Little Lavender was sitting on the top of the Mountain on her island in
the Holy Lake. Round her fluttered lovely butterflies, even settling on
her shoulders; and the grey dove guided her young to her lap to let her
feed them with seeds. A wild raspberry-cane bent over Lavender, and
Lavender ate the crimson fruit, and wanted for nothing.
But she was all alone, poor child! and sad at heart, because she
believed she was parted for ever from Primrose, her only brother; and,
moreover, she thought: “Did anyone, I wonder, remember to give him a
drink or to put him to bed?”
In the midst of these sad thoughts Lavender looked up at the sky and saw
a mist, black as night, rolling up round the Mountain. Over Lavender and
over the holy furrow-surrounded Lake the sun shone brightly; but all
around the mist was gathering and rising, inky clouds drifted and
whirled, rose and fell like a pall of smoke, and every now and again
fiery flashes darted from the gloom.
It was the Votaresses, flapping their great wings, who had piled up
those black clouds upon the Mountain, and it was from their eyes that
the fiery flashes shot across the darkness. And then suddenly it began
to thunder most terribly within the clouds; heavy rain beat down all
around upon the Mountain, and the Votaresses howled and darted to an fro
through the thunder and the rain.
When Lavender saw that, she considered: “Over my head there is sunshine,
and no harm can come to me. But perhaps there is someone abroad on the
Mountain in need of help in this storm.”
And although Lavender thought there was never a Christian soul on the
Mountain, yet she did as her mother had taught her to do in a storm: she
crossed herself and prayed. And as there was still a bell in the ruined
chapel, Lavender took hold of the rope and began to toll the bell
against the storm. Lavender did not know for whom she was praying or for
whom she was tolling, but she tolled for a help to anyone who might be
in distress.
When the bell on the island began to ring so unexpectedly, after having
been silent for a hundred years, the Votaresses took fright up there in
the clouds; they got worried and confused; they left off making a storm;
they fled in terror in all directions, and hid under the rocks, under
the crags, in hollow trees, or in the fern.
In a little while the Mountain was clear, and the sun shone on the
Mountain, where there had been no sunshine for a hundred years.
The sun shone; the rain stopped suddenly. But for poor little Primrose
the danger was not yet over.
That first great downpour had formed a big torrent in the Mountain, and
the wild water was rushing fast towards the very Pit where Primrose was
sleeping.
Primrose had heard neither the storm nor the thunder, and now he did not
hear the torrent either as it came rushing and roaring with frightful
swiftness towards him to drown him.
The water poured into the Pit, poured in, and in a moment it had
overwhelmed the child.
It covered him, overwhelmed him in a moment. There was not a thing to be
seen, neither Pit, nor spikes, nor Primrose, nothing but the wild water
foaming down the Mountain.
But as the flood rushed into the pit, it eddied at the bottom, surged
round and up and back upon itself, and then suddenly the water lifted up
the boughs and branches, and little Primrose, too, upon the boughs. It
lifted him up, clean out of the Pit, and carried him downhill on a
bough.
The torrent was so strong that it carried away great stones and ancient
oaks, rolling them along, and nothing could stop them, because they were
heavy and stout, and the torrent very fierce.
But tiny Primrose on his bough floated lightly down the flood, as
lightly as a white rose-bud, so that any bush could stop him.
And indeed, there was a bush in the way, and the bough with Primrose
caught in its branches. Primrose woke up with a start, caught hold of
the branch with his little hands, climbed up into the bush, and there he
sat on the top of the bush, just like a little bird.
Above Primrose the sun shone clear and sweet; below Primrose foamed the
dreadful water; and he sat in the bush in his little white shirt, and
rubbed his eyes in wonder, because he could not make out what had
happened and what had waked him up so suddenly.
By the time he had finished rubbing his eyes the water had all run away
downhill; the torrent was gone. Primrose watched the mud squelching and
writhing round the bush, and then Primrose climbed down, because he
thought:
“I suppose I ought to go on now, since they have waked me up.”
And so he went on up the hill. And he had slept so sweetly that he felt
quite happy, and thought: “Now I shall find Lavender.”