel, setting +herself on the stone floor, "and he said it wasn't much to let them +come once a week. He said Lord Yalding ought to let them come when they +liked--said he would if he lived there." + +"That's all he knows!" said Jimmy. "Did he say anything else?" + +"Lots," said Mabel. "I do like him! I told him----" + +"You didn't!" + +"Yes. I told him lots about our adventures. The humble bailiff is a +beautiful listener." + +"We shall be locked up for beautiful lunatics if you let your jaw get +the better of you, my Mabel child." + +"Not us!" said Mabel. "I told it--you know the way--every word true, and +yet so that nobody believes any of it. When I'd quite done he said I'd +got a real littery talent, and I promised to put his name on the +beginning of the first book I write when I grow up." + +"You don't know his name," said Kathleen. "Let's do something with the +ring." + +"Imposs!" said Gerald. "I forgot to tell you, but I met Mademoiselle +when I went back for my garters--and she's coming to meet us and walk +back with us." + +"What did you say?" + +"I said," said Gerald deliberately, "that it was very kind of her. And +so it was. Us not wanting her doesn't make it not kind her coming----" + +"It may be kind, but it's sickening too," said Mabel, "because now I +suppose we shall have to stick here and wait for her; and I promised +we'd meet the bailiff-man. He's going to bring things in a basket and +have a picnic-tea with us." + +"Where?" + +"Beyond the dinosaurus. He said he'd tell me all about the +anteddy-something animals--it means before Noah's Ark; there are lots +besides the dinosaurus--in return for me telling him my agreeable +fictions. Yes, he called them that." + +"When?" + +"As soon as the gates shut. That's five." + +"We might take Mademoiselle along," suggested Gerald. + +"She'd be too proud to have tea with a bailiff, I expect; you never know +how grown-ups will take the simplest things." It was Kathleen who said +this. + +"Well, I'll tell you what," said Gerald, lazily turning on the stone +bench. "You all go along, and meet your bailiff. A picnic's a picnic. +And I'll wait for Mademoiselle." + +Mabel remarked joyously that this was jolly decent of Gerald, to which +he modestly replied: "Oh, rot!" + +Jimmy added that Gerald rather liked sucking-up to people. + +"Little boys don't understand diplomacy," said Gerald calmly; +"sucking-up is simply silly. But it's better to be good than pretty +and----" + +"How do you know?" Jimmy asked. + +"And," his brother went on, "you never know when a grown-up may come in +useful. Besides, they _like_ it. You must give them _some_ little +pleasures. Think how awful it must be to be old. My hat!" + +"I hope _I_ shan't be an old maid," said Kathleen. + +"I don't _mean_ to be," said Mabel briskly. "I'd rather marry a +travelling tinker." + +"It would be rather nice," Kathleen mused, "to marry the Gipsy King and +go about in a caravan telling fortunes and hung round with baskets and +brooms." + +"Oh, if I could choose," said Mabel, "of course, I'd marry a brigand, +and live in his mountain fastnesses, and be kind to his captives and +help them to escape and----" + +"You'll be a real treasure to your husband," said Gerald. + +"Yes," said Kathleen, "or a sailor would be nice. You'd watch for his +ship coming home and set the lamp in the dormer window to light him home +through the storm; and when he was drowned at sea you'd be most +frightfully sorry, and go every day to lay flowers on his daisied +grave." + +"Yes," Mabel hastened to say, "or a soldier, and then you'd go to the +wars with short petticoats and a cocked hat and a barrel round your neck +like a St. Bernard dog. There's a picture of a soldier's wife on a song +auntie's got. It's called 'The Veevandyear.'" + +"When I marry----" Kathleen quickly said. + +"When _I_ marry," said Gerald, "I'll marry a dumb girl, or else get the +ring to make her so that she can't speak unless she's spoken to. Let's +have a squint." + +He applied his eye to the stone lattice. + +"They're moving off," he said. "Those pink and purple hats are nodding +off in the distant prospect; and the funny little man with the beard +like a goat is going a different way from every one else--the gardeners +will have to head him off. I don't see Mademoiselle, though. The rest of +you had better bunk. It doesn't do to run any risks with picnics. The +deserted hero of our tale, alone and unsupported, urged on his brave +followers to pursue the commissariat waggons, he himself remaining at +the post of danger and difficulty, because he was born to stand on +burning decks whence all but he had fled, and to lead forlorn hopes when +despaired of by the human race!" + +"I think I'll marry a dumb husband," said Mabel, "and there shan't be +any heroes in my books when I write them, only a heroine. Come on, +Cathy." + +Coming out of that cool, shadowy summer-house into the sunshine was like +stepping into an oven, and the stone of the terrace was burning to the +children's feet. + +"I know now what a cat on hot bricks feels like," said Jimmy. + +The antediluvian animals are set in a beech-wood on a slope at least +half a mile across the park from the castle. The grandfather of the +present Lord Yalding had them set there in the middle of last century, +in the great days of the late Prince Consort, the Exhibition of 1851, +Sir Joseph Paxton, and the Crystal Palace. Their stone flanks, their +wide, ungainly wings, their lozenged crocodile-like backs show grey +through the trees a long way off. + +Most people think that noon is the hottest time of the day. They are +wrong. A cloudless sky gets hotter and hotter all the afternoon, and +reaches its very hottest at five. I am sure you must all have noticed +this when you are going out to tea anywhere in your best clothes, +especially if your clothes are starched and you happen to have a rather +long and shadeless walk. + +Kathleen, Mabel, and Jimmy got hotter and hotter, and went more and more +slowly. They had almost reached that stage of resentment and discomfort +when one "wishes one hadn't come" before they saw, below the edge of the +beech-wood, the white waved handkerchief of the bailiff. + +That banner, eloquent of tea, shade, and being able to sit down, put new +heart into them. They mended their pace, and a final desperate run +landed them among the drifted coppery leaves and bare grey and green +roots of the beech-wood. + +"Oh, glory!" said Jimmy, throwing himself down. "How do you do?" + +The bailiff looked very nice, the girls thought. He was not wearing his +velveteens, but a grey flannel suit that an Earl need not have scorned; +and his straw hat would have done no discredit to a Duke; and a Prince +could not have worn a prettier green tie. He welcomed the children +warmly. And there were two baskets dumped heavy and promising among the +beech-leaves. + +He was a man of tact. The hot, instructive tour of the stone +antediluvians, which had loomed with ever-lessening charm before the +children, was not even mentioned. + +"You must be desert-dry," he said, "and you'll be hungry, too, when +you've done being thirsty. I put on the kettle as soon as I discerned +the form of my fair romancer in the extreme offing." + +The kettle introduced itself with puffings and bubblings from the hollow +between two grey roots where it sat on a spirit-lamp. + +"Take off your shoes and stockings, won't you?" said the bailiff in +matter-of-course tones, just as old ladies ask each other to take off +their bonnets; "there's a little baby canal just over the ridge." + +The joys of dipping one's feet in cool running water after a hot walk +have yet to be described. I could write pages about them. There was a +mill-stream when I was young with little fishes in it, and dropped +leaves that spun round, and willows and alders that leaned over it and +kept it cool, and--but this is not the story of _my_ life. + +[Illustration: THE JOYS OF DIPPING ONE'S FEET IN COOL RUNNING WATER.] + +When they came back, on rested, damp, pink feet, tea was made and poured +out, delicious tea, with as much milk as ever you wanted, out of a beer +bottle with a screw top, and cakes, and gingerbread, and plums, and a +big melon with a lump of ice in its heart--a tea for the gods! + +This thought must have come to Jimmy, for he said suddenly, removing his +face from inside a wide-bitten crescent of melon-rind:-- + +"Your feast's as good as the feast of the Immortals, almost." + +"Explain your recondite allusion," said the grey-flanneled host; and +Jimmy, understanding him to say, "What do you mean?" replied with the +whole tale of that wonderful night when the statues came alive, and a +banquet of unearthly splendour and deliciousness was plucked by marble +hands from the trees of the lake island. + +When he had done the bailiff said:-- + +"Did you get all this out of a book?" + +"No," said Jimmy, "it happened." + +"You are an imaginative set of young dreamers, aren't you?" the bailiff +asked, handing the plums to Kathleen, who smiled, friendly but +embarrassed. Why couldn't Jimmy have held his tongue? + +"No, we're not," said that indiscreet one obstinately; "everything I've +told you _did_ happen, and so did the things Mabel told you." + +The bailiff looked a little uncomfortable. "All right, old chap," he +said. And there was a short, uneasy silence. + +"Look here," said Jimmy, who seemed for once to have got the bit between +his teeth, "do you believe me or not?" + +"Don't be silly, Jimmy!" Kathleen whispered. + +"Because, if you don't I'll _make_ you believe." + +"Don't!" said Mabel and Kathleen together. + +"Do you or don't you?" Jimmy insisted, lying on his front with his chin +on his hands, his elbows on a moss-cushion, and his bare legs kicking +among the beech-leaves. + +"I think you tell adventures awfully well," said the bailiff cautiously. + +"Very well," said Jimmy, abruptly sitting up, "you don't believe me. +Nonsense, Cathy! he's a gentleman, even if he is a bailiff." + +"Thank you!" said the bailiff with eyes that twinkled. + +"You won't tell, will you?" Jimmy urged. + +"Tell what?" + +"_Anything._" + +"Certainly not. I am, as you say, the soul of honour." + +"Then--Cathy, give me the ring." + +"Oh, _no_!" said the girls together. + +Kathleen did not mean to give up the ring; Mabel did not mean that she +should; Jimmy certainly used no force. Yet presently he held it in his +hand. It was his hour. There are times like that for all of us, when +what we say shall be done _is_ done. + +"Now," said Jimmy, "this is the ring Mabel told you about. I say it is a +wishing-ring. And if you will put it on your hand and wish, whatever you +wish will happen." + +"Must I wish out loud?" + +"Yes--I think so." + +"Don't wish for anything silly," said Kathleen, making the best of the +situation, "like its being fine on Tuesday or its being your favourite +pudding for dinner to-morrow. Wish for something you really want." + +"I will," said the bailiff. "I'll wish for the only thing I really want. +I wish my--I wish my friend were here." + +The three who knew the power of the ring looked round to see the +bailiff's friend appear; a surprised man that friend would be, they +thought, and perhaps a frightened one. They had all risen, and stood +ready to soothe and reassure the new-comer. But no startled gentleman +appeared in the wood, only, coming quietly through the dappled sun and +shadow under the beech-trees, Mademoiselle and Gerald, Mademoiselle in a +white gown, looking quite nice and like a picture, Gerald hot and +polite. + +"Good-afternoon," said that dauntless leader of forlorn hopes. "I +persuaded Mademoiselle----" + +That sentence was never finished, for the bailiff and the French +governess were looking at each other with the eyes of tired travellers +who find, quite without expecting it, the desired end of a very long +journey. And the children saw that even if they spoke it would not make +any difference. + +"_You!_" said the bailiff. + +"Mais ... c'est donc vous," said Mademoiselle, in a funny choky voice. + +[Illustration: THEY STOOD STILL AND LOOKED AT EACH OTHER.] + +And they stood still and looked at each other, "like stuck pigs," as +Jimmy said later, for quite a long time. + +"Is _she_ your friend?" Jimmy asked. + +"Yes--oh yes," said this bailiff. "You are my friend, are you not?" + +"But yes," Mademoiselle said softly. "I am your friend." + +"There! you see," said Jimmy, "the ring _does_ do what I said." + +"We won't quarrel about that," said the bailiff. "You can say it's the +ring. For me--it's a coincidence--the happiest, the dearest----" + +"Then you----?" said the French governess. + +"Of course," said the bailiff. "Jimmy, give your brother some tea. +Mademoiselle, come and walk in the woods: there are a thousand things to +say." + +"Eat then, my Gerald," said Mademoiselle, now grown young, and +astonishingly like a fairy princess. "I return all at the hour, and we +re-enter together. It is that we must speak each other. It is long time +that we have not seen us, me and Lord Yalding!" + +"So he was Lord Yalding all the time," said Jimmy, breaking a stupefied +silence as the white gown and the grey flannels disappeared among the +beech-trunks. "Landscape painter sort of dodge--silly, I call it. And +fancy her being a friend of his, and his wishing she was here! Different +from us, eh? Good old ring!" + +"His friend!" said Mabel with strong scorn: "don't you see she's his +lover? Don't you see she's the lady that was bricked up in the convent, +because he was so poor, and he couldn't find her. And now the ring's +made them live happy ever after. I _am_ glad! Aren't you, Cathy?" + +"Rather!" said Kathleen; "it's as good as marrying a sailor or a +bandit." + +"It's the ring did it," said Jimmy. "If the American takes the house +he'll pay lots of rent, and they can live on that." + +"I wonder if they'll be married to-morrow!" said Mabel. + +"Wouldn't it be fun if we were bridesmaids," said Cathy. + +"May I trouble you for the melon," said Gerald. "Thanks! Why didn't we +know he was Lord Yalding? Apes and moles that we were!" + +"_I've_ known since last night," said Mabel calmly; "only I promised not +to tell. I _can_ keep a secret, can't I?" + +"Too jolly well," said Kathleen, a little aggrieved. + +"He was disguised as a bailiff," said Jimmy; "that's why we didn't +know." + +"Disguised as a fiddle-stick-end," said Gerald. "Ha, ha! I see something +old Sherlock Holmes never saw, nor that idiot Watson, either. If you +want a really impenetrable disguise, you ought to disguise yourself as +what you really are. I'll remember that." + +"It's like Mabel, telling things so that you can't believe them," said +Cathy. + +"I think Mademoiselle's jolly lucky," said Mabel. + +"She's not so bad. He might have done worse," said Gerald. "Plums, +please!" + + * * * * * + +There was quite plainly magic at work. Mademoiselle next morning was a +changed governess. Her cheeks were pink, her lips were red, her eyes +were larger and brighter, and she had done her hair in an entirely new +way, rather frivolous and very becoming. + +"Mamselle's coming out!" Eliza remarked. + +Immediately after breakfast Lord Yalding called with a wagonette that +wore a smart blue cloth coat, and was drawn by two horses whose coats +were brown and shining and fitted them even better than the blue cloth +coat fitted the wagonette, and the whole party drove in state and +splendour to Yalding Towers. + +Arrived there, the children clamoured for permission to explore the +castle thoroughly, a thing that had never yet been possible. Lord +Yalding, a little absent in manner, but yet quite cordial, consented. +Mabel showed the others all the secret doors and unlikely passages and +stairs that she had discovered. It was a glorious morning. Lord Yalding +and Mademoiselle went through the house, it is true, but in a rather +half-hearted way. Quite soon they were tired, and went out through the +French windows of the drawing-room and through the rose garden, to sit +on the curved stone seat in the middle of the maze, where once, at the +beginning of things, Gerald, Kathleen, and Jimmy had found the sleeping +Princess who wore pink silk and diamonds. + +The children felt that their going left to the castle a more spacious +freedom, and explored with more than Arctic enthusiasm. It was as they +emerged from the little rickety secret staircase that led from the +powdering-room of the state suite to the gallery of the hall that they +came suddenly face to face with the odd little man who had a beard like +a goat and had taken the wrong turning yesterday. + +"This part of the castle is private," said Mabel, with great presence of +mind, and shut the door behind her. + +"I am aware of it," said the goat-faced stranger, "but I have the +permission of the Earl of Yalding to examine the house _at_ my leisure." + +"Oh!" said Mabel. "I beg your pardon. We all do. We didn't know." + +"You are relatives of his lordship, I should surmise?" asked the +goat-faced. + +"Not exactly," said Gerald. "Friends." + +The gentleman was thin and very neatly dressed; he had small, merry eyes +and a face that was brown and dry-looking. + +"You are playing some game, I should suppose?" + +"No, sir," said Gerald, "only exploring." + +"May a stranger propose himself as a member of your Exploring +Expedition?" asked the gentleman, smiling a tight but kind smile. + +The children looked at each other. + +"You see," said Gerald, "it's rather difficult to explain--but--you see +what I mean, don't you?" + +"He means," said Jimmy, "that we can't take you into an exploring party +without we know what you want to go for." + +"Are you a photographer?" asked Mabel, "or is it some newspaper's sent +you to write about the Towers?" + +"I understand your position," said the gentleman. "I am not a +photographer, nor am I engaged by any journal. I am a man of independent +means, travelling in this country with the intention of renting a +residence. My name is Jefferson D. Conway." + +"Oh!" said Mabel; "then you're the American millionaire." + +"I do not like the description, young lady," said Mr. Jefferson D. +Conway. "I am an American citizen, and I am not without means. This is a +fine property--a very fine property. If it were for sale----" + +"It isn't, it can't be," Mabel hastened to explain. "The lawyers have +put it in a tale, so Lord Yalding can't sell it. But you could take it +to live in, and pay Lord Yalding a good millionairish rent, and then he +could marry the French governess----" + +"Shish!" said Kathleen and Mr. Jefferson D. Conway together, and he +added:-- + +"Lead the way, please; and I should suggest that the exploration be +complete and exhaustive." + +Thus encouraged, Mabel led the millionaire through all the castle. He +seemed pleased, yet disappointed too. + +"It is a fine mansion," he said at last when they had come back to the +point from which they had started; "but I should suppose, in a house +this size, there would mostly be a secret stairway, or a priests' hiding +place, or a ghost?" + +"There are," said Mabel briefly, "but I thought Americans didn't believe +in anything but machinery and newspapers." She touched the spring of the +panel behind her, and displayed the little tottery staircase to the +American. The sight of it worked a wonderful transformation in him. He +became eager, alert, very keen. + +"Say!" he cried, over and over again, standing in the door that led from +the powdering-room to the state bed-chamber. "But this is great--great!" + +The hopes of every one ran high. It seemed almost certain that the +castle would be let for a millionairish rent and Lord Yalding be made +affluent to the point of marriage. + +"If there were a ghost located in this ancestral pile, I'd close with +the Earl of Yalding to-day, now, on the nail," Mr. Jefferson D. Conway +went on. + +"If you were to stay till to-morrow, and sleep in this room, I expect +you'd see the ghost," said Mabel. + +"There _is_ a ghost located here then?" he said joyously. + +[Illustration: HE BECAME EAGER, ALERT, VERY KEEN.] + +"They say," Mabel answered, "that old Sir Rupert, who lost his head in +Henry the Eighth's time, walks of a night here, with his head under his +arm. But we've not seen that. What we have seen is the lady in a pink +dress with diamonds in her hair. She carries a lighted taper," Mabel +hastily added. The others, now suddenly aware of Mabel's plan, hastened +to assure the American in accents of earnest truth that they had all +seen the lady with the pink gown. + +He looked at them with half-closed eyes that twinkled. + +"Well," he said, "I calculate to ask the Earl of Yalding to permit me to +pass a night in his ancestral best bed-chamber. And if I hear so much as +a phantom footstep, or hear so much as a ghostly sigh, I'll take the +place." + +"I _am_ glad!" said Cathy. + +"You appear to be very certain of your ghost," said the American, still +fixing them with little eyes that shone. "Let me tell you, young +gentlemen, that I carry a gun, and when I see a ghost, I shoot." + +He pulled a pistol out of his hip-pocket, and looked at it lovingly. + +"And I am a fair average shot," he went on, walking across the shiny +floor of the state bed-chamber to the open window. "See that big red +rose, like a tea-saucer?" + +They saw. + +The next moment a loud report broke the stillness, and the red petals of +the shattered rose strewed balustrade and terrace. + +The American looked from one child to another. Every face was perfectly +white. + +"Jefferson D. Conway made his little pile by strict attention to +business, and keeping his eyes skinned," he added. "Thank you for all +your kindness." + + * * * * * + +"Suppose you'd done it, and he'd shot you!" said Jimmy cheerfully. "That +_would_ have been an adventure, wouldn't it?" + +"I'm going to do it still," said Mabel, pale and defiant. "Let's find +Lord Yalding and get the ring back." + +Lord Yalding had had an interview with Mabel's aunt, and lunch for six +was laid in the great dark hall, among the armour and the oak +furniture--a beautiful lunch served on silver dishes. Mademoiselle, +becoming every moment younger and more like a Princess, was moved to +tears when Gerald rose, lemonade-glass in hand, and proposed the health +of "Lord and Lady Yalding." + +When Lord Yalding had returned thanks in a speech full of agreeable +jokes the moment seemed to Gerald propitious, and he said:-- + +"The ring, you know--you don't believe in it, but we do. May we have it +back?" + +And got it. + +Then, after a hasty council, held in the panelled jewel-room, Mabel +said: "This is a wishing-ring, and I wish all the American's weapons of +all sorts were here." + +Instantly the room was full--six feet up the wall--of a tangle and mass +of weapons, swords, spears, arrows, tomahawks, fowling pieces, +blunderbusses, pistols, revolvers, scimitars, kreeses--every kind of +weapon you can think of--and the four children wedged in among all these +weapons of death hardly dared to breathe. + +"He collects arms, I expect," said Gerald, "and the arrows are poisoned, +I shouldn't wonder. Wish them back where they came from, Mabel, for +goodness' sake, and try again." + +Mabel wished the weapons away, and at once the four children stood safe +in a bare panelled room. But-- + +"No," Mabel said, "I can't stand it. We'll work the ghost another way. I +wish the American may think he sees a ghost when he goes to bed. Sir +Rupert with his head under his arm will do." + +"Is it to-night he sleeps there?" + +"I don't know. I wish he may see Sir Rupert every night--that'll make it +all serene." + +"It's rather dull," said Gerald; "we shan't know whether he's seen Sir +Rupert or not." + +"We shall know in the morning, when he takes the house." + +This being settled, Mabel's aunt was found to be desirous of Mabel's +company, so the others went home. + +It was when they were at supper that Lord Yalding suddenly appeared, and +said:-- + +"Mr. Jefferson Conway wants you boys to spend the night with him in the +state chamber. I've had beds put up. You don't mind, do you? He seems +to think you've got some idea of playing ghost-tricks on him." + +It was difficult to refuse, so difficult that it proved impossible. + +Ten o'clock found the boys each in a narrow white bed that looked quite +absurdly small in that high, dark chamber, and in face of that tall +gaunt four-poster hung with tapestry and ornamented with +funereal-looking plumes. + +"I hope to goodness there isn't a _real_ ghost," Jimmy whispered. + +"Not likely," Gerald whispered back. + +"But I don't want to see Sir Rupert's ghost with its head under its +arm," Jimmy insisted. + +"You won't. The most you'll see'll be the millionaire seeing it. Mabel +said he was to see it, not us. Very likely you'll sleep all night and +not see anything. Shut your eyes and count up to a million and don't be +a goat!" + +But he was reckoning without Mabel and the ring. As soon as Mabel had +learned from her drab-haired aunt that this was indeed the night when +Mr. Jefferson D. Conway would sleep at the castle she had hastened to +add a wish, "that Sir Rupert and his head may appear to-night in the +state bedroom." + +Jimmy shut his eyes and began to count a million. Before he had counted +it he fell asleep. So did his brother. + +They were awakened by the loud echoing bang of a pistol shot. Each +thought of the shot that had been fired that morning, and opened eyes +that expected to see a sunshiny terrace and red-rose petals strewn upon +warm white stone. + +Instead, there was the dark, lofty state chamber, lighted but little by +six tall candles; there was the American in shirt and trousers, a +smoking pistol in his hand; and there, advancing from the door of the +powdering-room, a figure in doublet and hose, a ruff round its neck--and +no head! The head, sure enough, was there; but it was under the right +arm, held close in the slashed-velvet sleeve of the doublet. The face +looking from under the arm wore a pleasant smile. Both boys, I am sorry +to say, screamed. The American fired again. The bullet passed through +Sir Rupert, who advanced without appearing to notice it. + +Then, suddenly, the lights went out. The next thing the boys knew it was +morning. A grey daylight shone blankly through the tall windows--and +wild rain was beating upon the glass, and the American was gone. + +"Where are we?" said Jimmy, sitting up with tangled hair and looking +round him. "Oh, I remember. Ugh! it was horrid. I'm about fed up with +that ring, so I don't mind telling you." + +[Illustration: THE AMERICAN FIRED AGAIN.] + +"Nonsense!" said Gerald. "I enjoyed it. I wasn't a bit frightened, were +you?" + +"No," said Jimmy, "of course I wasn't." + + * * * * * + +"We've done the trick," said Gerald later when they learned that the +American had breakfasted early with Lord Yalding and taken the first +train to London; "he's gone to get rid of his other house, and take +this one. The old ring's beginning to do really useful things." + + * * * * * + +"Perhaps you'll believe in the ring now," said Jimmy to Lord Yalding, +whom he met later on in the picture-gallery; "it's all our doing that +Mr. Jefferson saw the ghost. He told us he'd take the house if he saw a +ghost, so of course we took care he did see one." + +"Oh, you did, did you?" said Lord Yalding in rather an odd voice. "I'm +very much obliged, I'm sure." + +"Don't mention it," said Jimmy kindly. "I thought you'd be pleased and +him too." + +"Perhaps you'll be interested to learn," said Lord Yalding, putting his +hands in his pockets and staring down at Jimmy, "that Mr. Jefferson D. +Conway was so pleased with your ghost that he got me out of bed at six +o'clock this morning to talk about it." + +"Oh, ripping!" said Jimmy. "What did he say?" + +"He said, as far as I can remember," said Lord Yalding, still in the +same strange voice--"he said: 'My lord, your ancestral pile is A1. It +is, in fact, The Limit. Its luxury is palatial, its grounds are nothing +short of Edenesque. No expense has been spared, I should surmise. Your +ancestors were whole-hoggers. They have done the thing as it should be +done--every detail attended to. I like your tapestry, and I like your +oak, and I like your secret stairs. But I think your ancestors should +have left well enough alone, and stopped at that.' So I said they had, +as far as I knew, and he shook his head and said:-- + +"'No, sir. Your ancestors take the air of a night with their heads under +their arms. A ghost that sighed or glided or rustled I could have stood, +and thanked you for it, and considered it in the rent. But a ghost that +bullets go through while it stands grinning with a bare neck and its +head loose under its own arm and little boys screaming and fainting in +their beds--no! What I say is, If this is a British hereditary +high-toned family ghost, excuse Me!' And he went off by the early +train." + +"I say," the stricken Jimmy remarked, "I _am_ sorry, and I don't think +we did faint, really I don't--but we thought it would be just what you +wanted. And perhaps some one else will take the house." + +"I don't know any one else rich enough," said Lord Yalding. "Mr. Conway +came the day before he said he would, or you'd never have got hold of +him. And I don't know how you did it, and I don't want to know. It was a +rather silly trick." + +There was a gloomy pause. The rain beat against the long windows. + +"I say"--Jimmy looked up at Lord Yalding with the light of a new idea in +his round face. "I say, if you're hard up, why don't you sell your +jewels?" + +"I haven't any jewels, you meddlesome young duffer," said Lord Yalding +quite crossly; and taking his hands out of his pockets, he began to +walk away. + +"I mean the ones in the panelled room with the stars in the ceiling," +Jimmy insisted, following him. + +"There aren't any," said Lord Yalding shortly; "and if this is some more +ring-nonsense I advise you to be careful, young man. I've had about as +much as I care for." + +"It's _not_ ring-nonsense," said Jimmy: "there are shelves and shelves +of beautiful family jewels. You can sell them and----" + +"Oh, _no_!" cried Mademoiselle, appearing like an oleograph of a duchess +in the door of the picture-gallery; "don't sell the family jewels----" + +"There aren't any, my lady," said Lord Yalding, going towards her. "I +thought you were never coming." + +"Oh, aren't there!" said Mabel, who had followed Mademoiselle. "You just +come and see." + +"Let us see what they will to show us," cried Mademoiselle, for Lord +Yalding did not move; "it should at least be amusing." + +"It is," said Jimmy. + +So they went, Mabel and Jimmy leading, while Mademoiselle and Lord +Yalding followed, hand in hand. + +"It's much safer to walk hand in hand," said Lord Yalding; "with these +children at large one never knows what may happen next." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +IT would be interesting, no doubt, to describe the feelings of Lord +Yalding as he followed Mabel and Jimmy through his ancestral halls, but +I have no means of knowing at all what he felt. Yet one must suppose +that he felt something: bewilderment, perhaps, mixed with a faint +wonder, and a desire to pinch himself to see if he were dreaming. Or he +may have pondered the rival questions, "Am I mad?" "Are they mad?" +without being at all able to decide which he ought to try to answer, let +alone deciding what, in either case, the answer ought to be. You see, +the children did seem to believe in the odd stories they told--and the +wish _had_ come true, and the ghost _had_ appeared. He must have +thought--but all this is vain; I don't _really_ know what he thought any +more than you do. + +Nor can I give you any clue to the thoughts and feelings of +Mademoiselle. I only know that she was very happy, but any one would +have known that if they had seen her face. Perhaps this is as good a +moment as any to explain that when her guardian had put her in a convent +so that she should not sacrifice her fortune by marrying a poor lord, +her guardian had secured that fortune (to himself) by going off with it +to South America. Then, having no money left, Mademoiselle had to work +for it. So she went out as governess, and took the situation she did +take because it was near Lord Yalding's home. She wanted to see him, +even though she thought he had forsaken her and did not love her any +more. And now she had seen him. I daresay she thought about some of +these things as she went along through his house, her hand held in his. +But of course I can't be sure. + +Jimmy's thoughts, of course, I can read like any old book. He thought, +"Now he'll _have_ to believe me." That Lord Yalding should believe him +had become, quite unreasonably, the most important thing in the world to +Jimmy. He wished that Gerald and Kathleen were there to share his +triumph, but they were helping Mabel's aunt to cover the grand furniture +up, and so were out of what followed. Not that they missed much, for +when Mabel proudly said, "Now you'll see," and the others came close +round her in the little panelled room, there was a pause, and +then--nothing happened at all! + +"There's a secret spring here somewhere," said Mabel, fumbling with +fingers that had suddenly grown hot and damp. + +"Where?" said Lord Yalding. + +"_Here_," said Mabel impatiently, "only I can't find it." + +And she couldn't. She found the spring of the secret panel under the +window all right, but that seemed to every one dull compared with the +jewels that every one had pictured and two at least had seen. But the +spring that made the oak panelling slide away and displayed jewels +plainly to any eye worth a king's ransom--this could not be found. +More, it was simply not there. There could be no doubt of that. Every +inch of the panelling was felt by careful fingers. The earnest protests +of Mabel and Jimmy died away presently in a silence made painful by the +hotness of one's ears, the discomfort of not liking to meet any one's +eyes, and the resentful feeling that the spring was not behaving in at +all a sportsmanlike way, and that, in a word, this was not cricket. + +"You see!" said Lord Yalding severely. "Now you've had your joke, if you +call it a joke, and I've had enough of the whole silly business. Give me +the ring--it's mine, I suppose, since you say you found it somewhere +here--and don't let's hear another word about all this rubbish of magic +and enchantment." + +"Gerald's got the ring," said Mabel miserably. + +"Then go and fetch him," said Lord Yalding--"both of you." + +The melancholy pair retired, and Lord Yalding spent the time of their +absence in explaining to Mademoiselle how very unimportant jewels were +compared with other things. + +The four children came back together. + +"We've had enough of this ring business," said Lord Yalding. "Give it to +me, and we'll say no more about it." + +"I--I can't get it off," said Gerald. "It--it always did have a will of +its own." + +"I'll soon get it off," said Lord Yalding. But he didn't. "We'll try +soap," he said firmly. Four out of his five hearers knew just exactly +how much use soap would be. + +"They won't believe about the jewels," wailed Mabel, suddenly dissolved +in tears, "and I can't find the spring. I've felt all over--we all +have--it was just here, and----" + +Her fingers felt it just as she spoke; and as she ceased to speak the +carved panels slid away, and the blue velvet shelves laden with jewels +were disclosed to the unbelieving eyes of Lord Yalding and the lady who +was to be his wife. + +"Jove!" said Lord Yalding. + +"_Miséricorde!_" said the lady. + +"But why _now_?" gasped Mabel. "Why not before?" + +"I expect it's magic," said Gerald. "There's no real spring here, and it +couldn't act because the ring wasn't here. You know Phoebus told us +the ring was the heart of all the magic." + +"Shut it up and take the ring away and see." + +They did, and Gerald was (as usual, he himself pointed out) proved to be +right. When the ring was away there was no spring; when the ring was in +the room there (as Mabel urged) was the spring all right enough. + +"So you see," said Mabel to Lord Yalding. + +"I see that the spring's very artfully concealed," said that dense peer. +"I think it was very clever indeed of you to find it. And if those +jewels are real----" + +"Of course they're real," said Mabel indignantly. + +"Well, anyway," said Lord Yalding, "thank you all very much. I think +it's clearing up. I'll send the wagonette home with you after lunch. And +if you don't mind, I'll have the ring." + +Half an hour of soap and water produced no effect whatever, except to +make the finger of Gerald very red and very sore. Then Lord Yalding said +something very impatient indeed, and then Gerald suddenly became angry +and said: "Well, I'm sure I wish it would come off," and of course +instantly, "slick as butter," as he later pointed out, off it came. + +"Thank you," said Lord Yalding. + +"And I believe now he thinks I kept it on on purpose," said Gerald +afterwards when, at ease on the leads at home, they talked the whole +thing out over a tin of preserved pineapple and a bottle of gingerbeer +apiece. "There's no pleasing some people. He wasn't in such a fiery +hurry to order that wagonette after he found that Mademoiselle meant to +go when we did. But I liked him better when he was a humble bailiff. +Take him for all in all, he does not look as if we should like him +again." + +"He doesn't know what's the matter with him," said Kathleen, leaning +back against the tiled roof; "it's really the magic--it's like sickening +with measles. Don't you remember how cross Mabel was at first about the +invisibleness?" + +"Rather!" said Jimmy. + +"It's partly that," said Gerald, trying to be fair, "and partly it's the +being in love. It always makes people like idiots--a chap at school told +me. His sister was like that--quite rotten, you know. And she used to be +quite a decent sort before she was engaged." + +At tea and at supper Mademoiselle was radiant--as attractive as a lady +on a Christmas card, as merry as a marmoset, and as kind as you would +always be yourself if you could take the trouble. At breakfast, an equal +radiance, kindness, attraction, merriment. Then Lord Yalding came to see +her. The meeting took place in the drawing-room: the children with deep +discreetness remained shut in the schoolroom till Gerald, going up to +his room for a pencil, surprised Eliza with her ear glued to the +drawing-room key-hole. + +After that Gerald sat on the top stair with a book. He could not hear +any of the conversation in the drawing-room, but he could command a view +of the door, and in this way be certain that no one else heard any of +it. Thus it was that when the drawing-room door opened Gerald was in a +position to see Lord Yalding come out. "Our young hero," as he said +later, "coughed with infinite tact to show that he was there," but Lord +Yalding did not seem to notice. He walked in a blind sort of way to the +hat-stand, fumbled clumsily with the umbrellas and mackintoshes, found +his straw hat and looked at it gloomily, crammed it on his head and went +out, banging the door behind him in the most reckless way. + +He left the drawing-room door open, and Gerald, though he had purposely +put himself in a position where one could hear nothing from the +drawing-room when the door was shut, could hear something quite plainly +now that the door was open. That something, he noticed with deep +distress and disgust, was the sound of sobs and sniffs. Mademoiselle +was quite certainly crying. + +"Jimminy!" he remarked to himself, "they haven't lost much time. Fancy +their beginning to quarrel _already_! I hope I'll never have to be +anybody's lover." + +But this was no time to brood on the terrors of his own future. Eliza +might at any time occur. She would not for a moment hesitate to go +through that open door, and push herself into the very secret sacred +heart of Mademoiselle's grief. It seemed to Gerald better that he should +be the one to do this. So he went softly down the worn green Dutch +carpet of the stairs and into the drawing-room, shutting the door softly +and securely behind him. + += = = = = + +"It is all over," Mademoiselle was saying, her face buried in the beady +arum-lilies on a red ground worked for a cushion cover by a former +pupil: "he will not marry me!" + +Do not ask me how Gerald had gained the lady's confidence. He had, as I +think I said almost at the beginning, very pretty ways with grown-ups, +when he chose. Anyway, he was holding her hand, almost as affectionately +as if she had been his mother with a headache, and saying "Don't!" and +"Don't cry!" and "It'll be all right, you see if it isn't" in the most +comforting way you can imagine, varying the treatment with gentle thumps +on the back and entreaties to her to tell him all about it. + +This wasn't mere curiosity, as you might think. The entreaties were +prompted by Gerald's growing certainty that whatever was the matter was +somehow the fault of that ring. And in this Gerald was ("once more," as +he told himself) right. + +The tale, as told by Mademoiselle, was certainly an unusual one. Lord +Yalding, last night after dinner, had walked in the park "to think +of----" + +"Yes, I know," said Gerald; "and he had the ring on. And he saw----" + +"He saw the monuments become alive," sobbed Mademoiselle: "his brain was +troubled by the ridiculous accounts of fairies that you tell him. He +sees Apollon and Aphrodité alive on their marble. He remembers him of +your story. He wish himself a statue. Then he becomes mad--imagines to +himself that your story of the island is true, plunges in the lake, +swims among the beasts of the Ark of Noé, feeds with gods on an island. +At dawn the madness become less. He think the Panthéon vanish. But him, +no--he thinks himself statue, hiding from gardeners in his garden till +nine less a quarter. Then he thinks to wish himself no more a statue and +perceives that he is flesh and blood. A bad dream, but he has lost the +head with the tales you tell. He say it is no dream but he is +fool--mad--how you say? And a mad man must not marry. There is no hope. +I am at despair! And the life is vain!" + +"There _is_," said Gerald earnestly. "I assure you there is--hope, I +mean. And life's as right as rain really. And there's nothing to despair +about. He's _not_ mad, and it's _not_ a dream. It's magic. It really and +truly is." + +"The magic exists not," Mademoiselle moaned; "it is that he is mad. It +is the joy to re-see me after so many days. Oh, la-la-la-la-la!" + +"Did he talk to the gods?" Gerald asked gently. + +"It is there the most mad of all his ideas. He say that Mercure give him +rendezvous at some temple to-morrow when the moon raise herself." + +"Right," cried Gerald, "righto! Dear nice, kind, pretty Mademoiselle +Rapunzel, don't be a silly little duffer"--he lost himself for a moment +among the consoling endearments he was accustomed to offer to Kathleen +in moments of grief and emotion, but hastily added: "I mean, do not be a +lady who weeps causelessly. To-morrow he will go to that temple. I will +go. Thou shalt go--he will go. We will go--you will go--let 'em all go! +And, you see, it's going to be absolutely all right. He'll see he isn't +mad, and you'll understand all about everything. Take my handkerchief, +its quite a clean one as it happens; I haven't even unfolded it. Oh! do +stop crying, there's a dear, darling, long-lost lover." + +This flood of eloquence was not without effect. She took his +handkerchief, sobbed, half smiled, dabbed at her eyes, and said: "Oh, +naughty! Is it some trick you play him, like the ghost?" + +"I can't explain," said Gerald, "but I give you my word of honour--you +know what an Englishman's word of honour is, don't you? even if you +_are_ French--that everything is going to be exactly what you wish. I've +never told you a lie. Believe me!" + +"It is curious," said she, drying her eyes, "but I do." And once again, +so suddenly that he could not have resisted, she kissed him. I think, +however, that in this her hour of sorrow he would have thought it mean +to resist. + +"It pleases her and it doesn't hurt me--much," would have been his +thought. + + * * * * * + +And now it is near moonrise. The French governess, half-doubting, half +hoping, but wholly longing to be near Lord Yalding even if he be as mad +as a March hare, and the four children--they have collected Mabel by an +urgent letter-card posted the day before--are going over the dewy grass. +The moon has not yet risen, but her light is in the sky mixed with the +pink and purple of the sunset. The west is heavy with ink-clouds and +rich colour, but the east, where the moon rises, is clear as a +rock-pool. + +They go across the lawn and through the beech-wood and come at last, +through a tangle of underwood and bramble, to a little level tableland +that rises out of the flat hill-top--one tableland out of another. Here +is the ring of vast rugged stones, one pierced with a curious round +hole, worn smooth at its edges. In the middle of the circle is a great +flat stone, alone, desolate, full of meaning--a stone that is covered +thick with the memory of old faiths and creeds long since forgotten. +Something dark moves in the circle. The French girl breaks from the +children, goes to it, clings to its arm. It is Lord Yalding, and he is +telling her to go. + +"Never of the life!" she cries. "If you are mad I am mad too, for I +believe the tale these children tell. And I am here to be with thee and +see with thee--whatever the rising moon shall show us." + +The children, holding hands by the flat stone, more moved by the magic +in the girl's voice than by any magic of enchanted rings, listen, trying +not to listen. + +"Are you not afraid?" Lord Yalding is saying. + +"Afraid? With you?" she laughs. He put his arm round her. The children +hear her sigh. + +"Are you afraid," he says, "my darling?" + +Gerald goes across the wide turf ring expressly to say:-- + +"You can't be afraid if you are wearing the ring. And I'm sorry, but we +can hear every word you say." + +She laughs again. "It makes nothing," she says; "you know already if we +love each other." + +Then he puts the ring on her finger, and they stand together. The white +of his flannel coat sleeve marks no line on the white of her dress; they +stand as though cut out of one block of marble. + +Then a faint greyness touches the top of that round hole, creeps up the +side. Then the hole is a disc of light--a moonbeam strikes straight +through it across the grey green of the circle that the stones mark, and +as the moon rises the moonbeam slants downward. The children have drawn +back till they stand close to the lovers. The moonbeam slants more and +more; now it touches the far end of the stone, now it draws nearer and +nearer to the middle of it, now at last it touches the very heart and +centre of that central stone. And then it is as though a spring were +touched, a fountain of light released. Everything changes. Or, rather, +everything is revealed. There are no more secrets. The plan of the world +seems plain, like an easy sum that one writes in big figures on a +child's slate. One wonders how one can ever have wondered about +anything. Space is not; every place that one has seen or dreamed of is +here. Time is not; into this instant is crowded all that one has ever +done or dreamed of doing. It is a moment, and it is eternity. It is the +centre of the universe and it is the universe itself. The eternal light +rests on and illuminates the eternal heart of things. + + * * * * * + +None of the six human beings who saw that moon-rising were ever able to +think about it as having anything to do with time. Only for one instant +could that moonray have rested full on the centre of that stone. And yet +there was time for many happenings. + +From that height one could see far out over the quiet park and sleeping +gardens, and through the grey green of them shapes moved, approaching. + +The great beasts came first, strange forms that were when the world was +new--gigantic lizards with wings--dragons they lived as in men's +memories--mammoths, strange vast birds, they crawled up the hill and +ranged themselves outside the circle. Then, not from the garden but +from very far away, came the stone gods of Egypt and Assyria--bull-bodied, +bird-winged, hawk-headed, cat-headed, all in stone, and all alive and +alert; strange, grotesque figures from the towers of cathedrals--figures +of angels with folded wings, figures of beasts with wings wide spread; +sphinxes; uncouth idols from Southern palm-fringed islands; and, last of +all, the beautiful marble shapes of the gods and goddesses who had held +their festival on the lake-island, and bidden Lord Yalding and the +children to this meeting. + +Not a word was spoken. Each stone shape came gladly and quietly into the +circle of light and understanding, as children, tired with a long +ramble, creep quietly through the open door into the firelit welcome of +home. + +The children had thought to ask many questions. And it had been promised +that the questions should be answered. Yet now no one spoke a word, +because all had come into the circle of the real magic where all things +are understood without speech. + +Afterwards none of them could ever remember at all what had happened. +But they never forgot that they had been somewhere where everything was +easy and beautiful. And people who can remember even that much are never +quite the same again. And when they came to talk of it next day they +found that to each some little part of that night's great enlightenment +was left. + +All the stone creatures drew closer round the stone--the light where the +moonbeam struck it seemed to break away in spray such as water makes +when it falls from a height. All the crowd was bathed in whiteness. A +deep hush lay over the vast assembly. + +Then a wave of intention swept over the mighty crowd. All the faces, +bird, beast, Greek statue, Babylonian monster, human child and human +lover, turned upward, the radiant light illumined them and one word +broke from all. + +"The light!" they cried, and the sound of their voice was like the sound +of a great wave; "the light! the light----" + +And then the light was not any more, and, soft as floating thistle-down, +sleep was laid on the eyes of all but the immortals. + + * * * * * + +The grass was chill and dewy and the clouds had veiled the moon. The +lovers and the children were standing together, all clinging close, not +for fear, but for love. + +"I want," said the French girl softly, "to go to the cave on the +island." + +Very quietly through the gentle brooding night they went down to the +boat-house, loosed the clanking chain, and dipped oars among the drowned +stars and lilies. They came to the island, and found the steps. + +"I brought candles," said Gerald, "in case." + +So, lighted by Gerald's candles, they went down into the Hall of Psyche! +and there glowed the light spread from her statue, and all was as the +children had seen it before. + +It is the Hall of Granted Wishes. + +"The ring," said Lord Yalding. + +"The ring," said his lover, "is the magic ring given long ago to a +mortal, and it is what you say it is. It was given to your ancestor by a +lady of my house that he might build her a garden and a house like her +own palace and garden in her own land. So that this place is built +partly by his love and partly by that magic. She never lived to see it; +that was the price of the magic." + +It must have been English that she spoke, for otherwise how could the +children have understood her? Yet the words were not like Mademoiselle's +way of speaking. + +"Except from children," her voice went on, "the ring exacts a payment. +You paid for me, when I came by your wish, by this terror of madness +that you have since known. Only one wish is free." + +"And that wish is----?" + +"The last," she said. "Shall I wish?" + +"Yes--wish," they said, all of them. + +"I wish, then," said Lord Yalding's lover, "that all the magic this ring +has wrought may be undone, and that the ring itself may be no more and +no less than a charm to bind thee and me together for evermore." + +She ceased. And as she ceased the enchanted light died away, the windows +of granted wishes went out, like magic-lantern pictures. Gerald's candle +faintly lighted a rudely arched cave, and where Psyche's statue had been +was a stone with something carved on it. + +Gerald held the light low. + +"It is her grave," the girl said. + += = = = = + +Next day no one could remember anything at all exactly. But a good many +things were changed. There was no ring but the plain gold ring that +Mademoiselle found clasped in her hand when she woke in her own bed in +the morning. More than half the jewels in the panelled room were gone, +and those that remained had no panelling to cover them; they just lay +bare on the velvet-covered shelves. There was no passage at the back of +the Temple of Flora. Quite a lot of the secret passages and hidden rooms +had disappeared. And there were not nearly so many statues in the garden +as everyone had supposed. And large pieces of the castle were missing +and had to be replaced at great expense. From which we may conclude that +Lord Yalding's ancestor had used the ring a good deal to help him in his +building. + +However, the jewels that were left were quite enough to pay for +everything. + +The suddenness with which all the ring-magic was undone was such a shock +to everyone concerned that they now almost doubt that any magic ever +happened. + +But it is certain that Lord Yalding married the French governess and +that a plain gold ring was used in the ceremony, and this, if you come +to think of it, could be no other than the magic ring, turned, by that +last wish, into a charm to keep him and his wife together for ever. + +Also, if all this story is nonsense and a make-up--if Gerald and Jimmy +and Kathleen and Mabel have merely imposed on my trusting nature by a +pack of unlikely inventions, how do you account for the paragraph which +appeared in the evening papers the day after the magic of the +moon-rising? + + "MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF A WELL-KNOWN + CITY MAN," + +it said, and then went on to say how a gentleman, well known and much +respected in financial circles, had vanished, leaving no trace. + + "Mr. U. W. Ugli," the papers continued, "had + remained late, working at his office as was his + occasional habit. The office door was found + locked, and on its being broken open the clothes + of the unfortunate gentleman were found in a heap + on the floor, together with an umbrella, a walking + stick, a golf club, and, curiously enough, a + feather brush, such as housemaids use for dusting. + Of his body, however, there was no trace. The + police are stated to have a clue." + +If they have, they have kept it to themselves. But I do not think they +can have a clue, because, of course, that respected gentleman was the +Ugly-Wugly who became real when, in search of a really good hotel, he +got into the Hall of Granted Wishes. And if none of this story ever +happened, how is it that those four children are such friends with Lord +and Lady Yalding, and stay at The Towers almost every holidays? + +It is all very well for all of them to pretend that the whole of this +story is my own invention: facts are facts, and you can't explain them +away. + + + UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON. + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Varied hyphenation was retained, for example: hearthrug and hearth-rug. +This book used two different styles of break in the text. Breaks that +were shown by extra blank space between paragraphs are indicated by + + = = = = = + +Breaks that were shown by a line of stars are indicated by + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Obvious punctuation errors repaired. + +Page 9, "24" changed to "25" for actual location of illustration. + +Page 113, "unforgetable" changed to "unforgettable" (real and so +unforgettable) + +Page 122, "choose" changed to "chose" (he chose the latter) + +Page 226, "girl" changed to "girls" (and before the girls) + +Page 296, "as" changed to "us" (tell us about that) + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Enchanted Castle, by E. 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