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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 _cherie_," said Gerald--"a regular A1 _cherie_. 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."