"Why, how funny you are," she said; "that was just what we wanted
yesterday, and you wouldn't let us go near the cottage. You said we'd
startle him."
"He was very tired yesterday," said Winfried; "and you see he wasn't
looking for you."
"He was chattering and laughing all the same--or somebody was," said
Ruby. "We heard them--don't you remember?"
Winfried did not speak. But he did not seem vexed.
"I believe it was the mermaids after all," Ruby went on. "Cousin
Hortensia, if you let us go there the mermaids will steal us."
"No, indeed," exclaimed Winfried eagerly.
Miss Hortensia smiled at him.
"I am not afraid," she said. "Tell your grandfather the young ladies
shall certainly go to see him some day soon."
"To-morrow," said Mavis, speaking almost for the first time. "Oh, do
say we may go to-morrow--it's our half-holiday."
"Very well," said Miss Hortensia. "Are you sure you can find your way?
I can send Ulrica with you."
"Mayn't I come to fetch the young ladies?" asked Winfried. "I know all
the short cuts."
"I should think you did," laughed Ruby. "We told cousin Hortensia all
about that queer path through the rocks. _She'd_ never seen it either."
"I'll take you quite as nice a way to-morrow," said the boy composedly.
"May I go now, please?" he added, turning to Miss Hortensia.
"Grandfather may be wanting me, and thank you very much;" and in another
moment he was gone.
Miss Hortensia was quite silent for a minute or two after he had left
the room.
"Cousin," began Ruby; but her cousin did not seem to hear. "_Cousin_,"
repeated the child impatiently.
Miss Hortensia looked up as if awakened from a brown study.
"Did you speak, my dear?" she said.
"Yes, of course I did. I want you to say something about that queer
boy. I suppose you think him very nice, or you wouldn't let Mavis and
me go to his cottage. You're generally so frightened about us."
"I do think he is a very nice boy," said Miss Hortensia. "I am sure he
is quite trustworthy."
"_I_ believe he's a bit of a fairy, and I'm sure his old grandfather's a
wizard," murmured Ruby. "And I quite expect, as I said to Joan, that we
shall be turned into sea-gulls or frogs if we go there."
"I shouldn't mind being a sea-gull," said Mavis. "Not for a little
while at least. Would you, cousin Hortensia?"
But Miss Hortensia had not been listening to their chatter.
"My dears," she said suddenly, "I will tell you one reason why I should
be glad for you sometimes to have Winfried as a companion if he is as
good and manly as he seems. I have had a letter from your father,
telling me of a new guest we are to expect. It is a cousin of yours--a
little nephew of your father's--your aunt Margaret's son. He is an only
child, and, your father fears, a good deal spoilt. He is coming here
because his father is away at sea and his mother is ill and must be kept
quiet, and Bertrand, it seems, is very noisy."
"Bertrand," repeated Ruby, "oh, I remember about him. I remember father
telling us about him--he is a horrid boy, I know."
"Your father did not call him a horrid boy, I'm sure," said Miss
Hortensia.
"No," said Mavis, "he only said he was spoilt. And he said he was a
pretty little boy, and nice in some ways."
"Well, we must do our best to make him nicer," said Miss Hortensia;
"though I confess I feel a little uneasy--you have never been accustomed
to rough bearish ways. And if Winfried can be with you sometimes he
might help you with Bertrand."
"When is he coming?" asked Ruby.
"Very soon, but I do not know the exact day. Now run off, my dears;
there is time for you to have half an hour's play in the garden before
dinner."
It was curious that of the two little girls Mavis seemed the more to
dislike the idea of the expected guest.
"Ruby," she said rather dolefully, "I do wish Bertrand weren't coming.
He'll spoil everything, and we shan't know what to do with him."
"There's not much to spoil that I see," said Ruby.
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, our nice quiet ways. Cousin Hortensia telling us stories and all
that," said Mavis. "And I'm sure Winfried won't want to have to look
after a rough, rude little boy. It's quite different with _us_--
Winfried likes us because we're--ladies, you know, and gentle and nice
to him."
Ruby laughed.
"How you go on about Winfried--Winfried!" she said mockingly. "I think
it's a very good thing Bertrand is coming to put him down a bit--a
common fisher-boy! I wonder at cousin Hortensia. I'm sure if father
knew he wouldn't be at all pleased, but _I'm_ not going to tell him. I
mean to have some fun with Master Winfried before I have done with him,
and I expect Bertrand will help me."
"Ruby!" exclaimed Mavis, looking startled, "you don't mean that you are
going to play him any tricks?" Ruby only laughed again, more mockingly
than before.
"I'd like to lock him up in the haunted room in the west turret one
night," she said. "I do hope he'd get a good fright."
Mavis seemed to have recovered from her alarm.
"I don't believe he'd mind the least scrap," she said; "that shows you
don't understand him one bit. He'd like it; besides, you say yourself
you think he's a fairy boy, so why should he be afraid of fairies?"
"Nobody's afraid of _fairies_, you silly girl. But if cousin Hortensia
saw anything in the turret--and I don't believe she did,--it wasn't a
fairy, it was quite different--more a sort of witch, I suppose."
"You're always talking of witches and wizards," retorted Mavis, who
seemed to be picking up a spirit which rather astonished Ruby. "_I_
like thinking of nicer things--angels and--oh Ruby!" she suddenly broke
off, "do look here--oh, how lovely!" and stooping down she pointed to a
thick cluster of turquoise blossoms, almost hidden in a corner beneath
the shrubs. "_Aren't_ they darlings? Really it's enough to make one
believe in fairies or kind spirits of some kind--to find forget-me-nots
like these in November!" and she looked up at her sister with delight
dancing in her eyes.
Even Ruby looked surprised.
"They are beauties," she said; "and I'm almost sure they weren't there
yesterday. Didn't we come round by here, Mavis?"
"Not till it was nearly dark. We ran in this way, you know, after we
came out of Winfried's path," said Mavis.
"Oh, yes, I remember," Ruby replied, and a half dreamy look stole over
her face.
They were standing on the lower terrace. This side of the castle, as I
have said, was much more sheltered and protected than the other, but
still already in November it was bleak and bare. The evergreen shrubs
had begun to look self-satisfied and important, as I think they always
do in late autumn, when their fragile companions of the summer are
shivering together in forlorn misery, or sinking slowly and sadly, leaf
by leaf, brown and shrivelled, into the parent bosom of Mother Earth,
always ready to receive and hide her poor children in their day of
desolation. Nay, more, far more than that does she for them in her dark
but loving embrace; not a leaf, not a tiniest twig is lost or mislaid--
all, everything, is cared for and restored again, at the sun's warm kiss
to creep forth in ever fresh and renewed life and beauty. For all we
see, children dear, is but a type, faint and shadowy, of the real things
that _are_.
Then a strange sort of irritation came over Ruby. The soft wondering
expression so new to her disappeared, and she turned sharply to Mavis.
"Rubbish!" she said. "Of course they were there yesterday. But they
shan't be there to-morrow--here goes;" and she bent down to pick the
little flowers.
Mavis stopped her with a cry.
"Don't gather them, Ruby," she said. "Poor little things, they might
stay in their corner in peace, and we could come and look at them every
day. They'd wither so soon in the house."
Ruby laughed. She was much more careless than actually unkind, at least
when kindness cost her little.
"_What_ a baby you are," she said contemptuously. "You make as much
fuss as when I wanted to take the thrush's eggs last spring. Wouldn't
you like to give your dear Winfried a posy of them?"
"No," Mavis answered, "he wouldn't like us to gather them; there are so
few and they do look so sweet." The next day was clear and bright, but
cold; evidently winter was coming now. But old Bertha had started the
fires at last, as the date on which it was the rule at the castle for
them to begin on was now past. So inside the house it was comfortable
enough--in the inhabited part of it at least; though in the great unused
rooms round the tiled hall, where all the furniture was shrouded in
ghostly-looking linen covers, and up the echoing staircase, and up still
higher in the turret-rooms where the wind whistled in at one window and
out again at the opposite one, where Jack Frost's pictures lasted the
same on the panes for days at a time--dear, dear, it _was_ cold, even
Bertha herself allowed, when she had to make her weekly tour of
inspection to see that all was right.
"I will ask Miss Hortensia not to let the little ladies play in the west
turret this winter," thought the old woman. "I'm sure it was there Miss
Mavis caught her cold last Christmas. A good fire indeed! It'd take a
week of bonfires to warm that room."
But old Bertha was mistaken, as you will see. There was no thought of
playing in the west turret this half-holiday, however, for it was the
right sort of day for a bright winter walk. And while the afternoon was
still young, Ruby and Mavis, warmly wrapt up in their fur-lined mantles
and hoods, were racing downstairs to Winfried, who had come punctually
and was waiting for them, so Ulrica had come in to say, at the door in
the archway on the sea side of the castle.
"What are you here for?" was Ruby's first greeting. "Why didn't you
come to the garden side? Aren't you going to take us by the path
between the rocks, down below the field?"
"No, Miss Ruby," said the boy, his cap in his hand. "We're going
another way to-day. I think you will like it just as well. We must go
down to the cove first."
"_I_ don't mind," said Ruby, dancing on in front of the two others; "but
I'm afraid Mavis has been dreaming of that nice cosy little path. She
wouldn't let me even look for the entrance to it yesterday; she said we
should wait for you to show it us."
"I think Miss Mavis will like to-day's way just as well," Winfried
repeated.
They were some little distance down the cliff by this time. It was very
clear and bright; for once, the waves, even though the tide was close up
to the shore, seemed in a peaceful mood, and only as a distant murmur
came the boom of their dashing against the rocks, round to the right
beyond the little sheltered nook. Winfried stood still for a moment and
gazed down seawards, shading his eyes with his hand, for winter though
it was, the afternoon sunshine was almost dazzling.
"What is it? What are you looking for?" asked Ruby, coming back a step
or two and standing beside him. "Do come on; it's too cold to hang
about."
For once Winfried was less polite than usual. He did not answer Ruby,
but turned to Mavis, who was a little behind.
"Do you see anything?" he asked.
And Mavis, following his eyes, answered, "Yes--there's--oh, there's a
little boat drifting in--a tiny boat--is it drifting? No; there's some
one in it,--some one with a blue cloak; no, it must have been the waves
just touching; the waves are so blue to-day."
The boy gave a little sigh of satisfaction.
"I thought so," he said. Then he sprang forward eagerly: "Come on," he
cried, "we mustn't be late."
Ruby followed, not too pleased.
"I've as good eyes as Mavis," she said. "Why didn't you ask me? I
don't believe there's a boat at all."
But even Ruby had to give in when in a few minutes they found themselves
at the edge of the cove, on the little half-circle of sand which was all
that the sea left uncovered at full tide. For there _was_ a boat, a
most unmistakable and delightful boat, though scarcely larger than a
sofa, and looking like a perfect toy as it rocked gently on the rippling
water.
"Goodness!" said Ruby,--and it must be allowed that goodness is a
prettier word than rubbish,--"how in the world did that boat come here?
Did you bring it, Winfried? No, for if you had you wouldn't have been
looking to see if it had come. But is it your boat?"
"No," answered the boy; "it's lent me, on purpose for you and Miss
Mavis. Get in, please."
Ruby came forward, but hesitated.
"Are you sure it's safe?" she said. "You know the sea is very rough--
round there near the village. And this is such a very little boat."
Winfried laughed.
"It's as safe as--as the safest thing you can think of," he said.
"_You're_ not afraid, Miss Mavis."
For all answer the little girl sprang into the boat; it danced under her
feet, but she only laughed.
"Come on, Ruby," she called out; "it's lovely."
Ruby stepped in cautiously. The little boat was most dainty and pretty.
There were cushions for the little girls, and one or two soft rich
coloured shawls, of a fashion and material such as they had never seen
before.
"Dear me," said Ruby, settling herself in the most comfortable place and
drawing the pretty rugs round her, "what a nice little boat! Your
friends must be very rich, Winfried. But I know what I know;" and she
shook her head mysteriously.
"What do you mean, Ruby?" said Mavis.
Winfried was busy with his oars and did not seem to be attending to
them. Ruby leant forward and whispered, close into her sister's ear,
"_Mermaids_!" Then seeing or thinking that the boy was not listening,
she went on. "You know mermaids _are_ very rich. They dive down into
the shipwrecked vessels and fish up all the treasures. I daresay these
shawls have come from some strange country, right over at the other side
of the world. Indeed, _some_ people say that the horrid things sing to
make the sailors turn to look for them and get their ships all in among
the rocks."
Mavis looked puzzled.
"I don't think that's _mermaids_," she said. "There's another name for
those naughty, unkind creatures."
"Syrens," came Winfried's voice from the other end of the boat. And he
looked up with a smile at the little girls' start of surprise. "Don't
be afraid," he said, "my friends are neither mermaids nor syrens; you're
not going to be shipwrecked in this boat, I promise you." Somehow the
boy seemed to have gained a new kind of dignity now that the children
were, so to say, his guests. Ruby said, "Thank you," quite meekly and
submissively for her.
Then they were all quite silent for a while, only the plash of
Winfried's oars broke the stillness. And somehow out there on the water
it seemed to have grown warmer, at least the children felt conscious of
neither cold nor heat, it was just perfectly pleasant. And the sun
shone on mildly. There was a thorough feeling of "afternoon," with its
quiet and mystery and yet faint expectation, such as one seldom has
except in summer.
"It is lovely," said Mavis presently; "only I'm a little afraid I'm
getting sleepy."
"No, you needn't be afraid," said Winfried; and just as he said the
words, Mavis started, as something flitted against her cheek.
"Ruby, Ruby!" she exclaimed, "did you see it? A butterfly--a blue
butterfly--in November! Oh, where has it gone to?" and she gazed all
round anxiously.