THE THREE BLACK PONDS
At the bottom of the valley, approached by sunken honeysuckle lanes that
seemed winding into the centre of the earth, lay three black ponds,
almost hidden in a _cul-de-sac_ of woodland. Though long since
appropriated by nature, made her own by moss and rooted oaks, they were
so set one below the other, with green causeways between each, that an
ancient art, long since become nature, had evidently designed and dug
them, years, perhaps centuries, ago. So long dead were the old
pond-makers that great trees grew now upon the causeways, and vast
jungles of rush and water grasses choked the trickling overflows from
one pond to the other. Once, it was said, when the earth of those parts
had been rich in iron, these ponds had driven great hammers,--but long
before the memory of the oldest cottager they had rested from their
labours, and lived only the life of beauty and silence. Where iron had
once been was now the wild rose, and the grim wounds of the earth had
been healed by the kisses of five hundred springs.
About these ponds stole many a secret path, veined with clumsy roots,
shadowed with the thick bush of many a clustering parasite, and echoing
sometimes beneath from the hollowed shelter of coot or water-rat. Lilies
floated in circles about the ponds, like the crowns of sunken queens,
and sometimes a bird broke the silence with a frightened cry.
It was here that Beatrice and Wonder would often take their morning
walk,--Wonder, though but a little girl of four, having grown more and
more of a companion to her mother, since Antony's love for Silencieux.
A morning in August the two were walking hand in hand. Wonder was one of
those little girls that seem to know all the meanings of life, while yet
struggling with the alphabet of its unimportant words.
The soul of such a child is, of all things, the most mysterious. There
was that in her face, as she clung on to her mother's hand, which seemed
to say: "O mother, I understand it all, and far more; if I might only
talk to you in the language of heaven,--but my words are like my little
legs, frail and uncertain of their footing, and, while I think all your
strange grown-up thoughts, I can only talk of toys and dolls. Mother,
father's blood as well as yours is in my veins, and so I understand you
both. Poor little mother! Poor little father!"
Little Wonder looked these things, she may indeed have thought them;
but all she said was: "O mother, what was that?"
"That was a rabbit, dear. See, there is another! See his fluffy white
tail!"
And again: "O mother, what was that?"
"That was a water-hen, dear. She has a little house, a warm nest, close
to the water among the bushes yonder, and she calls like that to let her
little children know she's coming home with some dainty things for
lunch. She means 'Hush! Hush! Don't be frightened. I'm coming just as
fast as I can.'"
"Funny little mother! What pretty stories you tell me. But do the birds
really talk--Oh, but look, little mother, there's Daddy--"
It was Antony, deep in some dream of Silencieux.
"Daddy! Daddy!" cried the little girl.
He took her tenderly by the hand.
"Daddy, where have you been all this long time? You have brought me no
flowers for ever so long."
"Flowers, little Wonder--they are nearly all gone away, gone to sleep
till next year--But see, I will gather you something prettier than
flowers."
And, hardly marking Beatrice, he led Wonder up and down among the
winding underwood. Fungi of exquisite yellows and browns were popping up
all about the wood. He gathered some of the most delicate, and put them
into the fresh small hands.
"But, Daddy, I mustn't eat them, must I?"
"No, dear--they are too beautiful to eat. You must just look at them and
love them, like flowers."
"But they are not flowers, Daddy. They don't smell like flowers. I would
rather have flowers, Daddy."
"But there are no flowers till next year. You must learn to love these
too, little Wonder; they are more beautiful than flowers."
"Oh, no, Daddy, they are not--"
"Antony," said Beatrice, "how strange you are! Would you poison her?
See, dear," (turning to Wonder) "Daddy is only teasing. Let us throw
them away. They are nasty, nasty things. Promise me never to gather
them, won't you, Wonder?"
"Yes, mother. I don't like them. They frighten me."
Antony turned into a by-path with a strange laugh, and was lost to them
in the wood.