“No,” she said, “nor any of thine. It fell from the sky, from another
world, deary, that’s strange to ours, and the gipsies found it in the
wild places of the woods. There was a smell came from it like the
sugar of all flowers, and it was as light as foam and as hard as the
beaten rocks.”
She undid the packet while she spoke, and I saw a number of tiny grey
cubes, like frothy pumice-stone, one of which she detached, and gave
to me.
“It wrought upon them even to madness,” she said, “so that they took
and broke it with their mattocks. And, lo! the nameless thing was
found in its scattered parts a virtue, even like the poisons which,
taken in little, heal. Smell to it when the world is dark, and your
brain shall flash into light, like an inn to the tired traveller.
Smell to it when your feet go sick and heavy, and you shall feel them
like the birds’ whose bones are full of wind. But tell not of the gift
or giver, lest I die!”
Involuntarily, as she spoke, I had raised the stone to my nostrils. A
faint scent as of menthene intoxicated my brain. The downs and the sky
swam before me in one luminous mist. Lightness and delight took all my
soul and body with rapture....
A shout brought me to myself. I was sitting on the grass, with the
duck-stone still tight in my clutch. The gipsy was gone, how long I
could not tell, and up the road was coming a second cortège, more
brilliant than the former. A dozen young fellows, all volunteer
runners and dressed in white, preceded a coach in which sat a
rich-apparelled lady, very bold and handsome, and escorted by a
splendid cavalcade of gentlemen. It was the Duchess of Cumberland, who
followed her husband to the seaside, as I was to learn by and by; for
while I was collecting my drowsy young wits to look, a wonderful thing
happened. A horseman drew up with a cry, dismounted, seized and bore
me to his saddle, and rode away with me after the carriage. It was my
father, flushed and jovial, the pink and Corinthian of his company, as
he always was.
He showed no curiosity over the encounter, nor scruple in taking me
with him. He was in wild spirits, laughing and teasing, and sometimes
he reeled in his saddle in a way to endanger my balance. But the rush
of air restored me to myself, and I had the wit, for all my
excitement, to slip my charm, which I still held, into a pocket.
So we raced for the town, and presently drew up at the Castle Tavern,
where His Royal Highness and his wife, the late Mrs. Horton, were
quartering themselves.
The time which followed is confused in my remembrance. I was put in
charge of a chambermaid, given a dish of tea and cake, and presently
fell fast asleep, to awake smiling and rosy to the summons of my
pleasant Clarinda. A lackey in a magnificent scarlet livery awaited me
at the door, received me into his arms, and carried me downstairs to a
long room blazing with waxlights, where, at a white table spilt all
over with a profusion of fruit and crystal, sat a gorgeous company of
gentlemen and ladies. Such silks and laces, such feathers and
diamonds, I had never in my young day encountered. It was like the
most beautiful fair I had ever seen, and the red faces of the company
were the coloured bladders bobbing in the stalls. Still, I had not
lost my self-possession, when my father reeled round in his chair, and
catching me away from the servant, set me on my feet on the table
itself.