{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_43126/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_43126","id":"gutenberg_43126","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43126","summary":null,"tags":["Castles -- Juvenile fiction","Category: Children & Young Adult Reading","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Novels","Children -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction","Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction","Fairies -- Juvenile fiction","Fantasy literature","Fishing -- Juvenile fiction","Magic -- Juvenile fiction","Princesses -- Juvenile fiction","Sisters -- Juvenile fiction"],"text":"The Children of the Castle\nBy Mrs Molesworth\nIllustrations by Walter Crane\nPublished by Macmillan and Co Ltd, St Martin's Street, London.\nThis edition dated 1915.\n\nThe Children of the Castle, by Mrs Molesworth.\n\n________________________________________________________________________\n\n________________________________________________________________________\nTHE CHILDREN OF THE CASTLE, BY MRS MOLESWORTH.\n\nCHAPTER ONE.\n\nRUBY AND MAVIS.\n\n  \"Hast thou seen that lordly castle,\n  That castle by the sea?\n  Golden and red above it\n  The clouds float gorgeously.\"\n\n  Trans. of Uhland: Longfellow.\n\nDo you remember Gratian--Gratian Conyfer, the godson of the four winds,\nthe boy who lived at the old farmhouse up among the moors, where these\nstrange beautiful sisters used to meet?  Do you remember how full of\nfancies and stories Gratian's little head was, and how sometimes he put\nthem into words to please Fergus, the lame child he loved so much?  The\nstory I am now going to tell you is one of these.  I think it was their\nfavourite one.  I can not say that it is in the very words in which\nGratian used to tell it, for it was not till long, long after those\nboyish days that it came to be written down.  But all the same it is his\nstory.\n\nHow long ago it was I cannot say, nor can I tell you exactly where it\nwas.  This is not a story for which you will require an atlas, nor a\nhistory of England or of any other country, nor a dictionary of dates.\nAll those wise and clever and useful things you may put out of your\nheads for a bit.  I am just going to tell you a story.  It was somewhere\nand somewhen, and I think that will do.\n\nThe \"it\" was a castle--and something else.  But first about the castle.\nIt was really worthy of the name, for it was very old and very strong,\nand in ancient days it had been used as a place of defence, and had a\nlook about it of not having forgotten this.  (I am afraid this sounds a\n_very_ little historical.  I must take care.)  It was very big too,\ntowering over the sea-washed cliffs on which it stood as if defying the\nwinds and the waves to do their worst, frowning at them with the little\nround window-eyes of its turrets, like a cross old ogre.  But it was a\ntwo-faced castle; it was only on one side--the rocky side, where the\ncliffs went down precipitously to the water--that it looked grim and\nforbidding.  Inland, you could scarcely have believed it was the same\ncastle at all.  For here, towards the sunny south, it seemed to change\ninto a gracious, comfortable, hospitably-inviting mansion; it did not\nlook nearly so high on this side, for the ivy-covered turrets had more\nthe effect of dimly dark trees in the background, and the bright\nwide-windowed rooms opened on to trim lawns and terraces gay with\nflowers.  That was the case in summer-time at least.  The whole look of\nthings varied a good deal according to the seasons.  In winter, grim as\nit was, I don't know but that the fortress-front, so to speak, of the\ngreat building had the best of it.  For it was grand to watch the waves\nbreaking down below when you knew you were safe and cosy behind the\nbarred panes of the turret windows, those windows pierced in the walls\nthrough such a thickness of stone that each was like a little room\nwithin a room.  And even in winter there were wonderful sunsets to be\nseen from the children's favourite turret-room--the one which had two\nwindows to the west and only one to the cold north.\n\nFor the \"something else\" was the children.  Much more interesting than\nthe castle--indeed, what would any castle or any house be without them?\nNot that the castle was not a very interesting place to live in, as you\nwill hear, but all _places_, I think, need people to bring out their\ninterest.  People who have been, sometimes, and sometimes, people that\nstill are.  There was a mixture of both in my castle.  But first and\nforemost I will tell you of the children, whose home it was, and perhaps\nis yet.\n\nThere were only two of them, only two, that is to say, who lived there\nregularly; they were girls, twin-sisters, Ruby and Mavis were their\nnames, and at this time they were nearly twelve years old.  I will not\nsay much in description of them, it is best to let you find out about\nthem for yourselves.  They were almost exactly the same size; Ruby\nperhaps a very little the taller, and at first sight every one thought\nthem exceedingly like each other.  And so they were, so far as the\ncolour of their hair, the shape of their features, their eyes and\ncomplexions went.  They were pretty little girls, and they made a pretty\npair.  But the more you got to know them the less alike you got to think\nthem, till at last you be an to wonder how you ever could have thought\nthem like at all!  And even almost at the first glance _some_\ndifferences were to be seen.  Ruby was certainly the prettier.  Her eyes\nwere brighter, her colour more brilliant, her way of walking and holding\nherself more graceful, even her very manner of talking was more\ninteresting and attractive.\n\n\"What a charming child she is,\" said strangers always.  \"Such pretty\nwinning ways, so sweet and unselfish, so clever and intelligent!  What a\npity that dull little Mavis is not more like her--why, I thought them\nthe image of each other at first, and now I can scarcely believe they\nare sisters.  I am sure poor Ruby must find Mavis very trying, she is so\nstupid; but Ruby is so good and patient with her--it quite adds another\ncharm to the dear child.\"\n\nThis opinion or one like it was always the first expressed--well,\nperhaps not _always_, but almost always.  Now I will let you judge for\nyourselves.\n\nIt was late autumn.  So late, that one felt inclined to wish it were\nalready winter, without any thought or talk of a milder season.  For it\nwas very cold, and thick-walled though the castle was, it needed any\namount of huge fires and curtains in front of the doorways and double\nwindows, and, in the modern rooms, hot air or water-pipes to make it\ncomfortable in severe weather.  And all these things in winter it had.\nBut the housekeeper had rather old-fashioned and stiff ideas.  She did\neverything by rule.  On a certain day in the autumn the winter\narrangements were begun, on a certain day in the spring they came to an\nend.  And this, whatever the weather was,--not a very good plan, for as\neverybody knows, the weather itself is not so formal and particular.\nThere are quite warm, mild days sometimes in late November, and really\nbitterly cold ones in April and May.  But there would have been no\nmanner of use in trying to make old Bertha see this.  Winter _should_\nstop on a certain day, and summer should come, and _vice versa_.  It had\nalways been so in her time, and Bertha did not like new-fangled ways.\n\nSo everybody shivered, and the more daring ones, of whom Ruby was the\nforemost, scolded and grumbled.  But it was no use.\n\n\"You may as well try to bear it patiently, my dear,\" said cousin\nHortensia, \"the mild weather must come soon.  I will lend you one of my\nlittle shawls if you like.  You will feel warmer when you have been out\nfor a run.\"\n\nCousin Hortensia was the lady who lived at the castle to teach and take\ncare of the two little girls.  For their mother was dead and their\nfather was often away.  He had some appointment at the court.  I am not\nsure what it was, but he was considered a very important person.  He was\nkind and good, as you will see, and it was always a great delight to the\nchildren when he came home, and a great sorrow when he had to leave.\n\nCousin Hortensia was only a very far-off cousin, but the children always\ncalled her so.  For though she was really with them as a governess as\nwell as a friend, it would not have seemed so nice to call her by any\nother name.  She was very gentle, and took the best care she could of\nthem.  And she was clever and taught them well.  But she was rather a\ndreamy sort of person.  She had lived for many years a very quiet life,\nand knew little of the outside world.  She had known and loved the\ntwins' mother, and their father too, when they were but boy and girl,\nfor she was no longer young.  And she loved Ruby and Mavis, Ruby\nespecially, so dearly, that she could see no fault in them.  It was to\nRuby she was speaking and offering a shawl.  They were sitting in one of\nthe rooms on the south side of the castle, sheltered from the stormy\nwinds which often came whirling down from the north.  But even here it\nwas cold, or at least chilly.\n\nRuby shrugged her shoulders.\n\n\"You always offer me a shawl as if I were seventy, cousin Hortensia,\"\nshe said rather pertly.  \"It would be much better if you would speak to\nBertha, and _insist_ on her having the fires lighted now it is so cold.\nWhen I'm grown up I can tell you _I_ won't stand the old thing's\ntyranny.\"\n\nCousin Hortensia looked rather distressed.  There was some sense in what\nRuby said, but there were a great many other things to be considered,\nall of which she could not explain to the children.  Bertha was an\nexceedingly valuable servant, and if she were interfered with and went\naway it would be almost impossible to get any one like her.  For it was\nnecessary that the castle should be managed with economy as well as\ncare.\n\n\"I would speak to Bertha if there was anything really important to\ncomplain of,\" she said.  \"But this weather cannot last, and you are not\ncold at night, are you?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Mavis, \"not at all.\"\n\n\"Bertha would never get all the work done unless she took her own way,\"\nMiss Hortensia went on.  \"But I'll tell you what I'll do, Ruby.  I will\nhave the fire lighted in my own little room.  I don't need to trouble\nBertha about that, thanks to your kind father's thoughtfulness.  My\nlittle wood-cupboard is always kept filled by Tim.  And when you come in\nfrom your walk we will have tea there instead of here, and spend a cosy\nevening.\"\n\nRuby darted at Miss Hortensia and kissed her.\n\n\"That will be lovely,\" she said.  \"And as it's to be a sort of a treat\nevening, do tell us a story after tea, dear cousin.\"\n\n\"If you're not tired,\" put in Mavis.  \"Cousin Hortensia had a headache\nthis morning,\" she said to Ruby, turning to her.\n\n\"Rubbish!\" cried Ruby, but she checked herself quickly.  \"I don't mean\nthat,\" she went on, \"but Mavis is such a kill-joy.  You won't be tired\nwill you, dear cousin?  Mavis doesn't care for stories as much as I do.\nI've read nearly all the books in the library, and she never reads if\nshe can help it.\"\n\n\"I've enough to do with my lesson-books,\" said Mavis with a sigh.  \"And\nI can scarcely ever find stories to read that I understand.  But I like\n_hearing_ stories, for then I can ask what it means if there comes a\npuzzling part.\"\n\n\"Poor Mavis!\" said Ruby contemptuously, \"she's always getting puzzled.\"\n\n\"We must try to make your wits work a little quicker, my dear,\" said\nMiss Hortensia.  \"You will get to like reading when you are older, I\ndaresay.  I must look out for some easier story-books for you.\"\n\n\"But I love _hearing_ stories, cousin,\" said Mavis.  \"Please don't think\nthat I don't like your stories.  I do so like that one about when you\ncame to the castle once when you were a little girl and about the dream\nyou had.\"\n\n\"I don't care for stories about dreams,\" said Ruby.  \"I like to hear\nabout when cousin Hortensia was a young lady and went to balls at the\ncourt.  I would love to have beautiful dresses and go to the court.  Do\nyou think father will take me when I'm grown up, cousin Hortensia?\"\n\n\"I daresay he will.  You will both go, probably,\" Miss Hortensia\nreplied.  \"But you must not think too much of it or you may be\ndisappointed.  Your mother was very beautiful and everybody admired her\nwhen she went out in the world, but she always loved best to be here at\nthe castle.\"\n\nRuby made a face.\n\n\"Then I don't think I'm like her,\" she said.  \"I'm very tired of this\nstupid old place already.  And if you tell your dream-story to Mavis,\nyou must tell me the one about how mother looked when she went to her\nfirst ball.  She was dressed all in white, wasn't she?\"\n\n\"No,\" Mavis answered.  \"In blue--wavy, changing blue, like the colour\nthe sea is sometimes.\"\n\n\"_Blue_,\" Ruby repeated, \"what nonsense!  Isn't it nonsense, cousin\nHortensia?  Didn't our mother wear all white at her first ball--\neverybody does.\"\n\nMiss Hortensia looked up in surprise.\n\n\"Yes, of course,\" she said.  \"Who ever told you she wore blue, Mavis?\"\n\nMavis grew very red.\n\n\"I wasn't speaking of our mother,\" she said.  \"It was the lady you saw\nin your dream I meant, cousin Hortensia.\"\n\n\"You silly girl!\" said Ruby.  \"Isn't she stupid?\"  Mavis looked ready to\ncry.\n\n\"You must get out of that habit of not listening to what people say, my\ndear,\" said Miss Hortensia.  \"Now you had better both go out--wrap up\nwarmly, and don't stay very long, and when you come in you will find me\nin my own room.\"\n\n\"And you'll tell us stories, won't you, dear good cousin?\" said Ruby\ncoaxingly, as she put up her pretty face for a kiss.  \"If you'll tell me\n_my_ story, you may tell Mavis hers afterwards.\"\n\n\"Well, well, we'll see,\" said Miss Hortensia, smiling.\n\n\"I do so like the story of the blue lady,\" said Mavis, very softly, as\nthey left the room.\n\nFive minutes later the twins were standing under the great archway which\nled to the principal entrance to the castle.  At one end this archway\nopened on to a winding road cut in the rock, at the foot of which was a\nlittle sandy cove--a sort of refuge among the cliffs.  On each side of\nit the waves broke noisily, but they never entirely covered the cove,\neven at very high tides, and except in exceedingly rough and stormy\nweather the water rippled in gently, as if almost asking pardon for\nintruding at all.  When the sea was out there was a scrambling path\namong the rocks to the left, by which one could make one's way to a\nlittle fishing-hamlet about a quarter of a mile off on the west.  For,\nas I should have explained before, the castle stood almost at a corner,\nthe coast-line turning sharply southwards, after running for many miles\nalmost due east and west.\n\nThe proper way to this hamlet was by the same inland road which led to\nthe castle, and which, so the legend ran, was much more modern than the\nbuilding itself, much more modern at least than the north side of it.\nThat grim fortress-like front was very ancient.  It had been built\ndoubtless for a safe retreat, and originally had only been accessible\nfrom the sea, being in those days girt round on the land side by\nenormous walls, in which was no entrance of any kind.  A part of these\nwalls, ivy-clad and crumbling, still remained, but sufficient had been\npulled down to give space for the pleasant sunny rooms and the sheltered\ngarden with its terraces.\n\nRuby shivered as she and Mavis stood a moment hesitating in the archway.\n\n\"It is cold here,\" she said; \"the wind seems to come from everywhere at\nonce.  Which way shall we go, Mavis?\"\n\n\"It would be a little warmer at the back, perhaps,\" said Mavis.  \"But I\ndon't care much for the gardens on a dull day like this.\"\n\n\"Nor do I,\" said Ruby, \"there's nothing to see.  Now at the front it's\nalmost nicer on a dull day than when it's sunny--except of course for\nthe cold.  Let's go down to the cove, Mavis, and see how it feels\nthere.\"  It was curious that they always spoke of the fortress side as\nthe front, even though the southern part of the building was what would\nhave naturally seemed so.\n\n\"I'd like to stay out till sunset and see the colours up in the turret\nwindows,\" said Mavis, as they clambered down the rocky path.  \"I wish I\nknew which of these rooms is the one where the blue fairy lady used to\ncome.  I do think cousin Hortensia might have found out.\"\n\n\"Rubbish!\" said Ruby.  It was rather a favourite expression of hers, I\nam afraid.  \"I don't believe cousin Hortensia ever saw her.  It was all\na fancy because she had heard about it.  If ever she did come, it was\nages and ages ago, and I don't believe she did even then.  I don't\nbelieve one bit about spirits and fairies and dreams and things like\nthat.\"  Mavis said nothing, but a puzzled, disappointed look crept into\nher eyes.\n\n\"Perhaps it's because I'm stupid,\" she said, \"but I shouldn't like to\nthink like you, Ruby.  And you know the story wouldn't have come all of\nitself, and cousin Hortensia, though she calls it a dream, can't really\nexplain it that way.\"\n\n\"If you know so much about it, why do you keep teasing to have it told\nagain?\" said Ruby impatiently.  \"Well, here we are at the cove; what are\nwe to do now?\"\n\nMavis looked about her.  It was chilly, and the sky was grey, but over\ntowards the west there was a lightening.  The wind came in little puffs\ndown here, now and again only, for they were well under the shelter of\nthe cliffs.  And up above, the old castle frowning down upon them--his\nown children, whose ancestors he had housed and sheltered and protected\nfor years that counted by centuries--suddenly seemed to give a half\nunwilling smile.  It was a ray of thin afternoon sunshine striking\nacross the turret windows.\n\n\"See, see,\" said Mavis.  \"The sun's coming out.  I'm sure the sky must\nbe pretty and bright round where the cottages are.  The sea's quite far\nenough back, and it's going out.  Do let us go and ask how the baby--\nJoan's baby, I mean--is to-day.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" said Ruby.  \"Not that I care much how the baby is, but\nthere's rather a nice scrambly way home up behind Joan's house.  I found\nit one day when you had a cold and weren't with me.  It brings you out\ndown by the stile into the little fir-wood--just where you'd never\nexpect to find yourself.  And oh, Mavis, there's such a queer little\ncottage farther along the shore, at least just above the shore that way.\nI saw it from the back, along the scrambly path.\"\n\n\"I wonder whose it is,\" said Mavis.  \"I don't remember any cottage that\nway.  Oh yes, I think I remember passing it one day long ago when Joan\nwas our nurse, and she made me run on quick, but she didn't say why.\"\n\n\"Perhaps it's haunted, or some nonsense like that,\" said Ruby with her\ncontemptuous air.  \"I'll ask Joan to-day.  And if we pass it I'll walk\njust as slow as ever I can on purpose.  You'll see, Mavis.\"\n\n\"We'd better run now,\" said Mavis.  \"The sands are pretty firm just\nhere, and cousin Hortensia said we were to make ourselves warm.  Let's\nhave a race.\"\n\nThey had left the cove and were making their way to the hamlet by the\nfoot of the rocks, where at low tide there was a narrow strip of pebbly\nsand, only here and there broken by out-jutting crags which the children\nfound it very amusing to clamber over.  Their voices sounded clear and\nhigh in the air.  For the wind seemed to have fallen with the receding\ntide.  By the time they reached the cottages they were both in a glow,\nand Ruby had quite forgotten her indignation at old Bertha's fireless\nrooms.\n\nCHAPTER TWO.\n\nWINFRIED.\n\n  \"And somewhat southward toward the noon,\n  Whence lies a way up to the moon;\n  And thence the fairy can as soon\n  Pass to the earth below it.\"\n\n  Drayton.\n\nJoan, a pleasant-faced young woman who had once been the children's\nnurse, and was now married to a fisherman who owned several boats, and\nwas a person of some consequence among the villagers, was standing at\nthe door of her cottage with a baby in her arms as the children came up.\nHer face beamed with smiles, but before she had time to speak Ruby\ncalled out to her.\n\n\"How are you, Joan?  We've come round to ask how baby is, but it's very\neasy to see he is better, otherwise you wouldn't be so smiling.\"\n\n\"And here he is to speak for himself, Miss Ruby,\" said Joan.  \"How very\nkind of you to think of him!  And you too, Miss Mavis, my dear.  Are you\nboth quite well?\"\n\n\"Yes, thank you, Joan,\" said Mavis quietly.  But Ruby was fussing about\nthe baby, admiring him and petting him in a way that could scarcely fail\nto gain his mother's heart.  Joan, however, though fond of both the\nchildren, had plenty of discernment.  She smiled at Ruby--\"Miss Ruby has\npretty ways with her, there's no denying,\" she told her husband\nafterwards,--but there was a very gentle tone in her voice as she turned\nto Mavis.\n\n\"You've had no more headaches, I hope, Miss Mavis?  Have you been\nworking hard at your lessons?\"\n\n\"I have to work hard if I work at all, Joan,\" said the little girl\nrather sadly.\n\n\"She's so stupid,\" said Ruby; \"and she gets her head full of fancies.  I\ndaresay that prevents her having room for sensible things.  Oh,\nby-the-bye, Joan, tell us who lives in that queer cottage all by itself\nsome way farther along the coast.  I never saw it till the other day--\nit's almost hidden among the rocks.  But Mavis says she once passed it\nwith you, and you made her run by quickly.  Why did you, Joan?  I do so\nwant to know.\"\n\nJoan looked rather at a loss.\n\n\"You mean old Adam's cottage,\" she said.  \"I really don't know why\npeople speak against him.  He's never done any harm, indeed, he's a kind\nold man.  But he's come from a long way off, and he's not like the other\nfolk, and they got up a tale that there were queer sounds and sights in\nhis cottage sometimes--singing and lights late at night, that couldn't\nbe canny.  Some spoke of mermaids swimming down below in front of his\nhut and him standing talking to them quite friendly-like.  But that's a\ngood while ago now, and I think it's forgotten.  And he goes to church\nregularly.  You'll always be sure of seeing him there.\"\n\n\"Then why don't people like him?\" said Mavis.\n\n\"Perhaps it's just because he is good and goes to church,\" said Ruby.\n\"I'm not at all sure that I like extra good people myself.  They're so\ntiresome.\"\n\n\"He's not one to meddle with others,\" said Joan.  \"He keeps very much to\nhimself, and his talking doesn't sound like ours.  So they call him a\nforeigner.  Indeed, he's often not heard of or seen for weeks and even\nmonths at a time, unless any one's ill or in trouble, and then he seems\nto know it all of himself, and comes to see if he can help.  That's one\nreason why they think him uncanny.\"\n\n\"Did he come when baby was ill?\" asked Ruby.  Joan shook her head.\n\n\"No, for a wonder he didn't.\"\n\n\"Perhaps he's dead,\" said Ruby indifferently.\n\n\"We're going past that way, Mavis.  Let's peep in and see.\"\n\nMavis grew rather pale.\n\n\"Ruby,\" she said, \"I wish you wouldn't--you frighten me.\"\n\n\"Miss Ruby would be frightened herself.  She's only joking,\" said Joan.\n\"I don't suppose there's aught the matter, still I don't think you'd\nbetter stop at old Adam's.  It isn't like as if he was one of our own\nfolk.\"\n\n\"Rubbish!\" said Ruby again.  \"I'm off.  You can send your husband to see\nif the old wizard has turned us into frogs or sea-gulls, in case we are\nnot heard of any more.  Good-night;\" and off she ran.\n\nMavis had to follow her.  There was not much fear of Ruby's really doing\nanything rash, for she was by no means a very brave child, still Mavis\nalways felt uncomfortable when her sister got into one of these wild\nmoods.\n\n\"Good-bye, Joan,\" she said gently.  \"I'm so glad baby's better.  I\ndaresay Ruby's only joking;\" and then she ran along the path, which just\nhere in the hamlet was pretty level and smooth, after Ruby.\n\nThey had quite half a mile to go before they got to the lonely cottage.\nIt stood some way back from the shore, and great craggy rocks near at\nhand almost hid it from sight.  One might have passed by that way often\nwithout noticing that there was any human dwelling-place there.  But the\nchildren were on the look-out.\n\n\"There,\" said Ruby, \"the old ogre can't be dead: there's smoke coming\nout of the chimney.  And--oh, just look, Mavis, what a big fire he must\nhave; do you see the red of it in the window?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Mavis, \"it's the sun setting.  Look out to sea--isn't it\nsplendid?\"\n\nBut Ruby had set her heart upon exploring the fisherman's hut.  She\nbegan scrambling up the stones, for there was really nothing worthy of\nthe name of a pathway, quite regardless of the beautiful sight behind\nher.  And as usual.  Mavis had to follow, though reluctantly.  Still she\nwas not quite without curiosity about the lonely cottage herself.\nSuddenly, when within a short distance of the hut, Ruby stopped short,\nand glancing back towards her sister, lifted her hand as if to tell her\nto be silent and listen.  Then Mavis became conscious of the sound of\nvoices speaking--not old Adam's voice certainly, for these sounded soft\nand clear, and now and then came a ripple of silvery laughter, very\nsweet and very delicate.  The little girls, who had drawn near together,\nlooked at each other.\n\n\"Who can it be?\" said Mavis in a whisper.\n\n\"The mermaids,\" replied Ruby mockingly.  \"Perhaps old Adam has invited\nthem to tea.\"\n\nBut as she spoke there came distinctly the sound of the words \"Good-bye,\ngood-bye,\" and then there was silence.\n\nSomehow both children felt rather frightened.  \"Suppose old Adam's\nreally dead,\" said Ruby, looking rather pale, \"and that these are--\nfairies, or I don't know what, come to fetch him.\"\n\n\"Angels,\" said Mavis.  \"Joan says he's good.  But--Ruby--I shouldn't\nthink angels would laugh.\"  She had scarcely said the words when they\nsaw running down the rough slope from the hut the figure of a boy.  He\nran fast and lightly, his feet scarcely seeming to touch the stones; he\nwas slight and very active-looking; it was pretty to watch him running,\neven though as he came close it was plain that he was only a simple\nfisher-boy, in rough clothes, barefoot and sunburnt.  He slackened his\npace a little as he came near the children, then glancing at them with a\nsmile he lifted his dark blue cap and stopped short.\n\n\"Can I?\" he began, then hesitated.  He had a pleasant face and clear\ngrey eyes, which looked one straight in the face with interest and\ninquiry.\n\n\"What do you say?\" asked Ruby rather haughtily.\n\n\"I thought perhaps you had lost your way,\" he answered quietly.\n\"There's not many gentry comes round here;\" and then he smiled, for no\nvery particular reason apparently, though his smile nevertheless gave\none the feeling that he had a reason if he chose to give it.\n\n\"No, we haven't lost our way,\" said Ruby; \"we came here on purpose.  Do\nyou know the old man who lives up there?\" and she pointed to the hut.\n\n\"Is it true that there's something queer about him?\"\n\nThe boy looked at her, still smiling.\n\n\"Queer?\" he repeated.\n\nRuby began to feel annoyed.  She tapped her foot impatiently.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, \"_queer_.  Why do you repeat my words, and why don't\nyou say `Miss,' or `My Lady?'  Lots of the people here call me `My\nLady.'  Do you know who I am?\"\n\nThe boy's face had grown graver.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said.  \"You are the little ladies from the castle.  I have\nseen you sometimes.  I have seen you in church.  We always call you the\nlittle ladies--grandfather and I--when we are talking.  He has told me\nabout you--and--I've heard about the castle, though I've never been in\nit.  It's very fine.  I like to look up at it from the sea.\"\n\nRuby felt a little smoothed down.  Her tone became more gracious.\nMavis, who had drawn near, stood listening with great interest, and as\nthe boy turned towards her the smile came over his face again.\n\n\"Who do you mean by `grandfather'?\" asked Ruby eagerly.  \"Is it old\nAdam?  I didn't know he had any children or grandchildren.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the boy replied, \"I'm his grandson.  Was it grandfather you meant\nwhen you said he was queer?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Mavis, \"Ruby didn't mean to be rude.  It was only nonsense.\nPeople say--\"\n\n\"They say he's very queer indeed,\" said Ruby, who had no intention of\ndeserting her colours.  \"They say he's a kind of a wizard or an ogre,\nand that you hear all sorts of sounds--music and talking and I don't\nknow all what--if you're near his cottage in the evening, and that there\nare lights to be seen in it too, not common lights like candles, but\nmuch more.  Some say he's friends with the mermaids, and that they come\nto see him--is that true?\" and notwithstanding her boasted boldness Ruby\ndropped her voice a little, and glanced over her shoulder half nervously\nseawards, as if not quite sure but that some of the tailed ladies in\nquestion might be listening to her.\n\nThe boy did more than smile now.  He laughed outright; but his laugh,\nthough bright and ringing, was not the laugh the sisters had heard from\nthe cottage.\n\n\"The mermaids,\" he said.  \"No, indeed, poor little things, they never\nvisit grandfather.\"\n\n\"Well, why do you laugh?\" said Ruby angrily again.  \"You speak as if\nthere _were_ mermaids.\"\n\n\"I was thinking of stories I have heard about them,\" said the boy\nsimply.  \"But I couldn't help laughing to think of them coming to see\ngrandfather.  How could they ever get up these stones?\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't know, I'm sure,\" Ruby answered impatiently.  \"If he's a\nwizard he could do anything like that.  I wish you'd tell us all about\nhim.  You must know, as you live with him.\"\n\n\"I've not been long with him,\" said the boy.  \"He _may_ be friends with\nthe mermaids for all I know.  He's friends with everybody.\"\n\n\"You're mocking at me,\" said Ruby, \"and I won't have it.  I'm sure you\ncould tell me things if you chose.\"\n\n\"We did hear talking and laughing,\" said Mavis gently, speaking almost\nfor the first time, \"and it seemed as if there was some one else there.\"\n\nThe boy looked at her again, and a very pleasant light came into his\neyes--more than that, indeed, as Mavis watched him it seemed to her that\nthey changed in colour.  Was it the reflection from the sky?  No, there\nwas a mingling of every hue to be seen over by the western horizon\ncertainly, but scarcely the deep clear midsummer sky-blue they suddenly\nbecame.\n\n\"What funny eyes you've got,\" exclaimed the child impulsively.  \"They're\nquite blue now, and they weren't a minute ago.\"\n\nRuby stared at him and then at Mavis.  \"Nonsense,\" she said, \"they're\nnot.  They're just common coloured eyes.  You shouldn't say such things,\nMavis; people will think you're out of your mind.\"  Mavis looked very\nashamed, but the boy's face flushed up.  He looked both glad and\nexcited.\n\n\"If you please, miss,\" he said, \"some people see things that others\ndon't.  I don't even mind that nonsense about gran and the mermaids;\nthose that say it don't know any better.\"\n\nRuby looked at him sharply.\n\n\"Then there is something to know,\" she said.  \"Now you might as well\ntell us all about it.  Is old Adam a wizard?\"\n\n\"That he's not,\" answered the boy stoutly, \"if so be, as I take it, that\na wizard means one that has to do with bad spirits--unkind and\nmischief-making and unloving, call them what you will.  None of such\nlike would come near gran, or, if they did, he'd soon send them to the\nright-about.  I'd like you to see him for yourself some day, but not\nto-day, if you'll excuse it.  He's very tired.  I was running down to\nthe shore to fetch a pailful of sea water to bathe his lame arm.\"\n\n\"Then we mustn't keep you,\" said Mavis.  \"But might we really come to\nsee your grandfather some day, do you think?\"\n\n\"I'll ask him,\" said the boy; \"and I think he'd be pleased to see you.\"\n\n\"You might come up to the castle if there's anything he would like--a\nlittle soup or anything,\" said Ruby in her patronising way.  \"I'll speak\nto the housekeeper.\"\n\n\"Thank you, miss,\" said the boy, but more hesitatingly than he had\nspoken before.\n\n\"What's your name?\" asked Ruby.  \"We'd better know it, so that you can\nsay who you are when you come.\"\n\n\"Winfried,\" he answered simply.\n\n\"Then good-bye, Winfried,\" said Ruby.  \"Come on, Mavis;\" and she turned\nto pursue her way home past the cottage.\n\nWinfried hesitated.  Then he ran a step or two after them.\n\n\"I can show you a nearer way home to the castle,\" he said, \"and if you\ndon't mind, it would be very kind of you not to go near by our cottage.\nGrandfather is feeble still--did you know he had been very ill?--and\nseeing or hearing strangers might startle him.\"\n\n\"Then you come with us,\" said Ruby.  \"You can tell him who we are.\"\n\n\"I'm in a hurry to get the salt water,\" said the boy.  \"I have put off\ntime already, and if you won't think me rude I'd much rather you came to\nthe cottage some day when we could invite you to step in.\"\n\nHis manner was so simple and hearty that Ruby could not take offence,\nthough she had been quite ready to do so.\n\n\"Very well,\" she said, \"then show us your nearer way.\"\n\nHe led them without speaking some little distance towards the shore\nagain.  After all there was a path--not a bad one of its kind, for here\nand there it ran on quite smoothly for a few yards and then descended by\nstones arranged so as to make a few rough steps.\n\n\"Dear me,\" said Ruby, \"how stupid we were not to find this path before.\"\n\nWinfried smiled.  \"I scarce think you could have found it without me to\nshow you,\" he said, \"nor the short way home either for that matter.  See\nhere;\" and having come to the end of the path he went on a few steps\nalong the pebbly shore, for here there was no smooth sand, and stopped\nbefore a great boulder stone, as large as a hay-cart, which stood out\nsuddenly among the broken rocks.  Winfried stepped up close to it and\ntouched it apparently quite gently.  To the children's amazement it\nswung round lightly as if it had been the most perfectly hung door.  And\nthere before them was revealed a little roadway, wide enough for two to\nwalk abreast, which seemed to wind in and out among the rocks as far as\nthey could see.  It was like a carefully rolled gravel path in a garden,\nexcept that it seemed to be of a peculiar kind of sand, white and\nglistening.\n\nRuby darted forward.\n\n\"What a lovely path!\" she exclaimed; \"will it take us straight home?\nAre you sure it will?\"\n\n\"Quite sure,\" said Winfried.  \"You will see your way in no time if you\nrun hand-in-hand.\"\n\n\"What a funny idea,\" laughed the child; and Mavis too looked pleased.\n\n\"I'm quite sure it's a fairy road,\" she was beginning to say, but,\nlooking round, their little guide had disappeared.  Then came his voice:\n\n\"Good-night,\" he said cheerfully.  \"I've shut-to the stone door, and I'm\nup on the top of it.  Good-night, little ladies.  Run home\nhand-in-hand.\"\n\nThe girls looked at each other.\n\n\"Upon my word,\" exclaimed Ruby, not quite knowing what to say, \"if old\nAdam isn't a wizard his grandson is.  I think we'd better get out of\nthis as quick as we can, Mavis.\"\n\nShe seemed half frightened and half provoked.  Mavis, on the contrary,\nwas quite simply delighted.\n\n\"I shouldn't wonder if this was the mermaid's own way to the cottage,\"\nshe said.  \"I'm sure old Adam and Winfried aren't wizards; but I do\nthink they must be some kind of good fairies, or at least they must have\nto do with fairies.  Come along, Ruby, hand-in-hand;\" and she held out\nher own hand.\n\nBut Ruby by this time had grown cross.\n\n\"I won't give in to such rubbish,\" she said.  \"I don't want to go along\nhand-in-hand like two silly babies.  If it was worth the trouble I'd\nclimb up to the top of the stone and go home the proper way.\"\n\nThis was all boasting.  She knew quite well she could not possibly climb\nup the stone.  But she walked on a few steps in sulky dignity.  Suddenly\nshe gave a little cry, slipped, and fell.\n\n\"Oh, I've hurt my ankle!\" she exclaimed.  \"This horrid white gravel is\nso slippery.\"\n\nMavis was beside her almost before she had said the words, and with her\nsister's help Ruby got on to her feet again, though looking rather\ndoleful.\n\n\"I believe it's all a trick of that horrid boy's,\" she said.  \"I wish\nyou hadn't made me come to see that dirty old cottage, Mavis.\"\n\nMavis stared.\n\n\"_Me_ make you come, Ruby?\" she said.  \"Why, it was yourself.\"\n\n\"Well, you didn't stop it, any way,\" said Ruby, \"and you seem to have\ntaken such a fancy to that boy and his grandfather, and--\"\n\n\"Ruby, we must go home,\" said Mavis.  \"Try if you can get along.\"\n\nThey were \"hand-in-hand.\"  There was no help for it now.  Ruby tried to\nwalk; to her surprise her ankle scarcely hurt her, and after a moment or\ntwo she even began urging Mavis to go faster.\n\n\"I believe I could run,\" she said.  \"Perhaps the bone in my ankle got\nout of its place and now has got into it again.  Come on, Mavis.\"\n\nThey started running together, for in spite of her boasting Ruby had had\na lesson and would not let go of Mavis.  They got on famously; the\nground seemed elastic; as they ran, each step grew at once firmer and\nyet lighter.\n\n\"It isn't a bit slippery now, is it?\" said Mavis, glowing with the\npleasant exercise.  \"And oh, Ruby, do look up at the sky--isn't it\nlovely?  And isn't that the evening star coming out--that blue light up\nthere; no, it's too early.  See--no, it's gone.  What could it be?  Why,\nhere we are, at the gate of the low terrace!\"\n\nThey had suddenly, as they ran, come out from the path, walled in, as it\nwere, among the broken rocky fragments, on to a more open space, which\nat the first moment they scarcely recognised as one of the fields at the\nsouth side of the castle.\n\nRuby too gazed about her with surprise.\n\n\"It _is_ a quick way home, certainly,\" she allowed, \"but I don't see any\nstar or blue light, Mavis.  It must be your fancy.\"\n\nMavis looked up at the sky.  The sunset colours were just beginning to\nfade; a soft pearly grey veil was slowly drawing over them, though they\nwere still brilliant.  Mavis seemed perplexed.\n\n\"It is gone,\" she said, \"but I did see it.\"\n\n\"It must have been the dazzle of the light in your eyes,\" said Ruby.  \"I\nam seeing lots of little suns all over--red ones and yellow ones.\"\n\n\"No, it wasn't like that,\" said Mavis; \"it was more like--\"\n\n\"More like what?\" asked Ruby.\n\n\"I was going to say more like a forget-me-not up in the sky,\" said her\nsister.\n\n\"You _silly_ girl,\" laughed Ruby.  \"I never did hear any one talk such\nnonsense as you do.  I'll tell cousin Hortensia, see if I don't.\"\n\n\"I don't mind,\" said Mavis quietly.\n\nCHAPTER THREE.\n\nTHE PRINCESS WITH THE FORGET-ME-NOT EYES.\n\n  \"For, just when it thrills me most,\n  The fairies change into phantoms cold,\n  And the beautiful dream is lost!\"\n\nMiss Hortensia was looking out for the little girls as they slowly came\nup the terraces.\n\n\"There you are at last,\" she called out.  \"You are rather late, my\ndears.  I have been round at the other side, thinking I saw you go out\nthat way.\"\n\n\"So we did,\" said Ruby.  \"We went down to the cove and along the shore\nas far as --.  Oh, cousin Hortensia, we have had _such_ adventures, and\nlast of all, what _do_ you think?  Mavis has just seen a forget-me-not\nup in the sky.\"\n\nMiss Hortensia smiled at Mavis; she had a particular way of smiling at\nher, as if she was not perfectly sure if the little girl were quite like\nother people.  But Mavis, though she understood this far better than her\ncousin imagined, never felt angry at it.\n\n\"A forget-me-not in the sky,\" said the lady; \"that is an odd idea.  But\nyou must tell me all your adventures when we are comfortably settled for\nthe evening.  Run in and take your things off quickly, for I don't want\nyou to catch cold, and the air, now the sun is set, is chilly.  There is\na splendid fire burning, and we shall have tea in my room as I promised\nyou.\"\n\n\"Oh, how nice,\" said Ruby.  \"Come along, Mavis.  I'm as hungry as a\nhawk.\"\n\n\"And you'll tell us stories after tea, cousin Hortensia, won't you?\"\nsaid Mavis; \"at least you'll tell us about your queer dream.\"\n\n\"And about mamma's going to court,\" added Ruby, as she dashed upstairs.\nFor by this time they were inside the house.\n\nThe part of the castle that the children and their cousin and the few\nservants in attendance on them occupied was really only a corner of it.\nA short flight of stairs led up to a small gallery running round a\nside-hall, and out of this gallery opened their sleeping-rooms and what\nhad been their nursery and play-rooms.  The school-room and Miss\nHortensia's own sitting-room were on the ground-floor.  To get to any of\nthe turrets was quite a long journey.  They were approached by the great\nstaircase which ascended from the large white and black tiled hall,\ndividing, after the first flight, into two branches, each of which led\nto passages from which other smaller stairs went upwards to the top of\nthe house.  The grandest rooms opened out of the tiled hall on the\nground-floor, and out of the passages on the first floor.  From this\ncentral part of the house the children's corner was shut off by heavy\nswing doors seldom opened.\n\nSo when Ruby and Mavis visited the turrets they had to pass through\nthese doors, and go some way along the passages, and then up one of the\nside stairs--up, up, up, the flights of steps getting steeper and\nnarrower as they climbed, till at last they reached the door of the\nturret-chamber itself.  Of these chambers there were two, one in each\nturret, east and west.  The west was their favourite, partly because\nfrom it they saw the sunset, and partly because it was nearer their own\nrooms.  They had been allowed to make a sort of private nest of it for\nthemselves, and to play there on rainy days when they could not get out,\nand sometimes in very cold or snowy weather they had a fire there, which\nmade the queer old room very cheery.  There were three windows in each\nturret, and they were furnished in an odd, irregular way with all sorts\nof quaint old-fashioned furniture discarded from other parts of the\ncastle.  In former days these turret-rooms had sometimes been used as\nguest-chambers when the house was very full of visitors.  For the large\nmodern rooms and the hall I have spoken of had been added by the\nchildren's grandfather--a very hospitable but extravagant man.  And\nbefore he made these improvements there were often more guests than it\nwas easy to find room for.\n\nRuby and Mavis were not long in taking off their out-door things and\n\"tidying\" themselves for their evening in Miss Hortensia's pleasant\nlittle room.  They made a pretty picture as they ran downstairs, their\nfair curls dancing on their shoulders, though if I were to describe to\nyou how they were dressed, I am afraid you would think they must have\nbeen a very old-world looking little pair.\n\n\"Here we are, cousin Hortensia,\" exclaimed Ruby as they came in, \"and I\ndo hope it's nearly tea-time.\"\n\n\"Not quite, my dear,\" Miss Hortensia replied, glancing at a beautifully\ncarved Swiss clock which stood on the mantelpiece; \"the little trumpeter\nwon't tell us it's six o'clock for half an hour yet--his dog has just\nbarked twice.\"\n\n\"Lazy things,\" said Ruby, shrugging her shoulders, \"I'd like to shake\nthat old trumpeter sometimes.\"\n\n\"And sometimes you'd like to pat him to sleep, wouldn't you?\" said\nMavis.  \"When cousin Hortensia's telling us stories, and he says it's\nbed-time.\"\n\nMiss Hortensia looked at Mavis in some surprise, but she seemed very\npleased too.  It was not often Mavis spoke so brightly.\n\n\"Suppose you use up the half-hour in telling _me_ stories,\" said their\ncousin.  \"Mine will keep till after tea.  What were all the adventures\nyou met with?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Ruby, \"it was too queer.  Did you know, cousin, that there\nwas a short way home from the sea-shore near old Adam's cottage?  _Such_\na queer way;\" and she went on to describe the path between the rocks.\n\nMiss Hortensia looked very puzzled.\n\n\"Who showed it to you?\" she said; for Ruby, in her helter-skelter way,\nhad begun at the end of the story, without speaking of the boy Winfried,\nor explaining why they--or she--had been so curious about the old man\nwhom the villagers called a wizard.\n\n\"It was the boy,\" Mavis replied; \"such a nice boy, cousin Hortensia,\nwith funny bluey eyes--at least they're _sometimes_ blue.\"\n\n\"Oh, Mavis, do not talk so sillily,\" said Ruby; \"his eyes aren't a bit\nblue.  She's got blue on the brain, cousin, she really has.  Seeing\nforget-me-nots in the sky too!  I don't think he _was_ a particularly\nnice boy.  He was rather cool.  I'm sure we wouldn't have done his\ngrandfather any harm.  Did you ever hear of him, cousin?  Old Adam they\ncall him;\" and then she went on to give a rather more clear account of\ntheir walk, and all they had seen and heard.\n\nMiss Hortensia listened attentively, and into her own eyes crept a\ndreamy, far-away, or rather long-ago look.\n\n\"It is odd,\" she said; \"I have a kind of fancy that I have heard of the\nold `solitary,' for he must be almost a hermit, before.  But somehow I\ndon't think it was here.  I wonder how long he has lived here?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Ruby.  \"A good while, I should think.  He was here\nwhen Joan was our nurse.\"\n\n\"But that was only two years ago,\" said Miss Hortensia, smiling.  \"If he\nhad been here many years the people would not count him so much of a\nforeigner.  And the boy you met--has he come to take care of the old\nman?\"\n\n\"I suppose so.  We didn't ask him,\" said Ruby carelessly.  \"He was\nreally such a cool boy, ordering us not to go near the cottage indeed!\nI told him he might come up to get some soup or jelly for his\ngrandfather,\" she went on, with a toss of her head.  \"I said it, you\nknow, just to put him in his place, and remind him whom he was speaking\nto.\"\n\n\"I'm sure he didn't mean to be rude,\" said Mavis; \"and, cousin, there\nreally was something rather `fairy' about him.  Isn't it _very_ queer we\nnever heard of that path before?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Miss Hortensia replied.  \"Are you sure you didn't both fall\nasleep on the shore and dream it all?  Though, to be sure, it is rather\ntoo cold weather for you to have been overcome by drowsiness.\"\n\n\"And we couldn't both have dreamt the same thing if we had fallen\nasleep,\" said Mavis, in her practical way.  \"It wasn't like when you\nwere a little girl and saw or dreamt--\"\n\n\"Don't you begin telling the story if cousin Hortensia's going to tell\nit herself,\" interrupted Ruby.  \"I was just thinking I had forgotten it\na good deal, and that it would seem fresh.  But here's tea at last--I am\nso glad.\"\n\nThey were very merry and happy during the meal.  Ruby was particularly\npleased with herself, having a vague idea that she had behaved in a very\ngrand and dignified way.  Mavis's eyes were very bright.  The\nafternoon's adventure had left on her a feeling of expecting something\npleasant, that she could hardly put in words.  And besides this, there\nwas cousin Hortensia's story to hear.\n\nWhen the table was cleared, cousin Hortensia settled herself with her\nknitting in a low chair by the fire, and told the children to bring\nforward two little stools and seat themselves beside her.  They had\ntheir knitting too, for this useful art had been taught them while they\nwere so young that they could scarcely remember having learnt it.  And\nthe three pairs of needles made a soft click-click, which did not the\nleast disturb their owners, so used were they to it.  Rather did it seem\na pleasant accompaniment to Miss Hortensia's voice.\n\n\"You want me to tell you the story of my night in the west turret-room\nwhen I was a little girl,\" she began.  \"You have heard it before, partly\nat least, but I will try to tell it more fully this time.  I was a very\nlittle girl, younger than you two--I don't think I was more than eight\nyears old.  I had come here with my father and mother and elder sisters\nto join a merry party assembled to celebrate the silver wedding of your\ngreat-grandparents.  Your grandfather himself, their eldest child, was\nabout three and twenty.  He was not then married, so it was some time\nbefore your father was born.  I don't quite know why they had brought\nme.  It seems to me I would have been better at home in my nursery, for\nthere were no children as young as I to keep me company.  Perhaps it was\nthat they wished to have me to represent another generation, as it were,\nthough, after all, that might have been done by my sisters.  The elder\nof them, Jacintha, was then nineteen; it was she who afterwards married\nyour grandfather, so that besides being cousins of the family, as we\nwere already, I am your grandmother's sister, and thus your great-aunt\nas well as cousin.\"\n\nThe little girls nodded their heads.\n\n\"I was so much younger than Jacintha,\" Miss Hortensia went on, \"that\nyour father never called me aunt.  He and I have always been Robert and\nHortensia to each other, and to me he has always been like a younger\nbrother.\"\n\n\"But about your adventure,\" said Ruby, who was not of a sentimental\nturn.\n\n\"I am coming to it,\" said their cousin.  \"Well, as I said, the party was\na merry one.  They had dancing and music in plenty every evening, and\nthe house, which was in some ways smaller than it is now, was very full.\nThere were a great many bedrooms, though few of them were large, and I\nand my sisters, being relations, were treated with rather less ceremony\nthan some of the stranger guests, and put to sleep in the turret-room.\nI had a little bed in one corner, and my sisters slept together in the\nsame old four-poster which is still there.  I used to be put to bed much\nearlier than they came, for, as I said, there were dancing and other\namusements most evenings till pretty late.  I was not at all a nervous\nor frightened child, and even sometimes when I lay up there by myself\nwide awake--for the change and the excitement kept me from going to\nsleep as quickly as at home--I did not feel at all lonely.  From my bed\nI could see out of the window, for the turret windows are so high up\nthat it has never been necessary to have blinds on them, and I loved to\nlie there watching the starlit sky, or sometimes, when the moon was\nbright and full, gazing up at the clouds that went scurrying over her\nface.  One night I had been unusually wakeful.  I lay there, hearing now\nand then very, very faint, far-off sounds of the music down below.  It\nwas a mild night, and I think the windows were a little open.  At last I\nmust have fallen asleep.  When I awoke, or rather when I _thought_ I\nawoke, the room was all in darkness except in one corner, the corner by\nthe west window.  There, there was a soft steady light, and it seemed to\nme that it was on purpose to make me look that way.  For there, sitting\non the old chair that still stands in the depth of that window was some\none I had never seen before.  A lady in a cloudy silvery dress, with a\nsheen of blue over it.  My waking, or looking at her, for though it must\nall have been a dream, I could not make you understand it unless I\ndescribed it as if it were real, seemed to be made conscious to her, for\nshe at once turned her eyes upon me, then rose slowly and came over the\nroom towards me.\"\n\n\"Weren't you frightened?\" said Ruby breathlessly.  In spite of her\nboasted disbelief in dreams and visions her cousin's story had caught\nher attention.  Miss Hortensia shook her head.\n\n\"Not in the _very_ least,\" she said.  \"On the contrary, I felt a strange\nand delightful kind of pleasure and wonder.  It was more intense than I\nhave ever felt anything of the kind in waking life; indeed, if it had\nlasted long I think it would have been more than I could bear--\" Miss\nHortensia stopped for a moment and leant back in her chair.  \"I have\nfelt _something_ of the same,\" she went on, \"when listening to very,\n_very_ beautiful music--music that seemed too beautiful and made you\nalmost cry out for it to stop.\"\n\n\"I've never heard music like that,\" whispered little Mavis, \"but I think\nI know what you mean.\"\n\n\"Or,\" continued Miss Hortensia, \"sometimes on a marvellously beautiful\nday--what people call a `heavenly' day, I have had a feeling rather like\nit.  A feeling that makes one shut one's eyes for very pleasure.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Ruby, \"did you shut your eyes then, or what did you do?\"\n\n\"No,\" said her cousin.  \"I could not have shut them.  I felt she was\nlooking at me, and her eyes seemed to catch and fasten mine and draw\nthem into hers.  It was her eyes above all that filled me with that\nbeautiful wonderful feeling.  I can never forget it--never.  I could\nfancy sometimes even now, old woman as I am, that I am again the little\nenraptured child gazing up at the beautiful vision.  I feel her eyes in\nmine still.\"\n\n\"How funny you are,\" interrupted Ruby.  \"A minute ago you said she\npulled your eyes into hers, now you say hers came into yours.  It would\nbe a very funny feeling whichever it was; I don't think I should like\nit.\"\n\nMiss Hortensia glanced at her, but gravely.  She did not smile.\n\n\"It must be a very `funny' feeling, as you call it, to a hitherto blind\nman the first time he sees the sunshine.  I daresay he would find it\ndifficult to describe; and to a still blind person it would be\nimpossible to explain it.  I daresay the newly-cured man would not feel\nsure whether the sun had come into his eyes or his eyes had reached up\nto the sun.\"\n\nRuby fidgeted.\n\n\"Oh, do go on about the fairy or whatever she was,\" she said.  \"Never\nmind about what I said.\"\n\nMiss Hortensia smiled.\n\n\"The lady came slowly across the room to me,\" she went on, \"and stood by\nmy bed, looking down at me with those wonderful blue eyes.  Then she\nsmiled, and it seemed as if the light about her grew still brighter.  I\nthought I sat up in bed to see her better.  `Are you a fairy?'  I said\nat last.  She smiled still more.  `If you like, you may call me a\nfairy,' she answered.  `But if I am a fairy my home must be fairyland,\nand this turret-room is one of my homes.  So you are my guest, my little\ngirl.'  I did not mind her saying that.  I smiled too.  `I've never seen\nyou here before,' I said.  And she laughed a little--I never heard\nanything so pretty as her laugh.  `No,' she replied, `but I have seen\nyou and every one that has ever been here, though every one has not seen\nme.  Now listen, my child.  I wanted you to see me because I have\nsomething to say to you.  There will come a time when you will be drawn\ntwo ways, one will be back here to the old castle by the sea, after many\nyears; many, many years as you count things.  Choose that way, for you\nwill be wanted here.  Those yet unborn will want you, for they will want\nlove and care.  Look into my eyes, little girl, and promise me you will\ncome to them.'  And in my dream I thought I gazed again into her eyes,\nand I felt as if their blue light was the light of a faith and truth\nthat could not be broken, and I said, `I promise.'  And then the fairy\nlady seemed to draw a gauze veil over her face, and it grew dim, and the\nwonderful eyes were hidden, and I thought I fell asleep.  In reality, I\nsuppose, I had never been awake.\"\n\n\"And when you did wake up it was morning, I suppose, and it had all been\na dream?\" asked Ruby.\n\nMiss Hortensia gave a little sigh.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, \"I suppose it had been a dream.  It was morning, bright\nmorning, the sun streaming in at the other window when I awoke, and I\nnever saw the fairy lady again--not even in a dream.  But what she had\nsaid came true, my dears.  Many, many years after, when I was already\nbeginning to be an old woman, it came true.  I am afraid I had grown\nselfish--life had brought me many anxieties, and I had lived in a great\ncity where there was much luxury and gaiety, and where no one seemed to\nhave thought for anything but the rush of pleasure and worldly cares.  I\nhad forgotten all about my beautiful vision, when one day there came a\nsummons.  Your sweet young mother had died, my darlings, and your poor\nfather in his desolation could think of no one better to come and take\ncare of his little girls--you were only two years old--than his old\ncousin.  And so I came; and then there crept back to me the remembrance\nof my dream.  I had indeed been drawn two ways, for the friends I might\nhave gone to live with were rich and good-natured, and they promised me\neverything I could wish.  But I thought of the two little motherless\nones, here in the old castle by the sea, in want of love and care as\n_she_ had said, and I came.\"\n\nMiss Hortensia stopped.  Even Ruby was impressed by what she had heard.\n\n\"Dear cousin,\" she said, \"it was very good of you.\"\n\n\"And have you never seen the beautiful lady again?\" said Mavis.  \"She\ntold you the west turret was her own room, didn't she?  Have you never\nseen her there?\"\n\nMiss Hortensia shook her head.\n\n\"You forget, dear, it was only a dream.  And even if it had been more\nthan that, we grow very far away from angels and fairies as we get old,\nI fear.\"\n\n\"Not _you_,\" Mavis said; \"you're not like that.  And the lady must have\nbeen so pleased with you for caring for us, I wonder she hasn't ever\ncome to see you again.  Do you know,\" she went on eagerly, after a\nmoment's pause, \"I have a feeling that she _is_ in the west turret-room\nsometimes!\"\n\nMiss Hortensia looked at the child in amazement Mavis's quiet, rather\ndull face seemed transformed; it was all flushed and beaming, her eyes\nsparkling and bright.\n\n\"Mavis!\" she said, \"you look as if you had seen her yourself.  But it\nwas only a dream, you mustn't let my old-world stories make you\nfanciful.  I am too fanciful myself perhaps--I have always loved the\nvest turret, and that was why I chose it for your play-room when you\nwere little dots.\"\n\n\"I'm so glad you did,\" said Mavis, drawing a long breath.\n\nAfter that they were all rather silent for a while.  Then Ruby claimed\nMiss Hortensia's promise of the story or description rather of the grand\ncourt ball at which her mother's beauty had made such a sensation, and\nwhen that was ended, the little trumpeter announced, much to the\nchildren's displeasure, that it was time to go to bed.\n\n\"We _have_ had a cosy evening,\" said Mavis, as she kissed Miss\nHortensia.\n\n\"And, oh Ruby,\" she said, as her sister and she were going slowly\nupstairs, \"_don't_ you wish we might sleep in the turret-room?\"\n\n\"No indeed,\" Ruby replied, in a most decided tone, \"I certainly don't.\"\n\nCHAPTER FOUR.\n\nA BOY AND A BOAT.\n\n  \"Are little boats alive?\n  And can they plan and feel?\"\n\n  \"A.\"\n\n\"If you please, there's a boy at the kitchen-door asking for the young\nladies,\" said the young maid-servant Ulrica, who generally waited on\nRuby and Mavis.\n\nThey were just finishing their morning lessons with Miss Hortensia, and\nMavis was putting away the books, a task which usually fell to her\nshare.\n\nMiss Hortensia gave a little start.\n\n\"A boy,\" she exclaimed, \"what kind of a boy?  It can't be--oh no of\ncourse not.  How foolish I am.  At the kitchen-door, did you say,\nUlrica?  Who is it?\"\n\n\"Oh, I know!\" cried Ruby, jumping up with a clatter, delighted to avoid\nfinding out the mistake in a sum which Miss Hortensia had told her she\nmust correct.  \"It's Winfried; I'm sure it is.  He's come for some soup\nor something.  I told him he might, but I do think it's rather greedy to\nhave come the very next day.  Mayn't I go and speak to him, cousin?\"\n\n\"Well, yes, I suppose so.  No, I think it would be better for him to\ncome in here.  Show the boy in here, Ulrica--at least--ask him if he is\nold Adam's grandson.\"\n\nIn a minute or two the door was again opened.\n\n\"If you please, ma'am,\" said Ulrica's voice as before, \"it's--it's the\nboy.\"\n\n\"The boy\" walked in; he held his cap in his hand, and made a sort of\ngraceful though simple obeisance to the ladies.  He did not seem the\nleast shy, yet neither was there a touch of boldness about him.  On his\nface was the slight but pleasant smile that had more than once lighted\nit up the day before, and his eyes, as he stood there full in the bright\ngleam of the window--for it was a clear and sunny day--were _very_ blue.\n\nRuby came forward.\n\n\"Oh, it's you, is it?\" she said, with the half-patronising good humour\nusual to her when not put out.  \"I thought it was.  It's Winfried,\ncousin Hortensia; the boy I told you of.  I suppose you've come for some\nsoup for your grandfather.\"\n\nWinfried smiled, a little more than before.  Mavis crept forward; she\nwished she could have said something, but she was afraid of vexing Ruby.\n\n\"No, miss,\" said Winfried, \"I did not come for that, though grandfather\nsaid it was very kind of you, and some day perhaps--\" he stopped short.\n\n\"I came to bring you this which I found on the rocks down below our\ncottage;\" and he held out a little silver cross.  Ruby started, and put\nher hand up to her neck.\n\n\"Oh dear,\" she said, \"I never knew I had lost it.  Are you sure it isn't\nyours, Mavis?  I've got my cord on.\"\n\n\"Yes, but the cross must have dropped off,\" said Mavis.  \"I have mine\nall right.\"\n\nAnd so it proved.  Both little sisters wore these crosses, which were\nexactly alike.  Ruby took hers from Winfried, and began examining it to\nsee how it had got loose.  Miss Hortensia came forward.\n\n\"It was very good of you to bring the little cross,\" she said kindly;\nfor something about the boy attracted her very much.  \"Ruby, my dear,\"\nshe went on half reprovingly.  Ruby started and looked up.  \"I am sure\nyou are very much obliged?\"\n\n\"Oh yes, of course I am,\" said the little girl carelessly.  \"It\ncertainly was very sharp of you to find it,\" she added with more\ninterest.\n\n\"I can generally find things,\" said Winfried quietly.\n\n\"Is there anything we can do for your grandfather?\" asked Miss\nHortensia.  \"I am sorry to hear he's so ill.\"\n\nThe boy shook his head; a sad look passed across his bright face.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"he's pretty bad sometimes.  But some days he's much\nbetter.  He's better to-day.  There's one thing he would like,\" he went\non, \"he told me to ask you if some day the young ladies might come to\nsee him; he said I might ask--\"\n\nRuby interrupted--\n\n\"Why, how funny you are,\" she said; \"that was just what we wanted\nyesterday, and you wouldn't let us go near the cottage.  You said we'd\nstartle him.\"\n\n\"He was very tired yesterday,\" said Winfried; \"and you see he wasn't\nlooking for you.\"\n\n\"He was chattering and laughing all the same--or somebody was,\" said\nRuby.  \"We heard them--don't you remember?\"\n\nWinfried did not speak.  But he did not seem vexed.\n\n\"I believe it was the mermaids after all,\" Ruby went on.  \"Cousin\nHortensia, if you let us go there the mermaids will steal us.\"\n\n\"No, indeed,\" exclaimed Winfried eagerly.\n\nMiss Hortensia smiled at him.\n\n\"I am not afraid,\" she said.  \"Tell your grandfather the young ladies\nshall certainly go to see him some day soon.\"\n\n\"To-morrow,\" said Mavis, speaking almost for the first time.  \"Oh, do\nsay we may go to-morrow--it's our half-holiday.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" said Miss Hortensia.  \"Are you sure you can find your way?\nI can send Ulrica with you.\"\n\n\"Mayn't I come to fetch the young ladies?\" asked Winfried.  \"I know all\nthe short cuts.\"\n\n\"I should think you did,\" laughed Ruby.  \"We told cousin Hortensia all\nabout that queer path through the rocks.  _She'd_ never seen it either.\"\n\n\"I'll take you quite as nice a way to-morrow,\" said the boy composedly.\n\"May I go now, please?\" he added, turning to Miss Hortensia.\n\"Grandfather may be wanting me, and thank you very much;\" and in another\nmoment he was gone.\n\nMiss Hortensia was quite silent for a minute or two after he had left\nthe room.\n\n\"Cousin,\" began Ruby; but her cousin did not seem to hear.  \"_Cousin_,\"\nrepeated the child impatiently.\n\nMiss Hortensia looked up as if awakened from a brown study.\n\n\"Did you speak, my dear?\" she said.\n\n\"Yes, of course I did.  I want you to say something about that queer\nboy.  I suppose you think him very nice, or you wouldn't let Mavis and\nme go to his cottage.  You're generally so frightened about us.\"\n\n\"I do think he is a very nice boy,\" said Miss Hortensia.  \"I am sure he\nis quite trustworthy.\"\n\n\"_I_ believe he's a bit of a fairy, and I'm sure his old grandfather's a\nwizard,\" murmured Ruby.  \"And I quite expect, as I said to Joan, that we\nshall be turned into sea-gulls or frogs if we go there.\"\n\n\"I shouldn't mind being a sea-gull,\" said Mavis.  \"Not for a little\nwhile at least.  Would you, cousin Hortensia?\"\n\nBut Miss Hortensia had not been listening to their chatter.\n\n\"My dears,\" she said suddenly, \"I will tell you one reason why I should\nbe glad for you sometimes to have Winfried as a companion if he is as\ngood and manly as he seems.  I have had a letter from your father,\ntelling me of a new guest we are to expect.  It is a cousin of yours--a\nlittle nephew of your father's--your aunt Margaret's son.  He is an only\nchild, and, your father fears, a good deal spoilt.  He is coming here\nbecause his father is away at sea and his mother is ill and must be kept\nquiet, and Bertrand, it seems, is very noisy.\"\n\n\"Bertrand,\" repeated Ruby, \"oh, I remember about him.  I remember father\ntelling us about him--he is a horrid boy, I know.\"\n\n\"Your father did not call him a horrid boy, I'm sure,\" said Miss\nHortensia.\n\n\"No,\" said Mavis, \"he only said he was spoilt.  And he said he was a\npretty little boy, and nice in some ways.\"\n\n\"Well, we must do our best to make him nicer,\" said Miss Hortensia;\n\"though I confess I feel a little uneasy--you have never been accustomed\nto rough bearish ways.  And if Winfried can be with you sometimes he\nmight help you with Bertrand.\"\n\n\"When is he coming?\" asked Ruby.\n\n\"Very soon, but I do not know the exact day.  Now run off, my dears;\nthere is time for you to have half an hour's play in the garden before\ndinner.\"\n\nIt was curious that of the two little girls Mavis seemed the more to\ndislike the idea of the expected guest.\n\n\"Ruby,\" she said rather dolefully, \"I do wish Bertrand weren't coming.\nHe'll spoil everything, and we shan't know what to do with him.\"\n\n\"There's not much to spoil that I see,\" said Ruby.\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Oh, our nice quiet ways.  Cousin Hortensia telling us stories and all\nthat,\" said Mavis.  \"And I'm sure Winfried won't want to have to look\nafter a rough, rude little boy.  It's quite different with _us_--\nWinfried likes us because we're--ladies, you know, and gentle and nice\nto him.\"\n\nRuby laughed.\n\n\"How you go on about Winfried--Winfried!\" she said mockingly.  \"I think\nit's a very good thing Bertrand is coming to put him down a bit--a\ncommon fisher-boy!  I wonder at cousin Hortensia.  I'm sure if father\nknew he wouldn't be at all pleased, but _I'm_ not going to tell him.  I\nmean to have some fun with Master Winfried before I have done with him,\nand I expect Bertrand will help me.\"\n\n\"Ruby!\" exclaimed Mavis, looking startled, \"you don't mean that you are\ngoing to play him any tricks?\"  Ruby only laughed again, more mockingly\nthan before.\n\n\"I'd like to lock him up in the haunted room in the west turret one\nnight,\" she said.  \"I do hope he'd get a good fright.\"\n\nMavis seemed to have recovered from her alarm.\n\n\"I don't believe he'd mind the least scrap,\" she said; \"that shows you\ndon't understand him one bit.  He'd like it; besides, you say yourself\nyou think he's a fairy boy, so why should he be afraid of fairies?\"\n\n\"Nobody's afraid of _fairies_, you silly girl.  But if cousin Hortensia\nsaw anything in the turret--and I don't believe she did,--it wasn't a\nfairy, it was quite different--more a sort of witch, I suppose.\"\n\n\"You're always talking of witches and wizards,\" retorted Mavis, who\nseemed to be picking up a spirit which rather astonished Ruby.  \"_I_\nlike thinking of nicer things--angels and--oh Ruby!\" she suddenly broke\noff, \"do look here--oh, how lovely!\" and stooping down she pointed to a\nthick cluster of turquoise blossoms, almost hidden in a corner beneath\nthe shrubs.  \"_Aren't_ they darlings?  Really it's enough to make one\nbelieve in fairies or kind spirits of some kind--to find forget-me-nots\nlike these in November!\" and she looked up at her sister with delight\ndancing in her eyes.\n\nEven Ruby looked surprised.\n\n\"They are beauties,\" she said; \"and I'm almost sure they weren't there\nyesterday.  Didn't we come round by here, Mavis?\"\n\n\"Not till it was nearly dark.  We ran in this way, you know, after we\ncame out of Winfried's path,\" said Mavis.\n\n\"Oh, yes, I remember,\" Ruby replied, and a half dreamy look stole over\nher face.\n\nThey were standing on the lower terrace.  This side of the castle, as I\nhave said, was much more sheltered and protected than the other, but\nstill already in November it was bleak and bare.  The evergreen shrubs\nhad begun to look self-satisfied and important, as I think they always\ndo in late autumn, when their fragile companions of the summer are\nshivering together in forlorn misery, or sinking slowly and sadly, leaf\nby leaf, brown and shrivelled, into the parent bosom of Mother Earth,\nalways ready to receive and hide her poor children in their day of\ndesolation.  Nay, more, far more than that does she for them in her dark\nbut loving embrace; not a leaf, not a tiniest twig is lost or mislaid--\nall, everything, is cared for and restored again, at the sun's warm kiss\nto creep forth in ever fresh and renewed life and beauty.  For all we\nsee, children dear, is but a type, faint and shadowy, of the real things\nthat _are_.\n\nThen a strange sort of irritation came over Ruby.  The soft wondering\nexpression so new to her disappeared, and she turned sharply to Mavis.\n\n\"Rubbish!\" she said.  \"Of course they were there yesterday.  But they\nshan't be there to-morrow--here goes;\" and she bent down to pick the\nlittle flowers.\n\nMavis stopped her with a cry.\n\n\"Don't gather them, Ruby,\" she said.  \"Poor little things, they might\nstay in their corner in peace, and we could come and look at them every\nday.  They'd wither so soon in the house.\"\n\nRuby laughed.  She was much more careless than actually unkind, at least\nwhen kindness cost her little.\n\n\"_What_ a baby you are,\" she said contemptuously.  \"You make as much\nfuss as when I wanted to take the thrush's eggs last spring.  Wouldn't\nyou like to give your dear Winfried a posy of them?\"\n\n\"No,\" Mavis answered, \"he wouldn't like us to gather them; there are so\nfew and they do look so sweet.\"  The next day was clear and bright, but\ncold; evidently winter was coming now.  But old Bertha had started the\nfires at last, as the date on which it was the rule at the castle for\nthem to begin on was now past.  So inside the house it was comfortable\nenough--in the inhabited part of it at least; though in the great unused\nrooms round the tiled hall, where all the furniture was shrouded in\nghostly-looking linen covers, and up the echoing staircase, and up still\nhigher in the turret-rooms where the wind whistled in at one window and\nout again at the opposite one, where Jack Frost's pictures lasted the\nsame on the panes for days at a time--dear, dear, it _was_ cold, even\nBertha herself allowed, when she had to make her weekly tour of\ninspection to see that all was right.\n\n\"I will ask Miss Hortensia not to let the little ladies play in the west\nturret this winter,\" thought the old woman.  \"I'm sure it was there Miss\nMavis caught her cold last Christmas.  A good fire indeed!  It'd take a\nweek of bonfires to warm that room.\"\n\nBut old Bertha was mistaken, as you will see.  There was no thought of\nplaying in the west turret this half-holiday, however, for it was the\nright sort of day for a bright winter walk.  And while the afternoon was\nstill young, Ruby and Mavis, warmly wrapt up in their fur-lined mantles\nand hoods, were racing downstairs to Winfried, who had come punctually\nand was waiting for them, so Ulrica had come in to say, at the door in\nthe archway on the sea side of the castle.\n\n\"What are you here for?\" was Ruby's first greeting.  \"Why didn't you\ncome to the garden side?  Aren't you going to take us by the path\nbetween the rocks, down below the field?\"\n\n\"No, Miss Ruby,\" said the boy, his cap in his hand.  \"We're going\nanother way to-day.  I think you will like it just as well.  We must go\ndown to the cove first.\"\n\n\"_I_ don't mind,\" said Ruby, dancing on in front of the two others; \"but\nI'm afraid Mavis has been dreaming of that nice cosy little path.  She\nwouldn't let me even look for the entrance to it yesterday; she said we\nshould wait for you to show it us.\"\n\n\"I think Miss Mavis will like to-day's way just as well,\" Winfried\nrepeated.\n\nThey were some little distance down the cliff by this time.  It was very\nclear and bright; for once, the waves, even though the tide was close up\nto the shore, seemed in a peaceful mood, and only as a distant murmur\ncame the boom of their dashing against the rocks, round to the right\nbeyond the little sheltered nook.  Winfried stood still for a moment and\ngazed down seawards, shading his eyes with his hand, for winter though\nit was, the afternoon sunshine was almost dazzling.\n\n\"What is it?  What are you looking for?\" asked Ruby, coming back a step\nor two and standing beside him.  \"Do come on; it's too cold to hang\nabout.\"\n\nFor once Winfried was less polite than usual.  He did not answer Ruby,\nbut turned to Mavis, who was a little behind.\n\n\"Do you see anything?\" he asked.\n\nAnd Mavis, following his eyes, answered, \"Yes--there's--oh, there's a\nlittle boat drifting in--a tiny boat--is it drifting?  No; there's some\none in it,--some one with a blue cloak; no, it must have been the waves\njust touching; the waves are so blue to-day.\"\n\nThe boy gave a little sigh of satisfaction.\n\n\"I thought so,\" he said.  Then he sprang forward eagerly: \"Come on,\" he\ncried, \"we mustn't be late.\"\n\nRuby followed, not too pleased.\n\n\"I've as good eyes as Mavis,\" she said.  \"Why didn't you ask me?  I\ndon't believe there's a boat at all.\"\n\nBut even Ruby had to give in when in a few minutes they found themselves\nat the edge of the cove, on the little half-circle of sand which was all\nthat the sea left uncovered at full tide.  For there _was_ a boat, a\nmost unmistakable and delightful boat, though scarcely larger than a\nsofa, and looking like a perfect toy as it rocked gently on the rippling\nwater.\n\n\"Goodness!\" said Ruby,--and it must be allowed that goodness is a\nprettier word than rubbish,--\"how in the world did that boat come here?\nDid you bring it, Winfried?  No, for if you had you wouldn't have been\nlooking to see if it had come.  But is it your boat?\"\n\n\"No,\" answered the boy; \"it's lent me, on purpose for you and Miss\nMavis.  Get in, please.\"\n\nRuby came forward, but hesitated.\n\n\"Are you sure it's safe?\" she said.  \"You know the sea is very rough--\nround there near the village.  And this is such a very little boat.\"\n\nWinfried laughed.\n\n\"It's as safe as--as the safest thing you can think of,\" he said.\n\"_You're_ not afraid, Miss Mavis.\"\n\nFor all answer the little girl sprang into the boat; it danced under her\nfeet, but she only laughed.\n\n\"Come on, Ruby,\" she called out; \"it's lovely.\"\n\nRuby stepped in cautiously.  The little boat was most dainty and pretty.\nThere were cushions for the little girls, and one or two soft rich\ncoloured shawls, of a fashion and material such as they had never seen\nbefore.\n\n\"Dear me,\" said Ruby, settling herself in the most comfortable place and\ndrawing the pretty rugs round her, \"what a nice little boat!  Your\nfriends must be very rich, Winfried.  But I know what I know;\" and she\nshook her head mysteriously.\n\n\"What do you mean, Ruby?\" said Mavis.\n\nWinfried was busy with his oars and did not seem to be attending to\nthem.  Ruby leant forward and whispered, close into her sister's ear,\n\"_Mermaids_!\"  Then seeing or thinking that the boy was not listening,\nshe went on.  \"You know mermaids _are_ very rich.  They dive down into\nthe shipwrecked vessels and fish up all the treasures.  I daresay these\nshawls have come from some strange country, right over at the other side\nof the world.  Indeed, _some_ people say that the horrid things sing to\nmake the sailors turn to look for them and get their ships all in among\nthe rocks.\"\n\nMavis looked puzzled.\n\n\"I don't think that's _mermaids_,\" she said.  \"There's another name for\nthose naughty, unkind creatures.\"\n\n\"Syrens,\" came Winfried's voice from the other end of the boat.  And he\nlooked up with a smile at the little girls' start of surprise.  \"Don't\nbe afraid,\" he said, \"my friends are neither mermaids nor syrens; you're\nnot going to be shipwrecked in this boat, I promise you.\"  Somehow the\nboy seemed to have gained a new kind of dignity now that the children\nwere, so to say, his guests.  Ruby said, \"Thank you,\" quite meekly and\nsubmissively for her.\n\nThen they were all quite silent for a while, only the plash of\nWinfried's oars broke the stillness.  And somehow out there on the water\nit seemed to have grown warmer, at least the children felt conscious of\nneither cold nor heat, it was just perfectly pleasant.  And the sun\nshone on mildly.  There was a thorough feeling of \"afternoon,\" with its\nquiet and mystery and yet faint expectation, such as one seldom has\nexcept in summer.\n\n\"It is lovely,\" said Mavis presently; \"only I'm a little afraid I'm\ngetting sleepy.\"\n\n\"No, you needn't be afraid,\" said Winfried; and just as he said the\nwords, Mavis started, as something flitted against her cheek.\n\n\"Ruby, Ruby!\" she exclaimed, \"did you see it?  A butterfly--a blue\nbutterfly--in November!  Oh, where has it gone to?\" and she gazed all\nround anxiously.\n\nCHAPTER FIVE.\n\nTHE FISHERMAN'S HUT.\n\n  \"...  There are things which through the gazing eye\n  Reach the full soul and thrill it into love.\"\n\n  _To my Child_.\n\nRuby burst out laughing.\n\n\"You've been asleep and dreaming, you silly girl,\" she said.  \"Winfried,\ndo you hear?  Mavis says a blue butterfly flew past.\"\n\n\"It kissed my cheek,\" said Mavis.\n\nWinfried smiled: \"It's quite possible,\" he said.  Ruby was just turning\nupon him with her laughter, when something made _her_ jump in turn.\nSomething cold and damp touched her hand: she had taken her glove off\nand was dabbling idly in the water.\n\n\"Ugh,\" she said, \"I do believe that was a toad.\"  The laugh was against\nher now.\n\n\"A toad, Ruby, out at sea!  What are you thinking of?\" said Mavis.  \"You\nneedn't make fun of my butterfly if you talk of toads.\"\n\n\"Well, it was something slimy and horrid like a toad,\" said Ruby.\n\"Perhaps it was only a fish.  But whatever it was, I believe it was a\ntrick of Winfried's.  I'm sure, positive sure, you're a wizard,\nWinfried.\"\n\nShe was half in fun and half in earnest.  But the boy took it quite\ncomposedly.\n\n\"No, I'm not,\" he said; \"and no more is gran.  But--people don't\nunderstand, you see.  If they see that one's a bit different from others\nthey've no words for it but wizard and uncanny, and they get frightened\nwhen it should be just the other way.\"\n\nThis was much more of a speech than the fisher-boy was in the habit of\nmaking.  Both the children listened with interest.\n\n\"How is your gran different from others?\" asked Ruby.\n\n\"You'll see it in his face; at least, I think you will,\" said Winfried.\n\"But now I mustn't talk, we're close to the little creek.\"\n\nHe got the boat in most cleverly, to a very tiny creek, where was a\nlittle landing-place, and leading upwards from it a flight of steps cut\nin the rock.\n\n\"How funny, how very funny we never saw this place before,\" exclaimed\nthe little girls.  \"Do you keep the boat here, Winfried?\"\n\n\"Sometimes,\" he replied, \"but not to-day.  We won't need it again.\"\n\nHe folded up the shawls and laid them neatly on the cushions, then he\ndrew in the oars, and in another moment he had helped the children to\nget on shore, and all three had mounted several of the rock steps when\nWinfried called to them to stop for a moment.\n\n\"Look down,\" he said; and as he spoke, the little girls saw something\nmoving there below where they had just landed.  It was the little boat;\ncalmly and steadily it was moving out to sea, though it had no sails,\nand the oars were lying just as Winfried had drawn them in.\n\n\"Oh Winfried,\" exclaimed Ruby; \"the dear little boat, it's drifting out,\nit will be lost.  Can't you jump into the water and drag it back?\"\n\n\"It's all right,\" said the boy.  \"It's going home till it's needed\nagain.  I only wanted you to see how quietly it goes off, once its\nbusiness is done.\"\n\nAnd he turned and began to whistle softly as he went on up the steps.\n\n\"_Now_,\" said Ruby, half triumphant and half frightened, in a whisper to\nMavis, \"now, can you say he's not a wizard?  I think cousin Hortensia\nwas very silly to let us come with him, but it was all you, Mavis, going\non about him so.  If we're not turned into toads or lizards before we\nget home, I--\"\n\n\"Butterflies would be nicer,\" said Mavis, laughing.\n\n\"I'll ask Winfried and his gran to make me into a blue butterfly, and\nyou can be a yellow one if you like.\"\n\nShe seemed to have caught something of Winfried's happy confidence, Ruby\nlooked at her in surprise, but it was mixed with anger.  What she was\ngoing to have said I don't know, for just then their guide called out\nagain.\n\n\"Here we are,\" he said, \"if you'll stoop your heads a little;\" and\nlooking up, the children saw before them a narrow, low archway, at the\nentrance to which the steps stopped.  Ruby hung back a little, but Mavis\nran forward.\n\n\"It's all right, Ruby,\" she called back; \"and oh, what a pretty garden!\nDo come quick.\"\n\nRuby followed.  It was only necessary to stoop for a moment or two, then\nshe found herself beside her sister, and she could not help joining in\nher exclamation of pleasure.  Somehow or other they had arrived at the\nback of the cottage, which at this side, they now saw, stood in a pretty\nand sheltered garden.  Perhaps garden is hardly the word to use, for\nthough there were flowers of more than one kind and plants, there were\nother things one does not often see in a garden.  There were ever so\nmany little bowers and grottoes, cleverly put together of different\nkinds of queerly-shaped and queerly-coloured fragments of rock; there\nwere two or three basins hollowed out of the same stones, in which clear\nwater sparkled, and brilliant seaweed of every shade, from delicate pink\nto blood-red crimson, glowed; there were shells of strange and wonderful\nform, and tints as many as those of the rainbow, arranged so that at a\nlittle distance they looked like groups of flowers--in short, Ruby was\nnot far wrong when returning to her old idea, she whispered to Mavis,\n\"It's a _mermaid's_ garden.\"\n\n\"And I only hope,\" she went on in the same tone, \"we shan't find that\nsomehow or other he has got us down under the sea without our knowing.\"\n\nMavis broke into a merry laugh.\n\n\"Don't be afraid,\" she said.  \"Look up; there's the good old sun,\nsmiling as usual, with no water between him and us.  And see here,\nRuby,\" and she ran forward, \"there are earth flower's too, as well as\nsea ones.\"\n\nShe was right; on a border sheltered by the wall of the cottage were\ngreat masses of fern, still green and luxuriant, and here and there\namong them clumps, brilliantly blue, of the tender, loving\nforget-me-not.\n\n\"It's _just_ like that bunch of it we found on our terrace,\" said Mavis,\njoyfully.  \"I really could believe you had brought a root of it and\nplanted it there for us, Winfried.  I never saw such beauties.\"\n\n\"Gran loves it,\" was all the boy said.  Then he led them round to the\nfront of the house, and opened the door for them to enter.\n\nInside the cottage all was very plain, but very, very neat and clean.\nIn an old-fashioned large wooden arm-chair by the fire sat old Adam.  He\nlooked very old, older than the children had expected, and a kind of awe\ncame over them.  His hair was white, but scarcely whiter than his face,\nhis hands were unusually delicate and refined, though gnarled and\nknotted as are those of aged people.  He looked up with a smile, for his\nsight was still good, as his visitors came in.\n\n\"You will forgive my not standing up, my dear little ladies,\" he said.\n\"You see I am very old.  It is good of you to come to see me.  I have\noften seen you, oftener than you knew, since you were very tiny things.\"\n\n\"Have you lived here a long time, then?\" asked Ruby.\n\n\"It would seem a long time to you, though not to me,\" he said with a\nsmile.  \"And long ago before that, I knew your grandmother and the lady\nwho takes care of you.  When I was a young man, and a middle-aged man\ntoo for that matter, my home was where theirs was.  So I remember your\nmother when she was as little as you.\"\n\n\"Oh, how nice,\" exclaimed Mavis.  \"Was our mother like us, Mr Adam?\"\n\n\"You may be very like her if you wish,\" he said kindly.\n\nBut their attention was already distracted.  On a small table, close\nbeside the old man's chair, in what at first sight looked like a\ndelicate china cup, but was in reality a large and lovely shell, was a\nposy, freshly gathered apparently, of the same beautiful forget-me-nots.\n\n\"Oh, these are out of your garden,\" said Ruby; \"how do you manage to\nmake them grow so well and so late in the year?\"\n\n\"The part of the garden where they grow is not mine,\" said Adam quietly;\n\"it belongs to a friend who tends it herself.  I could not succeed as\nshe does.\"\n\n\"Is--is she a mermaid?\" asked Ruby, her eyes growing very round.\n\n\"No, my dear.  Mermaids' flowers, if they have any, would scarcely be\nlike these, I think.\"\n\n\"You speak as if there are no such things as mermaids; do you not think\nthere are?\" said Mavis.\n\nOld Adam shook his head.\n\n\"I have never seen one; but I would never take upon myself to say there\nis nothing but what I've seen.\"\n\n\"Tell us about the friend who plants these in your garden,\" said Ruby,\ntouching the forget-me-nots.  \"Could it have been she who put some on\nthe terrace at the castle for us?\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" said the old man.\n\n\"Is she a lady, or--or a fairy, or what is she, if she's not a mermaid?\"\nasked Ruby.\n\nBefore the old man could answer, Winfried's voice made her start in\nsurprise.\n\n\"She's a princess,\" he said; and he smiled all over his face when he saw\nRuby's astonishment.\n\n\"Oh!\" was all she said, but her manner became more respectful to both\nAdam and his grandson from that moment.\n\nThen the old man made a sign to Winfried, and the boy went out of the\nroom, coming back in a moment with a little plain wooden tray, on which\nwere two glasses of rich tempting-looking milk and a basket of cakes,\nbrown and crisp, of a kind the children had never seen before.  He set\nthe tray down on a table which stood in the window, and Adam begged the\nchildren to help themselves.\n\nThey did so gladly.  Never had cake and milk tasted so delicious.  Ruby\nfelt rather small when she thought of her condescending offer of soup\nfrom the Castle kitchen.\n\n\"But then,\" she reflected, \"of course I didn't know--how could I?--that\na princess comes to see them.  I daresay she sends them these delicious\ncakes.  I wish Bertha could make some like them.\"\n\n\"I never saw cakes like these before,\" said little Mavis.  \"They are\n_so_ good.\"\n\nOld Adam seemed pleased.\n\n\"My boy isn't a bad cook,\" he said proudly, with a glance at Winfried.\n\n\"Did _you_ make them?\" said Ruby, staring at Winfried.  \"I thought\nperhaps as a princess comes to see you that _she_ sent you them--they\nare so very good.\"\n\nWinfried could not help laughing: something in Ruby's speech seemed to\nhim so comical.\n\nThen at the little girls' request he took them out again to examine some\nof the wonders of the grotto-garden.  He fished out some lovely sprays\nof seaweed for them, and gave them also several of the prettiest shells;\nbest of all, he gathered a sweet nosegay of the forget-me-nots, which\nMavis said she would take home to cousin Hortensia.  And then, as the\nsun by this time had travelled a long way downwards, they ran in to bid\nold Adam good-bye, and to thank him, before setting off homewards.\n\n\"How are we going?\" asked Ruby.  \"You've sent away the boat.\"\n\n\"I could call it back again, but I think we had better go a shorter\nway,\" said Winfried.  \"You're not frightened of a little bit of the\ndark, are you?  There's a nice short cut to the rock path through one of\nthe arbours.\"\n\nThe little girls followed him, feeling very curious, and, perhaps, just\na tiny scrap afraid.  He led them into one of the grottoes, which, to\ntheir surprise, they found a good deal larger than they had expected,\nfor it lengthened out at the back into a sort of cave.  This cave was\ntoo dark for them to see its size, but Winfried plunged fearlessly into\nits recesses.\n\n\"I must see that the way is clear,\" he said, as he left them; \"wait\nwhere you are for a few minutes.\"\n\nRuby was not very pleased at being treated so unceremoniously.\n\n\"I don't call waiting here a quick way of getting home,\" she said, \"and\nI hate the dark.  I've a good mind to run out and go back the regular\nway, Mavis.\"\n\n\"Oh no,\" Mavis was beginning, but just then both children started.  It\nseemed to have grown suddenly dark outside, as if a cloud or mist had\ncome over the sky; and as they gazed out, feeling rather bewildered, a\nclear voice sounded through the grotto.\n\n\"Ruby; Mavis,\" it said.\n\nRuby turned to Mavis.\n\n\"It's a trick of that boy's,\" she said.  \"He wants to startle us.  He\nhas no business to call us by out names like that.  I'll not stay;\" and\nshe ran out.  Mavis was following her to bring her back when a ray of\nlight--scarcely a ray, rather, I should say, a soft glow--seemed to fill\nthe entrance to the grotto.  And gradually, as her eyes got used to it,\nshe distinguished a lovely figure--a lady, with soft silvery-blue\ngarments floating round her and a sweet grave face, was standing there\nlooking at her.  A strange thrill passed through the child, yet even as\nshe felt it she knew it was not a thrill of fear.  And something seemed\nto draw her eyes upwards--a touch she could not have resisted if she had\nwished--till they found their resting-place in meeting those that were\nbent upon her--those beautiful, wonderful blue eyes, eyes like none she\nhad ever seen, or--nay, she had _heard_ of such eyes--they were like\nthose of the fairy lady in her old cousin's dream.  And now Mavis knew\nin part why the strange vision did _not_ seem strange to her; why,\nrather, she felt as if she had always known it would come, as if all her\nlife she had been expecting this moment.\n\n\"Mavis,\" said the soft yet clear and thrilling voice, \"you see me, my\nchild?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the little girl, speaking steadily, though in a whisper, \"I\nsee you, and I see your eyes.  Who are you?  I may ask you, may I not?\"\n\nThe fairy--if fairy she was--smiled.\n\n\"I have many names,\" she said; \"but if you like you may think of me by\nthe one Winfried loves.  He calls me `Princess with the Forget-me-not\nEyes,' or `Princess Forget-me-not.'\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mavis, \"I like that; and I will never forget you, princess.\"\n\nAgain the lovely vision smiled.\n\n\"No, my child, you never will, for, to tell you a secret, you cannot,\neven if you wished.  Afterwards, when you know _me_ better, you will see\nhow well my name suits me.  But it does not seem to all a sweet name, as\nI think it always will to you,\" and she sighed a little.  \"There are\nthose who long to forget me; those who wish they had never seen me.\"\n\nThe sadness in her eyes was reflected in the child's.\n\n\"How can that be?\" asked Mavis.\n\nThe blue-eyed princess shook her head.\n\n\"Nay, my darling, I cannot tell you, and I scarce would if I could,\" she\nsaid gently.  But then a brighter look came over her face again, \"Don't\nlook so sad.  They change again some of them, and seek me as earnestly\nas they would have before fled from me.  And some day you may help and\nguide such seekers, simple as you are, my little Mavis.  Now I must go--\ncall Ruby--she would not stay for me; she has not yet seen me.  But she\nheard my voice, that is better than nothing.  Good-bye, little Mavis,\nand if you want me again before I come of myself, seek me in the west\nturret.\"\n\nMavis's face lighted up.\n\n\"Then it _was_ you--you are cousin Hortensia's fairy, and it wasn't a\ndream after all.  And of course you must be a fairy, for that was ever,\never so long ago.  She was a little girl then, and now she is quite old,\nand you look as young as--as--\"\n\n\"As who or what?\" asked the princess, smiling again.\n\n\"As the Sleeping Beauty in the wood,\" replied Mavis, after deep\nconsideration.\n\nAt this the princess did more than smile; she laughed,--the same clear\ndelicate laugh which the children had heard that day in the distance.\n\nAnd Mavis laughed too; she could not help it.\n\n\"May I tell cousin Hortensia?\" she asked.  \"Oh do say I may.\"\n\n\"You may,\" said Forget-me-not, \"if--if you _can_!\"\n\nAnd while Mavis was wondering what she meant, a breath of soft wind\nseemed to blow past her, and glancing up, the princess was gone!\n\nMavis rubbed her eyes.  Had she been asleep?  It seemed a long time\nsince Winfried told her and Ruby to wait for him in the grotto; and\nwhere was Ruby?  Why did she not come back?  Mavis began to feel uneasy.\nSurely she had been asleep--for--was she asleep still?  Looking round\nher, she saw that she was no longer in the grotto-cave behind old Adam's\ncottage, but standing in the archway at the sea side of the castle--the\narchway I have told you of into which opened the principal entrance to\nthe grim old building.  And as she stood there, silent and perplexed,\nuncertain whether she was not still dreaming, she heard voices coming\nnear.  The first she could distinguish was Ruby's.\n\n\"There you are, Mavis, I declare,\" she exclaimed.  \"Now it's too bad of\nyou to have run on so fast without telling, and I've been fussing about\nyou all the way home, though Winfried said he was sure we should find\nyou here.  How _did_ you get back?\"\n\n\"How did _you_?\" asked Mavis in return.  \"And why didn't you come back\nto me in the grotto?  I--I waited ever so long, and then--\" but that was\nall she could say, though a smile broke over her face when she thought\nof what she had seen.\n\n\"You look as if you had been asleep,\" said Ruby impatiently.\n\n\"And having pleasant dreams,\" added Winfried.  \"But all's well that ends\nwell.  Won't you run in now, my little ladies, and let Miss Hortensia\nsee that I've brought you safe back.  It is cold and dark standing out\nhere, and I must be off home.\"\n\n\"Good-night then,\" said Ruby; \"you're a very queer boy, but you brought\n_me_ home all right any way, and those cakes were very good.\"\n\n\"You will come to see us soon again, won't you, Winfried?\" said Mavis,\nwho felt as if she had a great deal to ask which only he could answer,\nthough with Ruby there beside her she could not have explained what she\nwanted to know.\n\n\"To be sure I will, if you want me,\" said the boy.\n\n\"Don't be puzzled, Miss Mavis, pleasant dreams don't do any one harm.\"\n\nAnd as they pushed open the great, nail-studded door which was never\nlocked till after nightfall Winfried ran off.\n\nThey stood still for a moment just inside the entrance.  They could hear\nhim whistling as he went, smoothly at first, then it seemed to come in\njerks, going on for a moment or two and then suddenly stopping, to begin\nagain as suddenly.\n\n\"He's jumping down the cliff.  I can hear it by his whistle,\" said Ruby.\n\"How dangerous!\"\n\n\"He's very sure-footed,\" said Mavis with a little sigh.  She was feeling\ntired--and--_was_ it a dream?  If so, how had she got home?  Had the\nfairy lady wrapped her round in her cloak of mist and flown with her to\nthe castle?  Mavis could not tell, and somehow Ruby did not ask her\nagain.\n\n\"How did you come home, Ruby?\"  Mavis asked as they were going along the\npassage to their sitting-room.\n\n\"Oh,\" said Ruby, \"Winfried took me down some steps, and then up some\nothers, and before I knew where we were, we were in the rock path not\nfar from home.  It was like magic.  I can't make out that boy,\" she said\nmysteriously; \"but we're not turned into frogs or toads _yet_.  Here we\nare, cousin Hortensia,\" she went on, as the good lady suddenly appeared\nat the end of the passage, \"safe home from the wizard's haunts.\"\n\nBut Miss Hortensia only smiled.\n\n\"I was not uneasy,\" she said.  \"I thought you would be quite safe.\"\n\nCHAPTER SIX.\n\nBERTRAND.\n\n  \"But the unkind and the unruly,\n  And the sort who eat unduly,\n  Theirs is quite a different story.\"\n\n  _Good and Bad Children_: Louis Stevenson.\n\nThey were just beginning tea, and Ruby's tongue was going fast as she\ndescribed to Miss Hortensia all that happened that afternoon, while\nMavis sat half-dreamily wondering what the fairy lady had meant by\nsaying she might tell her cousin about her \"if she _could_,\" when there\ncame a sudden and unusual sound that made them all start.  It was the\nclanging of the great bell at the principal entrance on the south side--\nthe entrance by which, you remember, all visitors, except those coming\nby sea, came to the castle.\n\n\"Who can that be?\" exclaimed Ruby, jumping up and looking very pleased--\nRuby loved any excitement.  \"Can it be father?  What fun if he's come to\nsurprise us!  Only I hope he won't have forgotten our presents.  He\ngenerally asks us what we want before he comes.\"\n\nMavis had grown a little pale; somehow the things that Ruby was\nfrightened of never alarmed her, and yet she was more easily startled by\nothers that Ruby rather enjoyed.\n\n\"I hope it isn't a message to say that anything is the matter with dear\nfather,\" she said anxiously.\n\nMiss Hortensia got up from her seat and went to the door.  She did not\nseem frightened, but still rather uneasy.\n\n\"I'm afraid,\" she began, \"I'm afraid--and yet I should not speak of it\nthat way; it is not kind.  But I did so ask them to give us notice of\nhis coming.\"  She had left the room almost before she had finished\nspeaking.  The children looked at each other.\n\n\"I say, Mavis,\" said Ruby, \"it's Bertrand!  Don't you think we might run\nout and see?\"\n\n\"No,\" Mavis replied decidedly, \"certainly not.  Cousin Hortensia would\nhave told us to come if she had wanted us.\"\n\nBut they went to the open door and stood close beside it, listening\nintently.  Then came the sound of old Joseph's steps along the stone\npassage from the part of the house which he and Bertha--Joseph was\nBertha's husband--inhabited, then the drawing back of the bolts and\nbars, and, most interesting and exciting of all, a noise of horses\nstamping and shaking their harness as if glad to have got to the end of\ntheir journey.  Then followed voices; and in a minute or two the\nchildren heard Miss Hortensia coming back, speaking as she came.\n\n\"You must be very cold, my dear boy, and hungry too,\" she was saying.\n\"We are just beginning tea, so you had better come in at once as you\nare.\"\n\n\"It's terribly cold, and that fool of a driver wouldn't come any faster;\nhe said his horses were tired.  I wish _I_ could have got a cut at\nthem--what are horses for?\" was the reply to Miss Hortensia's kind\nspeech.\n\nMavis touched Ruby.\n\n\"Come in.  Cousin Hortensia wouldn't like to see us standing at the door\nlike this,\" she said.\n\nThey sat down at their places again, only getting up as Miss Hortensia\ncame in.\n\nShe was followed by a boy.  He was about the height of the twins, broad\nand strong-looking, wrapped up in a rich fur-lined coat, and with a\ntravelling cap of the same fur still on his head.  He was dark-haired\nand dark-eyed, a handsome boy with a haughty, rather contemptuous\nexpression of face--an expression winch it did not take much to turn\ninto a scowl if he was annoyed or put out.\n\n\"These are your cousins, Bertrand; your cousins Ruby and Mavis--you have\nheard of them, I am sure, though you have never met each other before.\"\n\nBertrand looked up coolly.\n\n\"I knew there were girls here,\" he answered.  \"Mother said so.  But I\ndon't care for girls--I told mother so.  I'm awfully hungry;\" and he\nbegan to pull forward a chair.\n\n\"My dear,\" said Miss Hortensia, \"do you know you have not taken off your\ncap yet?  You must take off your coat too, but, above all, your cap.\"\n\nBertrand put up his hand and slowly drew off his cap.\n\n\"Mother never minds,\" he said.  But there was a slight touch of apology\nin the words.\n\nThen, more for his own comfort evidently than out of any sense of\ncourtesy, he pulled off his heavy coat and flung it on to a chair.  The\nlittle girls had not yet spoken to him, they felt too much taken aback.\n\n\"Perhaps he is shy and strange, and that makes him seem rough,\" thought\nMavis, and she began drawing forward another chair.\n\n\"Will you sit here?\" she was saying, when Bertrand pushed past her.\n\n\"I'll sit by the fire,\" he said, and he calmly settled himself on what\nhe could not but have seen was her seat or Ruby's; \"and I'm awfully\nhungry,\" he went on.\n\n\"At home I have dinner, at least if I want it, I do.  It's only fit for\ngirls to have tea in this babyish way.\"\n\nHe helped himself to a large slice of cake as he spoke; and not content\nwith this, he also put a big piece of butter on his plate.  Miss\nHortensia glanced at him, and was evidently just going to speak, but\nchecked herself.  It was Bertrand's first evening, and she was a very\nhospitable person.  But when Bertrand proceeded to butter his cake\nthickly, Ruby, never accustomed to control her tongue, burst out.\n\n\"That's cake, Bertrand,\" she said.  \"People don't butter _cake_.\"\n\n\"Don't they just?\" said the boy, speaking with his mouth full.  \"_I_ do,\nI know, and at home mother never minds.\"\n\n\"Does she let you do whatever you like?\" asked Ruby.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Bertrand; \"and whether she did or not I'd do it all the\nsame.\"\n\nThen he broke into a merry laugh.  It was one of the few attractive\nthings about him, beside his good looks, that laugh of his.  It made him\nseem for the time a hearty, good-tempered child, and gave one the\nfeeling that he did not really mean the things he said and did.  And now\nthat his hunger was appeased, and he was warm and comfortable, he became\nmuch more amiable.  Ruby looked at him with admiration.\n\n\"I wish I lived with your mother,\" she said, \"how nice it must be to do\nalways just what one likes!\"\n\n\"Do you think so,\" said Mavis.  \"I think it would be quite miserable.\"\n\n\"Quite right, Mavis,\" said Miss Hortensia.  \"When I was a child I\nremember reading a story of a little girl who for a great treat one\nbirthday was allowed to do just what she wanted all day, and--oh dear!--\nhow unhappy she was before evening came.\"\n\nBertrand stared at her with his big eyes.  _Some_ eyes are very\nmisleading; his looked now and then as if he had nothing but kind and\nbeautiful thoughts behind them.\n\n\"What a fool she must have been,\" he said roughly.  And poor Miss\nHortensia's heart sank.\n\nThe evening was not a long one, for Bertrand was tired with his journey,\nand for once willing to do as he was told, by going to bed early.  A\nroom near his cousins' had been preparing for him, and though not quite\nready, a good fire made it look very cosy.  They all went upstairs with\nhim to show him the way.  As they passed the great baize door which\ndivided their wing from the rest of the house.  Bertrand pushed it open.\n\n\"What's, through there?\" he asked, in his usual unceremonious way.\n\n\"Oh, all the rest of the castle,\" said Ruby importantly.\n\nBertrand peered through.  It was like looking into a great church with\nall the lights out, for this door opened right upon the gallery running\nround the large hall.\n\n\"What a ramshackle old cavern!\" said Bertrand.  A blast of cold air\nrushed in through the doorway as he spoke and made them all shiver.\n\n\"Nonsense, Bertrand,\" said Miss Hortensia, more sharply than she had yet\nspoken to him.  \"It is a splendid old house.\"\n\n\"You should see the staircases up to the turrets,\" said Ruby.  \"They are\nas high as--as I don't know what.  If you are naughty we can put you to\nsleep in the west turret-room, and they say it's haunted.\"\n\n\"_I_ shouldn't mind that,\" laughed Bertrand.\n\n\"Nor should I,\" said Ruby boastfully.  \"Mavis here is a dreadful coward.\nAnd--oh, Bertrand--I'll tell you something to-morrow.  I have such an\nidea.  Don't you love playing tricks on people--people who set\nthemselves up, you know, and preach at you?\"  Her last words were almost\nwhispered, and Miss Hortensia, who had gone on in front--they had closed\nthe swing door by this time--did not hear them.  But Mavis caught what\nRuby said, and she waited uneasily for Bertrand's answer.\n\n\"Prigs, you mean,\" he said.  \"I hate prigs.  Yes, indeed, I'll join you\nin any game of that kind.  You should have seen how we served a little\nwretch at school who tried to stop us teaching a puppy to swim--such a\njoke--the puppy could scarcely walk, much less swim.  So we took Master\nPrig and made _him_ swim instead.  It was winter, and he caught a jolly\ncold, and had to leave school.\"\n\n\"Did he get better?\" said Mavis, in a strange voice.\n\n\"Don't know, I'm sure.  I should think not.  His mother was too poor to\npay for a doctor, they said.  He'd no business to be at a school with\ngentlemen,\" said Bertrand brutally.\n\nMavis gasped.  Then suddenly, without saying good-night to any one, she\nrushed down the passage to the room she shared with her sister; and\nthere Ruby found her a few minutes later on her knees and all in the\ndark.\n\n\"What's the matter with you?  Cousin Hortensia told me to say good-night\nto you for her.  It wasn't very civil to fly off like that the first\nnight Bertrand was here.  I'm sure cousin Hortensia thought so too,\"\nsaid Ruby carelessly.  \"My goodness, are you _crying_?\" as the light she\ncarried fell on Mavis's tear-stained face.\n\n\"Cousin Hortensia didn't _hear_,\" said Mavis.  \"Oh, Ruby, I can't bear\nit.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"That wicked boy.  Oh, Ruby, you can't say you like him?\"\n\n\"I think he's lots of fun in him,\" said Ruby wonderingly.  \"He's only a\nboy; you are so queer, Mavis.\"  But catching sight again of her sister's\nexpression she suddenly changed.  \"Poor little Mavie,\" she cried,\nthrowing her arms round her, \"you're such a goose.  You're far too\ntender-hearted.\"\n\nMavis clung to her, sobbing.\n\n\"Oh, Ruby, my Ruby,\" she said, \"don't speak like that.  I couldn't\n_bear_ you to get hard and cruel.\"\n\nBut Ruby was, for her, wonderfully gentle and kind, and at last the two\nlittle sisters kissed each other, promising that nothing should ever\ncome between them.\n\nA good night's rest and a huge breakfast put Master Bertrand into a very\nfairly amiable humour the next morning.  He flatly refused, however, to\ndo any lessons, though it was intended that he should; and Miss\nHortensia, judging it best to make a virtue of necessity, told him he\nshould have his time to himself for three days, after which he must join\nthe twins in the school-room.\n\n\"For these three days,\" she said, \"I will give Ruby and Mavis a\nhalf-holiday, so that they may go about with you and show you\neverything.  But if you do not come regularly and punctually to lessons\nafter that, I will not give your cousins any extra holidays while you\nare here.\"\n\nShe spoke firmly, and Bertrand looked at her with surprise.  He was\nsurprised indeed into unusual meekness, for he said nothing but \"All\nright.\"\n\nThey gave him some directions as to where he would be most likely to\namuse himself and with safety.  Indeed, unless one were _determined_ to\nhurt oneself, there were no really dangerous places about the castle; in\nspite of the cliffs and the sea, Ruby and Mavis had played there all\ntheir lives without ever getting into mischief.\n\n\"He is not a stupid boy,\" said Miss Hortensia, after giving her\ninstructions to Bertrand, \"and I have no doubt he can take care of\nhimself if he likes.\"\n\n\"I'm sure he wouldn't like to hurt himself,\" said Ruby with a little\ncontempt; \"he's the sort of boy that would hate pain or being ill.\"\n\n\"It is to be hoped nothing of that kind will happen while he is here,\"\nsaid Miss Hortensia.  \"But I can only do my best.  I did not seek the\ncharge, and it would be quite impossible to shut him up in the house.\"\n\n\"He'd very likely try to get out of the window if you did, cousin\nHortensia,\" said Mavis with her gentle little laugh.  She was feeling\nhappy, for Ruby had continued kind and gentle this morning.  \"And if I\nwere a boy I'm not sure but that I would too, if I were shut up.\"\n\n\"Well, let us get to our work,\" said Miss Hortensia with a resigned\nlittle sigh.\n\nLessons were over; Ruby and Mavis had had their usual morning run along\nthe terrace, had brushed their hair and washed their hands, and were\nstanding up while Miss Hortensia said grace before beginning dinner,\nwhen Bertrand appeared.\n\nHe came banging in, his cap on his head, his boots wet and dirty, his\ncheeks flushed, and his eyes bright with running and excitement.  He\nlooked very pretty notwithstanding the untidy state he was in, but it\nwas impossible to welcome him cordially; he was so rude and careless,\nleaving the door wide open, and bringing in a strong fishy smell, the\nreason of which was explained when he flung down a great mass of coarse\nslimy seaweed he had been carrying.\n\n\"You nasty, dirty boy,\" said Ruby, turning up her nose and sniffing.\n\n\"Really, Bertrand, my dear,\" began Miss Hortensia, \"what have you\nbrought that wet seaweed here for?  It cannot stay in this room.\"\n\n\"I'll take it away,\" said Mavis, jumping up.\n\n\"What harm does it do?\" said Bertrand, sitting down sideways on his\nchair.  \"I want it.  I say you're not to go pitching it away, Mavis.\nWell when am I to have something to eat?\"\n\n\"Go and wash your hands and hang up your coat and come and sit straight\nat the table and then I will give you your dinner,\" said Miss Hortensia\ndrily.\n\n\"Why can't you give it me now?\" said Bertrand, with the ugly scowl on\nhis face.\n\n\"Because I will not,\" she replied decidedly.\n\nThe roast meat looked very tempting, so did the tart on the sideboard.\nBertrand lounged up out of his seat, and in a few minutes lounged back\nagain.  Eating generally put him into a better temper.  When he had got\nthrough one plateful and was ready for another, he condescended to turn\nto his companions with a more sociable air.\n\n\"I met a fellow down there--on the shore,\" he said, jerking his head\ntowards where he supposed the sea to be; \"only a common chap, but he\nseems to know the place.  He was inclined to be cheeky at first, but of\ncourse I soon put him down.  I told him to be there this afternoon\nagain; we might find him useful, now he knows his place.\"\n\nRuby's eyes sparkled.\n\n\"I'm very glad you did put him down,\" she said.  \"All the same--\" then\nshe hesitated.\n\n\"Do you know who he is?\" asked Bertrand.\n\n\"He's the best and nicest and cleverest boy in all the world,\" said\nlittle Mavis.\n\nBertrand scowled at her and muttered something, of which \"a dirty\nfisher-boy,\" was all that was audible.  Miss Hortensia's presence did\noverawe him a little.\n\n\"I am afraid there can be no question of any of you going out this\nafternoon,\" she said, glancing out of the window as she spoke; \"it is\nclouding over--all over.  You must make up your minds to amuse\nyourselves indoors.  You can show Bertrand over the house--that will\ntake some time.\"\n\n\"May we go up into the turret-rooms and everywhere?\" said Ruby.\n\n\"Yes, if you don't stay too long.  It is not very cold, and you are sure\nto keep moving about.  There--now comes the rain.\"\n\nCome indeed it did, a regular battle of wind and water; one of the\nsudden storms one must often expect on the coast.  But after the first\noutburst the sky grew somewhat lighter, and the wind went down a little,\nthe rain settling into a steady, heavy pour that threatened to last\nseveral hours.  For reasons of her own, Ruby set herself to coax\nBertrand into a good humour, and she so far succeeded that he\ncondescended to go all over the castle with them, even now and then\nexpressing what was meant to be admiration and approval.\n\n\"It isn't ramshackle, any way,\" said Ruby.  \"It's one of the strongest\nbuilt places far or near.\"\n\n\"If I were a man and a soldier, as I mean to be,\" said Bertrand\nboastfully, \"I'd like to cannonade it.  You'd see how it'd come toppling\nover.\"\n\n\"You wouldn't like to see it, I should think,\" said Mavis.  \"It's been\nthe home of your grandfathers just as much as of ours.  Don't you know\nyour mother is our father's sister?\"\n\nBertrand stared at her.\n\n\"What does it matter about old rubbishing grandfathers and stuff like\nthat?\" he said.  \"That was what that fisher-fellow began saying about\nthe castle, as if it was any business of his.\"\n\n\"Yes indeed,\" said Ruby, \"he's far too fond of giving his opinion.\"  She\nnodded her head mysteriously.  \"We'll have a talk about him afterwards,\nBertrand.\"\n\n\"Ruby,\" began Mavis in distress; but Ruby pushed her aside.\n\n\"Mind your own business,\" she said, more rudely than Mavis had ever\nheard her speak.\n\n\"It's all Bertrand,\" said Mavis to herself, feeling ready to cry.  \"I'm\nsure they are going to plan some very naughty unkind thing.\"\n\nThey were on their way up the turret-stair now; the west turret.  They\nhad already explored the other side.  Suddenly a strange feeling came\nover Mavis; she had not been in this part of the castle since the\nadventure in the grotto.\n\n\"She said she comes to the west turret still,\" thought the child; \"just\nas she did when cousin Hortensia was a little girl.  I wonder if she\nonly comes in the night?  I wonder if possibly I shall see her ever up\nhere?  If I did, I think I would ask her to stop Bertrand making Ruby\nnaughty.  I am sure dear Princess Forget-me-not _could_ make anybody do\nanything she liked.\"\n\nAnd she could not help having a curious feeling of expecting something,\nwhen Ruby, who was in front, threw open the turret-room door.\n\n\"This is the _haunted_ room, Bertrand,\" she said, and there was a\nmocking tone in her voice.  \"At least so Mavis and cousin Hortensia\nbelieve.  Cousin Hortensia can tell you a wonderful story of a night she\nspent here if you care to hear it.\"\n\nBertrand laughed contemptuously.\n\n\"I'd like to see a ghost uncommonly,\" he said.\n\n\"It would take a good lot of them to frighten _me_.\"\n\n\"That's what I say,\" said Ruby.  \"But the room looks dingy enough,\ndoesn't it?  I don't think I ever saw it look so dingy before.\"\n\n\"It looks as if it was full of smoke,\" said Bertrand, sniffing about;\n\"but yet I don't smell smoke.\"\n\nThere _was_ something strange.  Mavis saw it too, and much more clearly\nthan did the others.  To her the room seemed filled with a soft blue\nhaze; far from appearing \"dingy,\" as Ruby said, she thought the vague\ncloudiness beautiful; and as she looked, it became plain to her that the\nhaze all came from one corner, where it almost seemed to take form, to\nthicken and yet to lighten; for there was a glow and radiance over there\nby the window that looked towards the setting sun that did not come from\nany outside gleam or brightness.  No indeed.  For the rain was pouring\ndown, steadily and hopelessly, with dull pitiless monotony from a leaden\nsky.  Scarcely could you picture to yourself a drearier scene than the\nunbroken grey above, and unbroken grey beneath, which was all there was\nto be seen from the castle that afternoon.  Yet in Mavis's eyes there\nwas a light, a reflection of something beautiful and sunshiny, as she\nstood there gazing across the room, with an unspoken hope in her heart.\n\nThe others did not see the look in her face, or they saw it wrong, Ruby\nespecially, strange to say.\n\n\"What are you gaping at, Mavis?\" she said.\n\n\"You do look so silly.\"\n\nBertrand stared at her in his turn.\n\n\"She looks as if she was asleep, or dreaming,\" he said curiously.\n\nMavis rubbed her eyes.\n\n\"No, no,\" she said brightly, \"I'm not.\"\n\nAnd then she tried to be very kind and merry and pleasant to the others.\nShe felt as if \"somebody\" was watching, and would be pleased.  And\nBertrand was a little bit gentler and softer than he had yet been,\nalmost giving Mavis a feeling that in some faint far-off way the sweet\ninfluence was over him too.\n\nBut Ruby was very contradictory.  She ran about making fun of the old\nfurniture and mocking at Miss Hortensia's story till she got Bertrand to\njoin with her, and both began boasting and talking very foolishly--worse\nthan foolishly indeed.  More than once Mavis caught words and hints\nwhich filled her with distress and anxiety.  She knew, however, that\nwhen Ruby was in this kind of humour it was less than useless to say\nanything, now above all that she had got Bertrand to back her up.\n\nSuddenly the boy gave an impatient exclamation.\n\n\"I hate this cock-loft,\" he said.  \"It's so stuffy and choky, and that\nsmoke or mist has got into my eyes and makes them smart.  Come along,\nRuby, do.\"\n\n\"It's not stuffy.  I think it's dreadfully cold,\" she replied.  \"But I'm\nsure I don't want to stay here.  The mist's quite gone--not that I ever\nsaw any really; it was only with the room being shut up, I suppose.  I'm\nquite ready to go; let's run down and get a good warm at the school-room\nfire, and I'll tell you something--a grand secret, Bertrand.\"\n\nCHAPTER SEVEN.\n\nIN THE TURRET-ROOM.\n\n  \"The wind with the clouds is battling,\n  Till the pine-trees shriek with fear.\"\n\n  _Pan_.\n\nThey ran off, leaving Mavis alone in the turret-room.  Poor Mavis! all\nher happy and hopeful feelings were gone.\n\n\"It is no use,\" she said to herself; \"I can't stop Ruby.  Bertrand will\njust make her as naughty as himself.  Oh, _how_ I do wish he had never\ncome!  All our happiness is spoilt.\"\n\nAnd feeling very sorry for herself, and for every one concerned except\nBertrand, towards whom, I fear, her feelings were more of anger than\ngrief, Mavis sat down on one of the capacious old chairs that stood\nbeside her and began to cry quietly.  Suddenly a strange sensation came\nover her--through her, rather.  She drew her handkerchief from her eyes\nand looked up--she _had_ to look up--and--yes, there it was again, there\n_they_ were again.  The wonderful unforgettable blue eyes, so searching,\nso irresistible, so tender.  Sweet and perfectly loving as they were, it\nwas yet impossible to meet them without a half-trembling thrill.  And\nthe first thought that flashed through the little girl was, \"How could I\nbear her to look at me if I had been naughty?\"\n\n\"Naughty\" she had not been, but--she felt her cheeks flush--look down\nshe could not, as she said to herself that she was afraid she had been--\n\nThe word was taken out of her thoughts and expressed just as she came to\nit.\n\n\"Silly,\" said the clear soft voice.  \"Silly little Mavis.  What is it\nall about?  Is everything going wrong at the first trial?\"\n\nThen as Mavis gazed, the silvery-blue mist grew firmer and less vague,\nand gradually the lovely form and features became distinct.\n\n\"Oh dear princess,\" said the child, \"I am _so_ glad you have come.  Yes,\nI daresay I am silly, but I am so unhappy;\" and she poured out all her\ntroubles.  \"I shall not be unhappy any more,\" she ended up, \"now I know\nyou are _true_.  I had almost begun to fancy you were all a dream.\"\n\nForget-me-not smiled, but for a moment or two she did not speak.  Then\nshe said--\n\n\"What is it you are afraid of Ruby doing--Ruby and Bertrand?\"\n\n\"Playing some unkind trick on Winfried,\" replied Mavis eagerly; \"or even\nworse--for Ruby knows that would hurt him most--on his old grandfather.\nIt would be so horrid, so _wicked_,\" and Mavis's voice grew tearful\nagain, \"when they have been so kind to us.  Oh dear princess, will you\nstop them?\"  Forget-me-not looked at her gravely.\n\n\"My child,\" she said, \"do they not _know_ it would be wrong to do such a\nthing?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Mavis replied, \"of course they do.\"\n\n\"Then how could I stop them?  I mean to say, what would be the good of\nstopping them, if they know already it is wrong?\" said the princess.\n\nMavis looked puzzled.\n\n\"But if--if--they were to hurt or frighten old Adam or Winfried?\" she\nsaid.\n\nForget-me-not smiled again.\n\n\"Ah yes,\" she said, \"_that_ I can promise you shall not be.  But beyond\nthat, if it is in their hearts wilfully to do what they know to be\nwrong, I fear, little Mavis, I fear they must do it, and perhaps learn\nthereby.  When people _know_--\"\n\nMavis's eyes told that she understood; she looked very grave, but still\nsomewhat relieved.\n\n\"I am glad you won't let it hurt Winfried or his grandfather,\" she said.\n\"But oh, I can't bear Ruby to be made naughty by that horrid boy,\" and\nshe seemed on the point of bursting into tears.  \"Dear princess,\" she\nwent on, \"couldn't you speak to her--the way you do to me?  You make me\nfeel that I would--I would do _anything_ you told me.\"\n\n\"Dear child, Ruby cannot hear me yet; she cannot see me.  If she could,\nshe would feel as you.  Be patient, Mavis, love her as you have always\ndone; that will not be difficult.  But that is not all.  You must try to\nlove Bertrand too.\"\n\nMavis's face grew very long.\n\n\"I don't think I _can_,\" she said at last.\n\n\"But you must, sooner or later, and it may as well be sooner.  I will\ntell you one thing--a secret, which perhaps will make it easier for you.\nI mean to make him love _me_ before I have done with him, though he may\nbegin by hating me.\"\n\nThe little girl looked very grave.\n\n\"And Ruby?\" she said.  \"I should care most for Ruby to love you.\"\n\nStrange to say, Forget-me-not's eyes looked sadder than when she had\nbeen talking of Bertrand.\n\n\"It may be more difficult,\" she murmured, so low that Mavis hardly\ncaught the words.\n\n\"Oh no, dear princess,\" she said eagerly, \"Ruby isn't anything like as\nnaughty as Bertrand.  You mustn't fancy that.  She's just--just--she\ndoesn't think--\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Forget-me-not; but that was all, and her eyes still\nlooked sad.\n\nThen she glanced round.  The old room seemed like a background to her\nlovely figure, it was like gazing at a picture in a dark setting.\n\n\"I must go,\" she said, \"and when I go you will be all in the dark.  The\nclouds are so heavy and the day is getting on.  Can you find your way\nall down the stair alone, Mavis?  The others have not thought about\nleaving you up here alone.\"\n\n\"I don't think I mind,\" said Mavis; but her voice was a little\ntremulous, for the corner where the door was, across the room from where\nForget-me-not stood, loomed dark and gloomy.\n\nThe princess smiled.\n\n\"Yes you do, dear.  Don't tell stories.  I was only trying your courage\na tiny bit.  Come here, darling.\"\n\nMavis crept nearer her, nearer than she had yet been.\n\n\"I am afraid of soiling your lovely dress,\" she said.\n\n\"My pinafore's rather dirty; we've been playing all over the dusty\nrooms, you see.\"\n\nThen Forget-me-not laughed.  Her talking was charming, her smile was\nbewitching, her grave sad looks were like solemn music--what words have\nwe left to describe her laugh?  I can think of none.  I can only tell\nyou that it made little Mavis feel as if all the birds in the trees, all\nthe flowers in the fields, all the brooks and waterfalls, all the happy\njoyous things in the world had suddenly come together with a shout--no,\nshout is too loud and rough,--with a warble and flutter of irrepressible\nglee.\n\n\"Oh,\" said Mavis, \"how beautiful it is to hear you, princess, and how--\"\n\nShe did not finish her sentence.  In another moment she felt herself\nlifted up--up in the air ever so far, it seemed, and then cosily\ndeposited most comfortably on Forget-me-not's shoulder.  It was years\nand years since Mavis had thought herself small enough to ride even on\nher father's shoulder--great, strong tall father--and the princess who\nlooked so slight and fairy-like, how could she be so strong?  Yet the\narms that had lifted her _were_ strong, strong and firm as father's, nay\nstronger.  And the hand that held her up in her place was so secure in\nits gentle grasp that the little girl felt she _could_ not fall, and\nthat is a very pleasant feeling, I can assure you.\n\n\"Shut your eyes, Mavis,\" said Forget-me-not, \"I am quick in my\nmovements.  You are quite firm--there now, I have thrown my scarf over\nyou.  I am going to take you rather a round-about way, I warn you.\"\n\nA soft whirr and rush--where were they?  Out of the window somehow they\nhad got, for Mavis felt the chilly air and heard the swish of the rain,\nthough strange to say the chill seemed only a pleasant freshness, and\nthe raindrops did not touch her.  Then up, up--dear, dear, where _were_\nthey off to?  Had Forget-me-not suddenly turned into the old woman who\ngoes up to brush away the cobwebs in the sky?  Mavis laughed as the\nfancy struck her; she did not care, not she, the higher the better, the\nfaster they flew the merrier she felt.  Till at last there came a halt.\nForget-me-not stopped short with a long breath.\n\n\"Heigh-ho!\" she exclaimed, \"I've given you a toss up, haven't I?  Look\nout, Mavis; we've come ever so far,--peep out and you'll see the stars\ngetting ready to bid you good-evening.  It's quite clear, of course, up\nhere above the clouds.\"\n\nMavis opened her eyes and peeped out from the folds of Forget-me-not's\nscarf, which, light as it was, had yet a marvellous warmth about it.\n\nClear, I should think it _was_ clear!  Never had Mavis pictured to\nherself anything so beautiful as that evening sky, up \"above the\nclouds,\" as the princess had said.  I have never seen it, so I cannot\nvery well describe it; indeed, I should be rather afraid to do so on\nhearsay, for I should be sure to make some mistake, and to name the\nwrong planets and constellations.\n\n\"Oh,\" said Mavis, \"how nice!\"\n\nIt was rather a stupid little word to say, but Forget-me-not was too\n\"understanding\" to mind.\n\n\"Look about you well for a minute or two.  Who knows when you may have\nsuch a chance again?\" and for a little there was silence.  Then \"Shut\nyour eyes again, dear, and clasp me tight; little girls are apt to get\ngiddy in such circumstances.  Yes, that's right.\"\n\n\"The stars are like your eyes,\" said Mavis.\n\nThen again the soft rash; a plunge downwards this time, which made Mavis\nneed no second bidding to clasp her friend closely.  There came over her\na misty, sleepy feeling.  She could not have told exactly when they\nstopped; she only felt a sort of butterfly kiss on her eyes, and a\nbreath that sounded like good-night, and then--she was standing in the\nschool-room by the fire; the lamp was lighted, it looked bright and\ncosy, and Mavis had never felt happier or stronger in her life.\n\n\"That nice fresh air has brightened me up so,\" she said to herself.  But\nher hands were rather cold.  She went close up to the fire to warm them.\nThere was no one in the room.\n\n\"I wonder where Ruby and Bertrand are,\" thought Mavis.  Just then she\nheard Miss Hortensia's voice.\n\n\"Poor dear,\" she was saying.  \"Ruby, how could you be so thoughtless?  I\nmust get lights at once and go and look for her.\"\n\n\"We've called and called up the stair, but she didn't answer,\" said Ruby\nin rather an ashamed tone of voice.\n\n\"Called,\" repeated Miss Hortensia, \"why didn't you _go_?\"\n\n\"It was so dark when we remembered about her, and--\"\n\n\"You were afraid, I suppose,\" said her cousin.\n\n\"Really; and yet you would leave poor Mavis all alone--and a great boy\nlike you, Bertrand.\"\n\n\"_I_ wasn't afraid, but I wasn't going to bother to go up all that way.\nShe could come down by herself,\" said Master Bertrand rudely.\n\nBut before Miss Hortensia could reply again Mavis ran out.\n\n\"Here I am, dear cousin,\" she said.  \"I'm all right.\"  And indeed she\ndid look all right, as she stood there sideways in the doorway, the\nlight from the room behind her falling on her pretty hair and fair face.\n\n\"The dear child,\" thought Miss Hortensia.  \"No one could say Mavis isn't\nas pretty as Ruby now.\"  And aloud she exclaimed: \"My darling, where\nhave you been?  And were you afraid up there in the dark all by\nyourself?\"\n\n\"Why didn't you come with us?\" said Ruby crossly.  \"It was all your own\nfault.\"\n\n\"I didn't mind,\" said Mavis.  \"I'm only sorry cousin Hortensia was\nfrightened.  I'm all right, you see.\"\n\n\"I was frightened about you too,\" grumbled Ruby.\n\n\"_I_ wasn't,\" said Bertrand with a rough laugh.  \"There's nothing to\n_frighten_ one up in that cock-loft; dingy, misty place that it is.\"\n\n\"Misty!\" exclaimed Miss Hortensia in surprise, \"what does the child\nmean?\"\n\n\"Bertrand will say the turret was full of blue smoke,\" said Ruby, \"and\nthat it hurt his eyes.\"\n\n\"It did,\" said the boy; \"they're smarting still.\"  Mavis smiled.  Miss\nHortensia seemed perplexed, and rather anxious to change the subject.\n\n\"I do hope,\" she said, \"that to-morrow will be fine, so that Bertrand\nand you, Ruby, may get rid of some of your spirits out-of-doors.\"\n\n\"I hope too that it will be fine,\" said Ruby meaningly.  \"Bertrand and I\nhave planned a very long walk.  You needn't come,\" she went on, turning\nto Mavis, \"if you think you'd be tired.\"\n\n\"I don't get tired quicker than you do,\" said Mavis quietly.  Her heart\nsank within her at Ruby's tone; for though she was glad to think\nForget-me-not would prevent any harm to old Adam or Winfried, she did\nnot like to think of Ruby's heartlessness and folly.  And when she\nglanced at Bertrand and saw the half-scornful smile on his face, it was\nall she could do to keep back her tears.\n\nAll that evening the rain kept pouring down in torrents, and the wind\nbeat on the window, shaking even the heavy frames, like a giant in a\nfury, determined to make his way in.\n\n\"What a storm,\" said Miss Hortensia more than once, with a little\nshiver.  \"I cannot bear to think of the poor souls at sea.\"\n\nBertrand laughed.\n\n\"It would be great fun to see a shipwreck, if one was safe out of harm's\nway.  I wouldn't mind staying up in that musty old turret a whole\nafternoon to have a good view.\"\n\nEven Ruby was startled.\n\n\"Oh Bertrand,\" she said, \"you can't know what a shipwreck means if you\nspeak like that.\"\n\n\"I've read stories of them,\" said the boy, \"so I should know.\"\n\nThere was a very slight touch of something in his tone which made Mavis\nwonder if he really meant all the naughty things he said.  She glanced\nup at him quickly.\n\n\"If there ever were a shipwreck here,\" she said, \"I know who'd help and\nwho wouldn't.\"\n\nBertrand's face hardened at once.\n\n\"That's meant for me,\" he retorted; \"for me and that precious lout of a\nfriend of yours.  You think him so grand and brave!  Ah well! wait a bit\nand see.  When people don't know their proper place they must be taught\nit.\"\n\nMavis drew herself up.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, \"we _will_ wait a bit and see.  But it won't be the\nsort of seeing you'll like perhaps.\"\n\n\"You've no business to speak like that,\" said Ruby.  \"I think you're\nquite out of your mind about that common boy and his grandfather--or\nelse--and I shouldn't wonder if it was that, they've bewitched you,\nsomehow.\"\n\nShe dropped her voice with the last words, for she did not want her\ncousin to hear.  But Miss Hortensia, though she was busily counting the\nrows of her knitting at the other end of the room, noticed the tone of\nthe children's voices.\n\n\"Come, come, my dears,\" she said, \"no wrangling--it would be something\nquite new here.  I do _hope_,\" she added to herself, \"that it will be\nfine to-morrow; it is so much better for children when they can get\nout.\"\n\nIt _was_fine \"to-morrow\"; very fine.  It was almost impossible for the\nlittle girls to believe that so few hours before the storm spirits had\nbeen indulging in their wild games, when they looked out of their window\non to the bright clear winter sky, where scarcely a cloud was to be\nseen, the sun smiling down coldly but calmly; not a breath of wind\nmoving the great fir-trees on the south side of the castle.  Yet looking\na little closer there were some traces of the night's work; the ground\nwas strewn with branches, and the last of the leaves had found their way\ndown to their resting-place on old Mother Earth's brown lap.\n\nIn spite of her anxieties, Mavis could not help her spirits rising.\n\n\"What a nice afternoon Ruby and I might have had with Winfried, if\n_only_ Bertrand hadn't come,\" she thought.\n\nRuby was all smiles and gaiety.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" Mavis went on to herself, \"perhaps she's really going to be\nnice and good.  And if we two keep together, we can stop Bertrand being\nvery naughty.\"\n\nMiss Hortensia was anxious for them to profit by the fine day.  She had\nnot much faith in the clear thin sunshine's lasting, she said, and she\nshortened the lessons so that dinner might be very early, and the\nafternoon free.\n\nIt was still very bright and fine when the three children found\nthemselves standing at the entrance of the archway, on the sea side of\nthe castle.\n\n\"Which way shall we go?\" said Mavis.\n\n\"Oh, down to the shore,\" Ruby replied.  \"We may,\" she went on, with a\nvery slight glance in Bertrand's direction, and a tone in her voice\nwhich struck Mavis oddly, though she scarcely knew why--\"we _may_ meet\nWinfried.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Bertrand in an off-hand way.  \"I told the fellow we might be\nsomewhere about if it was fine to-day, and I said he might as well have\nhis boat ready.  I don't mind paying him for the use of it.  I've any\namount of pocket-money;\" and he thrust his hands into his pockets,\njingling the coins which were in them.\n\nMavis thought to herself that she had never disliked him as much as now.\nBut she said nothing, and they all three walked on.  The pathway soon\nbecame steep and rugged, as I have told you.  Ruby and Mavis were\naccustomed to it, and Bertrand was a strong, well-made boy.  Still none\nof them were agile and nimble as the fisher-lad.\n\n\"You should see Winfried running down here,\" said Ruby; \"he goes like a\nstag, or a chamois, rather.\"\n\nShe glanced at Bertrand as she spoke.  Notwithstanding her alliance with\nhim, there was something in Ruby's nature that made it impossible for\nher to resist vexing him by this little hit.\n\nThe black look came over the boy's face.\n\n\"What do you mean by that?\" he muttered.  \"I'm not going to--\"\n\n\"Rubbish, Bertrand,\" interrupted Ruby.  \"I never said anything about\n_you_.  Winfried's a fisher-boy; it's his business to scramble about.\"\n\nThen she went close up to her cousin and whispered something to him,\nwhich seemed to smooth him down, though this only made Mavis more\nanxious and unhappy.\n\nCHAPTER EIGHT.\n\nA NAUGHTY PLAN.\n\n  \"The boatie rows, the boatie rows, the boatie rows fu' weel.\"\n\n  Ewen.\n\nThey were nearly at the cove, when they caught sight of a scarlet cap\nmoving up and down among the rocks.\n\n\"There's Winfried,\" cried Mavis joyfully.  She could not help having a\nfeeling of safety when the fisher-lad was with them, in spite of her\nfears about the mischief the other two were planning.  \"Winfried,\nWinfried,\" she called, \"here we are.\"\n\nHe glanced up with his bright though rather mysterious smile.\n\n\"I knew you'd be coming,\" he said quietly.\n\n\"Of course you did,\" said Bertrand in his rough, rude way, \"considering\nI told you to meet us here.  Have you got that boat of yours ready?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Winfried, and he pointed towards the cove.  There, sure\nenough, was the little boat, bright and dainty, the sun shining on its\npretty cushions and on the white glistening oars.\n\nBertrand was running forward, when there came a sudden exclamation from\nRuby.  She had put up her hand to her neck.\n\n\"Oh, my cross,\" she cried, \"my little silver cross.  I forgot to fetch\nit from the turret-room.  I left it there last night, and I meant to go\nand get it this morning.  And I daren't go on the sea without it--I'd be\ndrowned, I know I should be.\"\n\nMavis looked at her.\n\n\"Ruby,\" she said, \"I don't, think you could have left it up there.  You\nhad no reason to take it off up there.\"\n\n\"Oh, but I did, I did,\" said Ruby.  \"I have a trick of taking it off;\nthe cord gets entangled in my hair.  I know it's there.\"\n\n\"I'll fetch it you,\" said Bertrand, with perfectly astounding\ngood-nature.  And he actually set off up the rocky path.  Winfried\nstarted forward.\n\n\"I will go,\" he said.  \"I can run much faster than he,\" and he hastened\nafter Bertrand.\n\nBut Bertrand had exerted himself unusually.  He was already some way up\nbefore Winfried overtook him.\n\n\"No,\" he said, when Winfried explained why he had come, \"I want to go.\nBut you may as well come too.  I want to carry down my fishing-tackle--\nI'd forgotten it.  You haven't got any in the boat, I suppose?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Winfried, \"it would keep us out too long.  It's too cold for\nthe little ladies, and we should have to go too far out to sea.\"\n\n\"I'll bring it all the same,\" said Bertrand doggedly; \"so mind your own\nbusiness.\"  But as Winfried walked on beside him without speaking, he\nadded more civilly, \"you may as well look at it and tell me if it's the\nright kind.  It's what my father gave me.\"\n\n\"I'm pretty sure it's not right,\" said Winfried.  \"The fishing here is\nquite different to anything you've ever seen.  And any way we cannot\nkeep your cousins waiting while we look at it.\"\n\nThey were at the arched entrance by now.\n\n\"Well, then,\" said Bertrand, \"you run up and look for the cross.  No\nneed for two of us to tire our legs.  I'll wait here.\"\n\nWinfried entered the castle, and after one or two wrong turnings found\nhimself on the right stair.  He knew pretty exactly where he had to go,\nfor he had often looked up at the west turret from the outside.  But\njust as he got to the door he was overtaken by Bertrand, who had\nnaturally come straight up without any wrong turnings.\n\n\"What a time you've been,\" said Bertrand, pushing in before him.  \"Now,\nlet's see--where did Ruby say she'd left her cross?  Oh yes, hanging up\nthere; she must have stood on a chair to reach it.\"  And sure enough, on\na nail pretty high up on the wall hung the little ornament.\n\nWinfried drew forward a chair; in another minute he had reached down the\ncross.\n\n\"Here it is,\" he said, turning to Bertrand.  But--he spoke to the air!\nBertrand was gone.  Winfried's face flushed; but he controlled himself.\nHe walked quietly to the door and turned the handle.  It did not open.\nIt was locked from the outside.  He was a prisoner!\n\n\"I knew something of the kind would come,\" he said to himself.  \"What\nwill they do now?  Poor little Mavis!  I must trust her to the\nprincess.\"\n\nBut he could not help a feeling of bitter anger.  It was no light\npunishment to the active energetic boy to have to spend all the bright\nafternoon hours shut up here like an old owl in a church tower.  And he\nknew that till some one came to let him out, a prisoner he verily was.\nFor he might have shouted his voice hoarse, no one down below could have\nheard him.  And the chance of any one in the castle coming up was very\nsmall.\n\n\"What will gran think?\" he said to himself.\n\n\"And, if these naughty children try to play him any trick.  I know Ruby\nmore than half believes all that nonsense about his being a wizard and\nabout the mermaids, and Bertrand will egg her on.\"\n\nHe went to the window and stood looking out, trying to keep down the\ndreadful restless _caged_ feeling which began to come over him.\n\n\"How can I bear it?\" he said.  \"If I had tools now, and could pick the\nlock; but some of these old locks are very strong, and I have nothing.\nIf only I had wings;\" and he gazed again out of the window.\n\nWhen he turned round, though it was quite bright and sunny outside, it\nalmost seemed as if the evening haze had somehow got into the room\nbefore its time.  It was filled with a thin bluish mist.  Winfried's\neyes brightened.\n\n\"My princess!\" he exclaimed.  \"Are you there?\"  A little laugh answered\nhim, and gradually the mist drew together and into shape, and\nForget-me-not stood before him.\n\n\"My boy,\" she exclaimed, \"I am surprised at you.  Why, you were looking\nquite depressed!\"\n\nWinfried reddened.\n\n\"It was the horrid feeling of being locked up,\" he said.  \"I never felt\nit before, and--it seems such a shame, such a mean trick.  I wouldn't\nhave minded a stand-up fight with any fellow, but--\"\n\n\"Of course you wouldn't; but you've got a good bit farther than _that_,\nI hope, Winfried,\" she said with a smile.  \"And besides, Bertrand is\nmuch smaller than you.  But it had to be, you know.  I have explained\nenough to you--you and little Mavis;--it had to be.\"\n\nWinfried started.\n\n\"That's another thing,\" he said.  \"I am uneasy about her.  What will\nthey do?  They don't understand the boat, you know, princess, and she is\nalone with them.\"\n\nForget-me-not smiled again.\n\n\"How faithless you are to-day, Winfried,\" she said.  \"Mavis will be\ngetting before you if you don't take care, simple and ignorant as she\nis.  Can't you trust her to me?\"  And as the boy's face brightened.\n\n\"Come,\" she said, \"I see you are recovering your usual ground, so I will\ntell you how I am going to do.  But first, shut your eyes, Winfried; and\nhere, wrap the end of my scarf round you.  You might feel giddy still,\nthough it's not the first time.  Ready?--that's right--there now, give\nme your hand--we're up on the window ledge.  You were wishing for\nwings--isn't this as good as wings?\"\n\nBertrand rushed down--as much as he could rush, that is to say, over the\nsteep and rough path--to the shore where the sisters were waiting.\n\n\"Have you got it?\" asked Mavis eagerly.\n\n\"What?\" asked Bertrand, out of breath.\n\n\"_What_?  Why, Ruby's cross, of course, that you went for.  And where is\nWinfried?\"\n\n\"All right,\" said Bertrand, in a curious voice; \"he's coming directly.\nWe're to get into the boat and go on a little way, keeping near the\nshore.  He's coming down another way.\"\n\n(Yes, Bertrand, that he is!)\n\nMavis looked up anxiously.\n\n\"And the cross?\" she said.\n\n\"Winfried's got it,\" he said.  Which was true.  Then he turned away, the\nfact being that he was so choking with laughter that he was afraid of\nbetraying himself.\n\n\"Ruby,\" he called, \"come and help _me_ to drag the boat a little\nnearer;\" and as Ruby came close he whispered to her, \"I've done it--\nsplendidly--he's shut up in his tower!  Locked in, and the locks are\ngood strong ones--now we can have a jolly good spree without that prig\nof a fellow.  Only don't let Mavis know till we're safe out in the\nboat.\"\n\nRuby jumped with pleasure.\n\n\"What fun!\" she exclaimed.  \"How capital!  You have been clever,\nBertrand.  But take care, or Mavis will suspect something.  Quick,\nMavis,\" she went on, turning to her sister, \"help us to pull in the\nboat.  There, we can jump in now, Bertrand.  You and Mavis steady it\nwhile I spring;\" and in another moment she was in the boat, where her\nsister and Bertrand soon followed her.\n\nAll seemed well; the sky was clear and bright, the sun still shining.\nThe faces of two of the party were sparkling with glee and triumph.  But\nMavis looked frightened and dissatisfied.\n\n\"I wish Winfried had come back with you, Bertrand,\" she said.  \"Why\ndidn't he?  Did cousin Hortensia keep him for anything?\"\n\n\"Goodness, no,\" said Bertrand.  \"What a fuss you make, child!  He's all\nright; you can look out for him, and tell me if you see him coming.  I\nshall have enough to do with rowing you two.\"\n\n\"Winfried doesn't find the boat hard to row,\" said Mavis; \"it's your own\nfault if it is hard.  You might as well wait for him; he'd see us as he\ncomes down the cliffs.\"\n\n\"Oh no, that would be nonsense,\" said Ruby hastily; \"besides, he's not\ncoming that way.  You heard Bertrand say so.  _I_ could row too,\nBertrand,\" she went on.\n\nBut the boy had already got his oars in motion, and though he was\nneither skilful nor experienced, strange to say the little boat glided\non with the utmost ease and smoothness.\n\n\"There now,\" said Bertrand, considerably surprised, to tell the truth,\nat his own success, \"didn't I tell you I could row?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Mavis bluntly, \"you said just this moment you'd have enough\nto do to manage it.\"\n\n\"Mavis, why are you so cross?\" said Ruby.  \"It is such a pity to spoil\neverything.\"\n\nShe spoke very smoothly and almost coaxingly, but Mavis looked her\nstraight in the eyes, and Ruby grew uncomfortable and turned away.  But\njust then a new misgiving struck Mavis.\n\n\"Bertrand,\" she cried, \"either you can't manage the boat, or you're\ndoing it on purpose.  You're not keeping near the shore as you said you\nwould.  You're going right out to sea;\" and she jumped up as if she\nwould have snatched the oars from him.\n\n\"Sit down, Mavis,\" said Ruby.  \"I'm sure you know you should never jump\nabout in a boat.  It's all right.  Don't you know there's--there's a\ncurrent hereabouts?\"  Current or no, _something_ there was, besides\nBertrand's rowing, that was rapidly carrying them away farther and\nfarther from the shore.  Mavis looked at Bertrand, not sure whether he\ncould help himself or not.  But--\n\n\"Winfried wouldn't have told you to keep near the shore if you\ncouldn't,\" she said; \"he knows all about the currents.\"\n\nBertrand turned with a rude laugh.\n\n\"Does he indeed?\" he said.  \"It's more than I do; but all the same this\ncurrent, or whatever it is that is taking us out so fast, has come just\nat the right minute.  I never meant to keep near in, there's no fun in\nthat.  We're going a jolly good way out, and when we're tired of it\nwe'll come back and land close to the old wizard's cottage.  Ruby and I\nare going to play him a trick; we want to catch him with the mermaids\nRuby heard singing the other day.  If we set the villagers on him,\nthey'll soon make an end of him and his precious grandson.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Ruby spitefully; \"and a good riddance they'd be.  That\nWinfried setting himself up over us all.\"\n\nMavis grew pale.\n\n\"Ruby; Bertrand,\" she said, \"you cannot mean to be so wicked.  You know\nthe villagers are already set against old Adam rather, even though he\nhas been so good to them, and if you stir them up--they might kill him\nif they really thought he was a wizard.\"\n\n\"We're not going to do anything till we know for ourselves,\" said Ruby.\n\"We're first going to the cottage really to find out if it's true.  You\nknow yourself, Mavis, we _did_ hear some one singing and speaking there\nthe other day who wasn't to be seen when we got there.  And I believe it\n_was_ a mermaid, or--or a syren, or some witchy sort of creature.\"\nMavis was silent.  She had her own thoughts about the voice they had\noverheard, thoughts which she could not share with the others.\n\n\"Oh, dear Princess Forget-me-not,\" she said to her self, \"why don't you\nmake them see you, and understand how naughty they are?\"\n\nFor the moment she had forgotten the princess's promise that neither\nWinfried nor his grandfather should suffer any harm, and she felt\nterribly frightened and unhappy.\n\n\"Where is Winfried?\" she said at last.  \"He will see us going out to sea\nwhen he comes down to the shore, and if he tells cousin Hortensia she\ncan easily get some of the fishermen to come after us.  They can row far\nquicker than you.\"\n\nBertrand stopped rowing to laugh more rudely than before.\n\n\"_Can_ they?\" he said.  \"I doubt it.  And as for Winfried telling--why,\nhe doesn't know; he's locked in safe and sound in the west turret!\nHe'll be quite comfortable there for as long as I choose to leave him,\nand however he shouts no one can hear him.  Not that there's much fear\nof any of those lumbering boats overtaking us if they tried--why--\"\n\nHe took up the oars again as he spoke, but before he began to row he\nhalf started and glanced round.  No wonder; the boat was gliding out to\nsea without his help, quite as fast as when he was rowing.\n\n\"How--how it drifts!\" he said in a rather queer tone of voice.  \"Is\nthere a current hereabouts, Ruby?\"\n\n\"I suppose so,\" said Ruby.  \"Try and row the other way, that'll soon\nshow you.\"\n\nBut it was all very well to speak of \"trying.\"  No efforts of Bertrand's\nhad the very slightest effect on the boat.  On it sped, faster and\nfaster, as if laughing at him, dancing along the water as if it were\nalive and enjoying the joke.  Bertrand grew angry, then, by degrees,\nfrightened.\n\n\"It isn't my fault,\" he said.  \"I don't pretend to know all about the\ncurrents and tides and nonsense.  You shouldn't have let me come out\nhere, Ruby?\"\n\nRuby was terrified, but angry too.\n\n\"It isn't _my_ fault,\" she said.  \"You planned it all; you know you did.\nAnd if we're all--\"\n\n\"Be quiet, Ruby,\" said Mavis, who alone of the three was perfectly calm\nand composed.  \"If it stops you and Bertrand carrying out your naughty\nplan, I am very glad if we are taken out to sea.\"\n\n\"That's _too_ bad of you,\" said Ruby, angry in spite of her terror.  \"I\nbelieve you'd rather we were drowned than that your precious Winfried\nand his grandfather should get what they deserve.  And we _are_ going to\nbe drowned, or any way starved to death.  We're going faster and faster.\nOh, I do believe there must be a whirlpool somewhere near here, and\nthat we are going to be sucked into it.\"\n\nShe began to sob and cry.  Bertrand, to do him justice, put a good face\nupon it.  He looked pale but determined.\n\n\"This is what comes of having to do with people like that,\" he said\nvindictively.  \"I believe he's bewitched the boat to spite us.  I'll\nhave another try, however.\"\n\nBut it was all no use.  The boat, slight and fragile as it seemed,\nresisted his efforts as if it were a living thing opposing him.  Crimson\nwith heat and vexation, the boy muttered some words, which it was to be\nhoped the girls did not catch, and flung down the oars in a rage.  One\nfell inside, the other was just slipping over the edge when Mavis caught\nit.  Strange to say, no sooner was it in her hold than the motion\nstopped; the boat lay still and passive on the water, swaying gently as\nif waiting for orders.\n\n\"We've got out of the current,\" exclaimed Ruby.  \"Try, Mavis, can you\nturn it?\"\n\nIt hardly seemed to need trying.  The boat turned almost, as it were, of\nitself, and in another moment they were quietly moving towards the\nshore.  Nor did it seem to make any difference when Bertrand took the\noars from Mavis and resumed his rowing.\n\n\"If I only waited another moment,\" he said.  \"We got out of the current\njust as you caught the oar, Mavis.\"\n\nShe shook her head doubtfully.\n\n\"I don't know.  I don't think it was that,\" she said.  \"But any way now\nit is all right again, and we are going back, you and Bertrand, Ruby,\nwill not think of playing any trick, or setting the villagers on to old\nAdam.\"\n\n\"Why not, pray?\" said Bertrand.  \"And--\"\n\n\"I don't see what has made any difference,\" said Ruby pertly.  \"Suppose\nthe horrid things had bewitched the boat, is that any reason for not\nshowing them up?  You think it's all your wonderful cleverness that got\nthe boat round, do you, Mavis?\"\n\n\"No, I don't.  I think a good many things I'm not going to tell you,\"\nsaid the little girl.  \"But one thing I will tell you, _I_ will not\nleave the boat or come on shore unless you promise me to give up your\nnaughty cruel plan.\"\n\nShe spoke so firmly that Ruby was startled.  And indeed her own words\nseemed to surprise Mavis herself.  It was as if some one were whispering\nto her what to say.  But on Bertrand they made no impression.\n\n\"You won't, won't you?\" he said.  \"Ah, well, we'll see to that.\"\n\nThey were close to the shore by this time.  The marvellous boat had \"got\nover the ground,\" I was going to say--I mean the _water_--even more\nquickly than when going out to sea.  And in another minute, thanks to\nsomething--no doubt Bertrand thought it was thanks to his wonderful\nskill--they glided quietly into the little landing-place where Winfried\nhad brought them two days ago.\n\nUp jumped Ruby.\n\n\"That's capital,\" she said.  \"We can easily make out way to the old\nwizard's cottage from here.  And before we peep in on him himself,\nBertrand, we may as well look round his garden, as he calls it.  It is\nthe queerest place you ever saw, full of caves and grottoes.\"  Both\nBertrand and she had jumped on shore.\n\n\"Come on, Mavis,\" cried they.  \"What are you so slow about?\"\n\nFor Mavis sat perfectly still in her place.\n\n\"I am not coming on shore,\" she said quietly, \"not unless you promise to\ngive up whatever mischief it is that you are planning.\"\n\n\"Nonsense,\" said Bertrand.  \"You just _shall_ come; tell her she must,\nRuby, you're the eldest.\"\n\n\"Come, Mavis,\" said Ruby.  \"You'd better come, for everybody's sake, I\ncan tell you,\" she added meaningly.  \"If you're there you can look after\nyour precious old wizard.  I won't promise anything.\"\n\n\"No,\" Mavis repeated.  \"I will not come.  We have no right to go forcing\nourselves into his cottage.  It is as much his as the castle is ours,\nand you know you have locked up Winfried on purpose so that he can't get\nout.  No, I will not go with you.\"\n\n\"Then stay,\" shouted Bertrand, \"and take the consequences.\"\n\nAnd he dragged Ruby back from the boat.\n\nCHAPTER NINE.\n\nBEGINNINGS?\n\n  \"Very wrong, very wrong,\n  Very wrong and bad.\"\n\n  _Child World_.\n\n\"Let's run on fast a little way,\" said Bertrand, \"to make her think we\nwon't wait for her.  That will frighten her, and she will run after us,\nyou'll see.  Don't look round, Ruby.\"\n\nIn his heart he really did not believe that Mavis would change her mind\nor run after them.  And he did not care.  Indeed, he much preferred\nhaving Ruby alone, as he knew he could far more easily persuade her by\nherself to join in his mischievous schemes.  But he felt that she was\nhalf-hearted about leaving her sister, and so he did not hesitate to\ntrick her too.\n\nThey hurried on for some distance.  Then Ruby, who was growing both\ntired and cross, pulled her hand away from Bertrand.\n\n\"Stop,\" she said.  \"I'm quite out of breath.  And I want to see if Mavis\nis coming.\"\n\nBertrand had to give in.  They were on higher ground than the shore, and\ncould see it clearly.  There lay the little boat as they had left it,\nand Mavis sitting in it calmly.  To all appearance at least.\n\n\"She's not coming--not a bit of her,\" exclaimed Ruby angrily.  \"I don't\nbelieve you thought she would, Bertrand.\"\n\n\"She _will_ come, you'll see,\" said the boy, \"and even if she doesn't,\nwhat does it matter?  We'll run on and spy out the old wizard and have\nsome fun.  Mavis will stay there safe enough till we get back.\"\n\n\"I thought you meant to go home by the village and tell the people about\nold Adam, if we _do_ see anything queer,\" said Ruby.\n\n\"So I did, but if you're in such a fidget about Mavis perhaps we'd\nbetter go home as we came, and not say anything in the village to-day.\nI'd like to see what Master Winfried has been up to when we get back.\nPerhaps he'll have got some old witch to lend him a broomstick, and we\nshall find him flown;\" and Bertrand laughed scornfully.\n\nRuby laughed too.\n\n\"I don't think that's likely,\" she said.  \"But there's no telling.  I do\nwish he and his grandfather were out of the country altogether.  There's\nsomething about Winfried that makes me feel furious.  He _is_ such a\nprig; and he's even got cousin Hortensia to think him a piece of\nperfection.\"\n\n\"He may take his perfections elsewhere, and he shall, too,\" said\nBertrand.  And the fierceness of his tone almost startled even Ruby.\n\nThey were not far from the old fisherman's cottage by this time.  They\nstopped again to take breath.  Mavis and the boat were not visible from\nwhere they stood, for the path went in and out among the rocks, and just\nhere some large projecting boulders hid the shore from sight.\n\nSuddenly, as if it came from some cave beneath their feet, both children\ngrew conscious of a faint sound as of distant music.  And every moment\nit became clearer and louder even though muffled.  Bertrand and Ruby\nlooked at each other.\n\n\"Mermaids!\" both exclaimed.\n\n\"They always sing,\" said Bertrand.\n\n\"Yes,\" added Ruby, with her old confusion of ideas about syrens; \"and\nthey make people go after them by their singing, and then they catch\nthem and kill them, and I'm not sure but what they _eat_ them.  I know\nI've read something about bare dry bones being found.  Shall we put our\nfingers in our ears, Bertrand?\"  She looked quite pale with fear.\n\n\"Nonsense,\" said the boy.  \"That's only sailors at sea.  They lure them\nin among the rocks.  We're quite safe on dry land.  Besides, I don't\nthink it's _mermaids_ that do that.  They're miserable crying creatures;\nbut I don't think they kill people.\"\n\nThe subterraneous music came nearer and nearer.  Somehow the children\ncould not _help_ listening.\n\n\"Didn't you say you and Mavis heard singing the day you were here\nbefore--at the wizard's cottage, I mean?\" said Bertrand.\n\n\"N-no, not exactly singing.  It was laughing, and a voice calling out\ngood-bye in a singing way,\" answered Ruby.\n\nAs if in response to her words, the ringing suddenly stopped, and from\nbelow their feet--precisely below it seemed--came the sound of ringing,\nsilvery laughter, clear and unmistakable.\n\n\"Oh,\" cried Ruby, \"come away, Bertrand.  I'm sure it's the mermaids, and\nthey _will_ catch us and kill us, you'll see.\"\n\nHer boasted courage had not come to much.  And yet there was nothing\nvery alarming in the pretty sounds they had heard.\n\n\"And what if it is the mermaids?\" said Bertrand coolly.  \"We came out to\ncatch them, didn't we?  It's just what we wanted.  Come along, Ruby.\nHow do we get to the cottage?  There seems to be a sort of wall in\nfront.\"\n\n\"We go round by the back,\" said Ruby.  \"It's there there are the queer\ngrottoes and little caves.  But you won't go far into them, will you,\nBertrand?  For I am not at all sure but that the mermaids come up from\nthe sea through these caves; you see they _do_ come some underground\nway.\"\n\nBertrand gave a sort of grunt.  What Ruby said only made him the more\ndetermined to explore as far as he possibly could.\n\nThey entered the strange little garden I have already described without\nfurther adventure.  There seemed no one about, no sound of any kind\nbroke the almost unnatural stillness.\n\n\"How _very_ quiet it is,\" said Ruby with a little shiver.  \"And there's\nno smoke coming out of the chimney--there was the last time, for there\nwas a good fire in the kitchen where old Adam was.\"\n\nAnd as she said this there came over her the remembrance of the kind old\nman's gentle hospitality and interest in them.  Why had she taken such a\nhatred to Winfried and his grandfather, especially since Bertrand's\narrival?  She could not have given any real reason.\n\n\"I hope he isn't very ill--or--_dead_,\" she said, dropping her voice.\n\"And Winfried locked up and not able to get to him.  It would be our\nfault, Bertrand.\"\n\n\"Nonsense,\" said Bertrand roughly, with his usual scornful contempt of\nany softer feelings.  \"He's fallen asleep over his pipe and glass of\ngrog.  I daresay he drinks lots of grog--those fellows always do.\"\n\n\"I'm sure _he_ doesn't,\" contradicted Ruby, feeling angry with herself\nas well as Bertrand.  \"Let's go to the window and peep in before we look\nat the caves.\"\n\nShe ran round to the front, followed by her cousin, taking care to make\nas little sound as possible.  She remembered on which side of the door\nwas the kitchen, and softly approached what she knew must be its window.\nBut how surprised she was when she looked in!  It was the kitchen; she\nremembered the shape of the room; she recognised the neat little\nfireplace, but all was completely deserted.  Every trace of furniture\nhad disappeared; old Adam's large chair by the hearth might never have\nbeen in existence, well as she remembered it.  Except that it was clean\nand swept, the room might not have, been inhabited for years.\n\nRuby turned to Bertrand, who was staring in at another window.\n\n\"I say, Ruby,\" he whispered, \"the room over here is quite--\"\n\n\"I know,\" she said.  \"So is the kitchen.  They're gone, Bertrand, quite\ngone, and we've had all our trouble for nothing.  It's too bad.\"\n\n\"_They_!\" repeated Bertrand, \"you can't say _they_, when you know that\nWinfried is locked up in the turret-room.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" exclaimed Ruby starting, \"I quite forgot.  He must have hidden his\ngrandfather somewhere.  And yet I don't see how they could have managed\nit so quietly.  We always know when any of the village people are moving\ntheir furniture; they send to borrow our carts.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Bertrand, \"there's one thing certain.  If you didn't\nbelieve it before, you must now; I should think even Mavis would--the\nold fellow _is_ a wizard, and so's his precious grandson.\"\n\n\"Shall we go into the house?\" said Ruby, though she looked half afraid\nto do so.\n\n\"Isn't the door locked?\" said Bertrand, trying it as he spoke.  It\nyielded to his touch; he went in, followed, though tremblingly, by Ruby.\n\nBut after all there was little or nothing to see; the three rooms,\nthough scrupulously clean, even the windows shining bright and polished,\nwere perfectly empty.  As the children strolled back to the kitchen,\nannoyed and disappointed, feeling, to tell the truth, rather small,\nsomething caught Ruby's eye in one corner of the room.  It was a small\nobject, gleaming bright and blue on the white stones of the floor.  She\nran forward and picked it up, it was a tiny bunch of forget-me-nots tied\nwith a scrap of ribbon; the same large brilliant kind of forget-me-not\nas those which she and Mavis had so admired on their first visit to the\nnow deserted cottage.  She gave a little cry.\n\n\"Look, Bertrand,\" she said, \"they can't have been long gone.  These\nflowers are quite fresh.  I wonder where they came from.  They must have\nbeen growing in a pot in the house, for there are none in the garden.  I\nlooked as we came through.\"\n\nBertrand glanced at the flowers carelessly.\n\n\"Wizards,\" he began, \"can--\"\n\nBut his sentence was never finished.  For as he spoke there came a\nsudden gust of wind down the wide chimney, so loud and furious that it\nwas as startling as a clap of thunder.  Then it subsided again, but for\na moment or two a long low wail sounded overhead, gradually dying away\nin the distance.\n\n\"What was that?\" said Bertrand.  While the sounds lasted both children\nhad stood perfectly still.\n\n\"The wind of course,\" said Ruby.  She was more accustomed than her\ncousin to the unexpected vagaries of the storm spirits so near the sea,\nstill even she seemed startled.  \"It's often like that,\" she was\nbeginning to say, but she hesitated.  \"It _was_ very loud,\" she added.\n\n\"There must be rough weather coming,\" said Bertrand.  \"We'd better go\nhome by the road, I think, Ruby.\"\n\n\"_We_,\" exclaimed Ruby indignantly.  \"Do you mean you and me, Bertrand?\nAnd what about Mavis?\"\n\n\"She can come on shore,\" replied the boy carelessly.  \"She knows where\nwe are.  It's her own fault.  Come along, there's nothing to wait for in\nthis empty old hole.  I want you to show me the caves outside.\"\n\n\"I'll try to signal to Mavis first,\" said Ruby.  \"I'll tie my\nhandkerchief to a stick and wave it about.  She can see us up here quite\nwell, and perhaps when she finds we're alone she'll come.\"\n\nThey left the cottage, and Ruby got out her handkerchief.  But it was\nsmall use.  For just as they stepped on to the rough little terrace in\nfront from whence they could clearly see the shore, there came another\nand even--it seemed so at least now they were standing outside--more\nviolent blast.  It was all Ruby could do to keep her feet, and when she\nrecovered from the giddying effect of the wind she was still breathless\nand shaken.  And that the hurricane was gathering strength every second\nwas plain to be seen; the waves were dashing in excitedly, the sky at\none side had that strange lurid purple colour which foretells great\ndisturbance.\n\nBut it was not these things only which made Ruby turn pale and shiver.\n\n\"Bertrand,\" she gasped, \"I don't know if there's something the matter\nwith my eyes, I can't see clearly--Bertrand--look--where is Mavis--Mavis\nand the boat; can you see them?\"\n\nBertrand shaded his brow with his hand and gazed.\n\n\"'Pon my soul,\" he said, \"it's very odd.  _I_ can't see them.  And\nthere's not been time for Mavis to have rowed out to sea or even to have\ndrifted out; we can see right out ever so far, and there's no boat; not\na sign of one.\"\n\n\"Can--can she have landed and dragged the boat ashore somehow?\" said\nRuby, her teeth chattering with cold and fear.\n\n\"No,\" said Bertrand, \"we'd certainly see her and the boat in that case.\"\n\n\"Then, where is she?\" cried Ruby.  \"_Bertrand_, you must care.  What do\nyou think has become of her?\"\n\n\"Can't say, I'm sure,\" said the boy.  \"The boat may have capsized: the\nsea's awfully rough now.\"\n\n\"Do you mean that Mavis may be drowned or drowning?\" screamed Ruby.  She\nhad to scream, even had she been less terribly excited, for the roar of\nwind was on them again, and her voice was scarcely audible.\n\n\"I don't see that she need be drowned,\" said Bertrand.  \"It's shallow.\nShe _may_ have crept on shore, and be lying somewhere among those big\nstones; and if not, can't your precious wizard friends look after her?\nShe's fond enough of them.\"\n\nHe was partly in earnest; but Ruby took it all as cruel heartless\nmocking.  She turned upon him furiously.\n\n\"You're a brutal wicked boy,\" she screamed.  \"I wish you were drowned; I\nwish you had never come near us; I wish--\" she stopped, choked by her\nfury and misery, and by the wind which came tearing round again.\n\nBertrand came close to her.\n\n\"As you're so busy wishing,\" he called into her ear, \"you'd better wish\nyou hadn't done what you have done yourself.  It was all you who started\nthe plan, and settled how we were to trick Winfried into the\nturret-room; you know you did.\"\n\n\"And did I plan to drown Mavis, my own darling little sister?\" returned\nRuby as well as she could speak between her sobs and breathlessness.\n\"Come down to the shore with me this moment and help me to look for her,\nif you're not altogether a cruel heartless bully.\"\n\n\"Not I,\" said Bertrand, \"we'd probably get drowned ourselves.  Just see\nhow the waves come leaping in; they look as if they were alive.  I\nbelieve it's all witches' work together.  I'm not going to trust myself\ndown there.  Come and show me the grottoes and the caves, Ruby.  We may\nas well shelter in them till the wind goes down a bit.  We can't do\nMavis any good; if she's on the shore she can take care of herself, and\nif she's under the water _we_ can't reach her;\" and he caught hold of\nRuby to pull her along, but she tore herself from his grasp with a\nwrench.\n\n\"You wicked, you heartless, brutal boy,\" she cried.\n\n\"I don't care if I am drowned; I would rather be drowned with Mavis than\nstay alive with you.\"\n\nAnd almost before Bertrand knew what she was doing, Ruby was rushing\nthrough the little garden at the back of the cottage on her way to\ndescend the rough path to the shore.\n\nHe stood looking after her coolly for a moment or two with his hands in\nhis pockets.  He tried to whistle, but it was not very successful; the\nwind had the best of it.\n\n\"I don't believe Mavis has come to any harm,\" he said aloud, though\nspeaking to himself, and almost as if trying to excuse his own conduct.\n\"Anyway, I don't see that it's my business to look after her, it was all\nher own obstinacy.\"\n\nHe kicked roughly at the pebbles at his feet, and as he did so, his\nglance fell on a tiny speck of colour just where he was kicking.  It was\none of the blue flowers Ruby had found in the cottage.  Bertrand stooped\nand picked it up, and, strange to say, he handled it gently.  But as he\nlooked at it there came again to him the queer smarting pain in his eyes\nwhich he had complained of in the turret-room, and glancing up he became\naware that the wind had suddenly gone down, everything had become almost\nunnaturally still, while a thin bluish haze seemed gathering closely\nround where he stood.  Bertrand rubbed his eyes.\n\n\"There can't be smoke here,\" he said.  \"What can be the matter with my\neyes?\" and he rubbed them impatiently.  It did no good.\n\n\"No, that will do no good,\" said a voice.  It seemed quite near him.\n\n\"Look up;\" and in spite of himself the boy could not help looking up.\n\n\"_Oh_,\" he screamed; \"_oh_, what is it? what is it?\"\n\nFor an agony, short but indescribable, had darted through his eyeballs,\npiercing, it seemed to him, to his very brain; and Bertrand was not in\nsome ways a cowardly boy.\n\nThere was silence, perfect, dead silence, and gradually the intense\naching, which the short terrible pain had left, began to subside.  As it\ndid so, and Bertrand ventured to look up again, he saw that--what he had\nseen, he could not describe it better--was gone, the haze had\ndisappeared, the air was again clear, but far from still, for round the\ncorner of the old cottage the blast now came rushing and tearing, as if\ninfuriated at having been for a moment obliged to keep back; and with it\nnow came the rain, such rain as the inland-bred boy had never seen\nbefore--blinding, drenching, lashing rain, whose drops seemed to cut and\nsting, with such force did they fall.  It added to his confusion and\nbewilderment.  Like a hunted animal he turned and ran, anywhere to get\nshelter; and soon he found himself behind the house, and then the\nthought of the grottoes the little girls had told him of returned to his\nmind.\n\n\"I won't go back into that witches' hole,\" he said to himself as he\nglanced back at the house.  \"I'll shelter in one of the grottoes.\"\n\nAs he thought this he caught sight of an opening in the rockery before\nhim.  It was the entrance to the very cave where Mavis had been left by\nRuby.  Bertrand ran in; what happened to him there you shall hear in\ngood time.\n\nCHAPTER TEN.\n\n\"FORGET-ME-NOT LAND.\"\n\n  \"A world...\n  Where the month is always June.\"\n\n  _Three Worlds_.\n\nRuby meanwhile was running or rather stumbling down the stones.  She\ncried and sobbed as she went; her pretty face had never, I think, looked\nso woebegone and forlorn; for it was new to her to be really distressed\nor anxious about anything.\n\n\"Mavis, Mavis,\" she called out every now and then, \"are you there\ndarling? can't you answer?\" as if, even had the wind been less wildly\nraging, Mavis could possibly have heard her so far-off.\n\nAnd before long Ruby was obliged to stop for a moment to gather strength\nand breath.  The wind seemed to increase every minute.  She turned her\nback to it for a second; the relief was immense; and just then she\nnoticed that she was still clutching the little bunch of flowers she had\npicked up.  They made her begin to cry again.\n\n\"Mavis loves them so,\" she thought, and her memory went back to the\nhappy peaceful afternoon they had spent with old Adam and his grandson.\nHow kind they were, and how nice the cakes were that Winfried had made\nfor them himself!\n\n\"Oh,\" thought Ruby, \"I wish Bertrand had never come!  It's all--\" but\nthere she hesitated.  There had been truth in her cousin's mean\nreproach, that the mischief and the cruel tricks they had planned had\nbeen first thought of by _her_.  And Ruby knew, too, in her heart, that\nshe had not been gentle or unselfish or kind long before she had ever\nseen Bertrand.  She had not been so actively naughty because she had had\nno chance of being so, as it were.  The coming together of the two\nselfish unfeeling natures had been like the meeting of the flint and\nsteel, setting loose the hidden fire.\n\nAnd besides this, for Bertrand there might have been some excuse; he had\nbeen neglected and yet spoilt; he had never known what it was truly to\nlove any one, whereas Ruby had lived in love all her life; and this was\nher return for it.\n\n\"I have killed my little Mavis,\" she sobbed.  \"Yes, it has been all me.\nWe needn't have minded Bertrand; he couldn't have made me naughty if I\nhadn't let him.  Oh, Mavis, Mavis, whatever shall I do?\"  Her glance\nfell again on the flowers in her hand.  They were not the least withered\nor spoilt, but as fresh as if just newly gathered.  They seemed to smile\nup at her, and she felt somehow comforted.\n\n\"Dear little flowers,\" she said.  Seldom in her life had Ruby spoken so\ntenderly.  She started, as close beside her she heard a faint sigh.\n\n\"Ruby,\" said a voice, \"can you hear me?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the little girl, beginning to tremble.\n\n\"But you cannot see me? and yet I am here, close to you, as I have often\nbeen before.  Try Ruby, try to see me.\"\n\n\"Are--are you a mermaid, or a--that other thing?\" asked the child.\n\nThere came a little laugh, scarcely a laugh, then the sigh again.\n\n\"If you could see me you would know how foolish you are,\" said the\nvoice.  \"But I must have patience--it will come--your eyes are not\nstrong, Ruby; they are not even as strong as Bertrand's.\"\n\n\"Yes, they are,\" said Ruby indignantly.  \"I've never had sore eyes in my\nlife, and Bertrand's have hurt him several times lately.\"\n\n\"I know; so much the better for him,\" was the reply.  \"Well, good-bye\nfor the present, Ruby.  Go on to look for Mavis; you must face it all--\nthere, the rain is coming now.  Ah!\"\n\nAnd with this, which sounded like a long sigh, the voice seemed to waft\nitself away, and down came the rain.  The same swirl which had been too\nmuch for sturdy Bertrand was upon Ruby now, standing, too, in a far more\nexposed place, with no shelter near, and the rough rocky path before\nher.  She did not stand long; she turned again and began to descend,\nstumbling, slipping, blinded by the rain, dashed and knocked about by\nthe wind.\n\n\"She might have helped me, whoever she was that spoke to me,\" sobbed\nRuby.  \"It isn't my fault if I can't see creatures like that.  I'm not\ngood enough, I suppose.\"\n\nAs she said these last words, or thought them, rather, a queer little\nthrill passed through her, and something, in spite of herself, made her\nlook up.  Was it--no, it could not be--she had suddenly thought a gleam\nof sunshine and blue sky had flashed on her sight; but no, the storm was\ntoo furious.  \"Yet still, I did,\" thought Ruby, \"I did see something\nbright and blue, as if two of my little flowers had got up there and\nwere looking down on me.\"\n\nShe glanced at her hand; the forget-me-nots were gone!\n\n\"I must have dropped them,\" she said.  \"Oh dear, dear!\"\n\nAnd yet as she struggled on again she did not feel _quite_ so miserable.\n\nYet it was terribly hard work, and every moment her anxiety about Mavis\nincreased; Ruby had never _felt_ so much in all her life.\n\n\"Who could it be that spoke to me so strangely?\" she asked herself over\nand over again.  \"And what can I do to be able to see her?  I wonder if\nMavis has seen her, I wonder--\" and suddenly there came into her mind\nthe remembrance of Miss Hortensia's long-ago story of the vision in the\nwest turret.\n\n\"There was something about forget-me-nots in it,\" she thought dreamily.\n\"Could it have been true?\"\n\nHow she had mocked at the story!\n\nShe had at last reached the shore by this time.  The rain still fell in\npitiless torrents, but the wind had fallen a little, and down here she\nseemed rather less exposed than on the face of the cliffs.  Still Ruby\nwas completely drenched through; never before had she had any conception\nof the misery to which some of our poor fellow-creatures are exposed to\nalmost every day of their lives.  And yet, her fears for Mavis\novermastered all her other sufferings; for the first time Ruby thought\nof another more than of herself.\n\n\"Mavis, dear little Mavis, Mavis darling, where are you?\" she sobbed\nwildly, her teeth chattering, while terrible shivers shook her from head\nto foot.  \"Oh, it _can't_ be that she is under those dreadful, fierce,\nleaping waves.  They look as if they were dancing in cruel joy over\nsomething they had got;\" and a shudder worse than those caused by the\ncold went through the poor child.\n\n\"Mavis,\" she called out at last, after she had peered round about every\nlarge stone, _every_ corner where her sister could possibly have tried\nto find shelter, without coming upon the slightest trace of either the\nchild or the boat, \"you must be in the sea.  I'll go after you; it\ndoesn't matter if I am drowned if you are.  Perhaps--perhaps the\nmermaids are keeping you safe; there are kind ones among them it says in\nthe fairy stories.\"\n\nAnd she turned resolutely to the water.  It was cold, icily cold as it\ntouched first her feet, then her ankles, then crept up to her knees; it\nseemed to catch her breath even before it was at all deep.  Ruby felt\nher powers going and her senses failing.\n\n\"I shall never be able to find Mavis even if she is under the sea,\" she\nthought to herself, just as a huge wave caught her in its rolling\nclutch, and she knew no more.\n\nIt seemed as if time beyond counting, years, centuries had passed when\nRuby came to her senses again, enough to know that she was herself,\ngradually to remember that once, long ago, there had been a little girl\ncalled Ruby, somewhere, somehow, and that some one dear, most dear to\nher, had been in awful danger from which she had tried to rescue her.\nAnd through all the long mist, through all the dream wanderings of her\nspirit, in which may be it had been learning lessons, the fruit of which\nremained, though the teachings themselves were forgotten,--for who\nknows, who can limit what we _do_ learn in these mysterious ways?--\nRuby's guardian angel must have rejoiced to see that the thought of her\nsister, not herself, was uppermost.\n\n\"Mavis,\" was the first word she whispered; \"Mavis, are you alive?  Are\nyou not drowned, darling?  But it was such a _very_ long time ago.\nPerhaps the world is finished.  But Mavis--I thought Mavis was dead;\nand, oh! who are you?\" she ended with a thrill which seemed to make her\nquite alive and awake.\n\n\"Are you the fairy in the turret?  And what are you doing to my eyes?\"\n\nShe sat up and rubbed them.  There was the strangest feeling in them--\nnot pain now; indeed it was, though strange, a beautiful feeling.  They\nfelt drawn upwards, upwards to something or some one, and a new light\nand strength seemed to fill them, light and strength and colour such as\nRuby had never before even _imagined_.  And the some one--yes, it was\nthe lovely gracious figure, with the exquisite never-, once seen,\nto-be-forgotten eyes, of Winfried's princess.  Ruby saw her at last!\n\nA smile overspread the sweet face; the blue eyes shone with gladness.\n\n\"How often I have hoped for this,\" she murmured.  \"No, Ruby, you will\nnever know how often.  Darling, shut your eyes, you must not strain\nthem; shut your eyes and think of Mavis, and trust yourself to me.\"\n\nRuby obeyed; she had not even looked round to see where she was; she\nonly felt that she was lying on something soft and warm and _dry_; oh,\nhow nice it was to feel dry again.  For now the distant, long-ago\nsensation began to fade, and she remembered everything clearly as if it\nhad happened, say, yesterday or the day before at farthest.  The naughty\nmischief she and Bertrand had been planning, the strange little boat,\nthe deserted cottage, the hurricane, and the misery about Mavis, the\nplunge in search of her into the sea, even to the loss of the\nforget-me-nots, which had been her only comfort, all came back; and with\nit a wonderful delightful feeling of hope and peace and trust, such as\nshe had never known before.  She gave herself up to the kind strong arms\nthat clasped her round!  \"She will take me to Mavis,\" she thought; \"and\noh, I _will_ try never, never to be selfish and unkind and naughty\nagain.\"\n\nThen, still wrapped in the soft warm mantle or rug she had felt herself\nlying upon, she was lifted upwards, upwards still, she knew not and\ncared not whither, for Ruby's eyes were closed and she was fast asleep,\nand this time her sleep was dreamless.\n\n\"Ruby, my own little Ruby,\" were the first words she heard.  They awoke\nher as nothing else would have done.\n\n\"Mavis,\" she whispered.\n\nYes, it was Mavis.  She was leaning over the couch on which Ruby lay.\nNever had Ruby seen her so bright and sweet and happy-looking.\n\n\"Mavis,\" Ruby repeated.  \"And you weren't drowned, darling?  At least;\"\nand as she raised herself a little she looked round her doubtfully, \"at\nleast, not unless this is heaven?  It looks like it--only,\" with a deep\nsigh, \"it can't be, for if it were, _I_ shouldn't be in it.\"\n\n\"No, darling, it isn't heaven, but it's a beautiful place, and I _think_\nit must be a little on the way there.  It's one of the homes of our\nprincess; she won't tell me the name, but I call it Forget-me-not Land.\nIsn't that a good name?  Look all about, Ruby.\"\n\nThey were in a little arbour, in one corner of what one would have\ncalled a garden, except that gardens are usually enclosed.  They don't\nstretch as far as the eyes can see, which was the case here.  A soft\nclear yet not dazzling or glaring light was over everything, yet there\nwas no sun visible in the sky.  And as Ruby gazed and gazed she began to\nfeel that there were differences between this garden and any others she\nhad ever seen.  One of these Mavis pointed out to her.\n\n\"Do you see, Ruby,\" she said, \"that all the flowers in this garden are\nour wild flowers, though they are such beauties?\"  She stooped to gather\none or two blossoms growing close beside her as she spoke.\n\n\"See, here are the same kind of forget-me-nots that were at the old\ncottage, and that we found so strangely on the castle terrace.  And here\nare violets and primroses and snowdrops, all the spring flowers; and the\nsummer ones too, honeysuckle and dog-roses; and even the tiny common\nones, buttercups and daisies, and celandine and pimpernel, and\neye-bright and shepherd's-purse, and--and--\"\n\n\"But you're mixing them all up together,\" said Ruby.  \"They don't all\ncome at the same time of year.\"\n\n\"Yes, they do _here_,\" said Mavis.  \"That's the wonder.  I found it out\nfor myself almost immediately, and the princess was so pleased I did.  I\nthink this garden is a sort of nursery for wild flowers; you see up\nwhere we live there are no gardens or gardeners for them.\"\n\n\"Up!\" said Ruby, \"are we down below the world?  Are we out of the\nworld?\"\n\nMavis smiled.\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said.  \"It may be up or it may be down.  It doesn't\nmatter.  The princess says we may call it fairyland if we like.  And\nfancy, Ruby, old Adam is the gardener here.\"\n\nA shadow passed over Ruby's face.\n\n\"Don't be frightened, dear.  He knew you were coming, and he's as kind\nas kind.  We're to have supper at his cottage before we go home.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Ruby disappointed, \"then we are to go home?\"\n\n\"Oh yes,\" Mavis explained, \"it wouldn't do for us to stay always here.\nBut I _think_ we may come back again sometimes.  Adam has been often\nhere, ever since he was a boy, he told me.  And now he's going to stay\nalways, till it's time for him to go somewhere else, he says.  It was\ntoo cold and rough for him up by the sea now he is so old.\"\n\n\"And--about Winfried?\" asked Ruby, growing very red.\n\nMavis laughed joyously.\n\n\"Winfried,\" she cried, \"why, he was here already when I came; the boat\nwent down, down with me, Ruby, when the great waves rolled over it and\nme.  I _was_ frightened, just for a minute, and then it was all right,\nand the princess and Winfried lifted me out.\"\n\n\"How many days ago was it?\" asked Ruby.\n\nMavis shook her head.\n\n\"I don't know that either; perhaps it's not days at all here.  I've\nnever thought about it.  But cousin Hortensia won't be frightened.  The\nprincess told me that.  Winfried will take us home.  He can't stay here\neither; he's got work to do somewhere, and he can only come back\nsometimes.  There, Ruby--look--there he comes; do you see him coming up\nthat little hill?  He'll be here in a few minutes.\"\n\nCHAPTER ELEVEN.\n\nDOWN THE WELL.\n\n  \"Blue-bells the news are spreading,\n  Ring-a-ting, ting, ting, ting!\n  All the flowers have voices,\n  Lovely the songs that they sing;\n  _How_ the blue-bell rejoices,\n  Ting-a-ring, ting, ting, ting!\"\n\nRuby shrank back a little.\n\n\"I don't want to see Winfried,\" she said, \"after all we did.  And, oh\nMavis, I must be in such a mess--my clothes were all soaked in the sea.\"\n\n\"No, they weren't,\" said Mavis, laughing; \"at least if they were they've\ncome right again.  Stand up, Ruby, and shake yourself, and look at\nyourself.  There now, did you ever look neater or nicer in your life?\"\n\nRuby stood up and looked at herself as Mavis advised her.\n\n\"Is this my own frock?\" she said.  \"No, it can't be.  See, Mavis, it's\nall beautifully embroidered with forget-me-nots!  And what lovely blue\nribbon my hair is tied with; and my hands are so white and clean Mavis,\ndid the princess dress me while I was asleep?\"\n\nMavis nodded her head sagely.\n\n\"Something like it,\" she said.\n\n\"And oh,\" continued Ruby, \"your frock is just the same, and your ribbons\nand all.  _How_ nice you look, Mavis!  Is the princess here?  I should\nso like her to see us.\"\n\n\"She's not here to-day,\" said Mavis.  \"She's away somewhere--I'm not\nsure,\" she added in a lower voice, \"but that it's about Bertrand.\"\n\nRuby gave a sort of shiver.\n\n\"Oh Mavis!\" she said, \"he was so cruel and so heartless, and I was so\nmiserable.  I do hope the princess will make him go quite away.\"\n\n\"Or--if he was to be quite changed,\" said Mavis.\n\n\"No, no.  I don't want him.  I only want you, my darling little Mavis,\nand we shall be so happy--much, much happier than we have ever been.\nKiss me, Mavis, and tell me you quite forgive me, and if ever I am\nnaughty or horrid again, I hope the princess will punish me.\"\n\n\"She won't let you forget her any way,\" said Mavis.  \"I think that is\nhow she punishes.\"\n\nRuby looked rather puzzled; but before she could ask more they heard\nWinfried's whistle, and in a moment he appeared.  His face was all one\nsmile--all Ruby's fears and misgivings faded away before it.\n\n\"Grandfather is waiting for you,\" he said.  \"There are some cakes, Miss\nRuby, that you will find even better than those others.  For\n_everything_ is better here, you see.\"\n\n\"How lovely it must all be,\" said Ruby, with a little sigh.  \"Aren't you\nsorry, Winfried, that you can't stay here altogether?  Mavis says you\nhave to go away to work.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said Winfried cheerily.  \"It would never do, young as I am,\nnot to work.  And we shouldn't enjoy this half as much if we had it\nalways--it's the rest and refreshment after common life that makes half\nthe happiness.  It's different for gran--he's done _his_ part, none\nbetter, and now his work should be light I'm thankful to know he's safe\nhere.  Now we had better go--down that little hill is the way to his\ncottage.\"\n\nChildren, you have perhaps never been in fairyland, nor, for that\nmatter, have I been there either.  But I have had glimpses of it a good\nmany times in my life, and so I hope have you.  And these glimpses, do\nyou know, become more frequent and are less fleeting as one grows older.\nI, at least, find it so.  Is not that something to look forward to?\nThough, after all, this sweet country to which our three little friends,\nthanks to the beautiful princess, had found their way, was scarcely the\ndream region which we think of as fairyland; it was better described by\nlittle Mavis's own name for the nameless garden--\"Forget-me-not Land\";\nfor once having entered there, no one can lose the remembrance of it,\nany more than once having looked into _her_ eyes one can forget Princess\nForget-me-not herself.\n\nBut it would be difficult to describe this magic land; I must leave a\ngood deal of it to that kind of fancy which comes nearer truth than\nclumsy words.  Though, as it is nice to be told all that _can_ be told\nof the sweetest and most beautiful things, I will try to tell you a\nlittle of what Ruby and Mavis saw.\n\nIt might not have seemed such a lovely place to everybody, perhaps.\nTime had been even when Ruby herself might not have thought it so; for\nthis garden-land was not a gorgeous place; it was just sweet and\nrestful.  As I told you, all the flowers were wild flowers; but that\ngives you no idea of what they looked like, for they were carefully\ntended and arranged, growing in great masses together in a way we never\nsee, except sometimes in spring when the primroses almost hide the\nground where they grow, or at midsummer when a rich luxuriance of\ndog-roses and honeysuckle makes it seem as if they had been \"planted on\npurpose,\" as children say.  All along the grassy paths where Winfried\nled them, every step made the little girls exclaim in new admiration.\n\n\"Oh see, Ruby, there is a whole bank of `Robin.'  I could not have\nbelieved it would look so beautiful; and there--look at those masses of\n`sweet Cicely,' just like snowflakes.  And in _our_ fields it is such a\npoor frightened little weed of a flower you scarcely notice it,\" said\nMavis.\n\n\"But it's lovely if you look into it closely,\" said Winfried.  \"Some of\nthe very tiniest flowers are really the most beautiful.\"\n\nThen they came in sight of a stretch of hair-bells--white and blue--the\nkind that in some places are called \"blue-bells.\"\n\n\"Stop a moment,\" said the boy.  \"Stop and listen--hush--there now, do\nyou hear them ringing?  That is a sound you can never hear in--anywhere\nbut here.\"\n\nThey listened with all their ears, you may be sure.  Yes, as they grew\naccustomed to the exceeding stillness, to the clear thin _fineness_ of\nthe air, they heard the softest, sweetest tinkle you can imagine; a\nperfect fairy bell-ringing, and the longer they listened the clearer it\ngrew.\n\n\"Oh, how wonderful,\" said Mavis.\n\nAnd Ruby added, \"I should think if we lived long enough in this country\nwe should end by hearing the grass growing.\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" said Winfried.\n\n\"But don't you miss the sea things?\"  Ruby went on.  \"You love them so,\nWinfried, and somehow you seem to belong to the sea.\"\n\n\"So I do,\" the boy replied.  \"The sea is my life.  Coming here is only a\nrest and a holiday.\"\n\n\"I wonder,\" said Mavis, \"I wonder if there is a garden country for the\nsea to match this for the land.  A place where seaweeds and corals and\nall the loveliest sea things are taken care of, like the wild flowers\nhere?\"\n\n\"You may be sure there is,\" said the fisher-boy, smiling.  \"There is no\nsaying what the princess won't have to show us, and where she won't take\nus now she has us in hand.  Why, only to look into her eyes, you can see\nit--they seem to reach to everywhere; everywhere and everything\nbeautiful seems in them.\"\n\n\"You have seen farther into them than we have,\" said Mavis thoughtfully.\n\"But still I think I can understand what you mean.\"\n\n\"So can I, a _very_ little,\" said Ruby.  \"But--they are rather\nfrightening too, don't you think?\"\n\n\"They must be at first,\" said Winfried.\n\nBut just then, a little way off, they caught sight of old Adam coming to\nmeet them.  His cottage was close by; they came upon it suddenly, for it\nstood half-hidden under the shelter of the hill they had been\ndescending.  Such a lovely cottage it was--so simple, yet so pretty;\n_quite_ clean, with a cleanness you never see out of fairyland or places\nof that kind, with flowers of all kinds, forget-me-nots above all,\nclustering about it and peeping in at the windows.\n\nAdam welcomed his little guests as kindly as if no unkind thought of him\nhad ever entered Ruby's head; he made no difference between her and\nMavis, and I think this caused Ruby to feel more sorry than anything\ncould have done.\n\nIf they had been happy that afternoon in the cottage by the sea, you can\nfancy how happy they were in this wonderful new fairy home of the good\nold man's.  There was no end to the things he had to show them and teach\nthem, mostly, I think, about flowers; things they had never dreamt of,\nbeauties of form and colour such as it would be impossible for me to\ndescribe.  And each time they came to see him he promised to show and\nteach them still more.  But at last Winfried said they must be going.\n\n\"I promised the princess,\" he said, for now he spoke of her quite openly\nto the children, \"that I would take you home by the time the sun sets\nbeside the castle, and it must be near that now.\"\n\n\"And how are we to go home?\" asked Ruby.\n\n\"The boat is ready,\" Winfried answered.\n\n\"But where's the sea for it to sail on?\" whispered Ruby to Mavis.  She\nhad not the courage to ask Winfried anymore.\n\n\"Wait and see,\" said Mavis.  \"I don't know, but it is sure to be all\nright.\"\n\nThen they bade Adam farewell, promising to come to visit him again\nwhenever they should be allowed to do so--and rather wondering where\nWinfried was going to take them, they set off.\n\nThere was some reason for Ruby's question, for so far they had seen no\nwater at all in Forget-me-not Land.  Everything seemed fresh and\nfragrant, as if there was no dearth of moisture, but there was neither\nlake, nor pond, nor running brook.  Winfried mounted the hill a little\nway, then turning sharply, they found themselves in a sort of small\nwooded ravine or glen.  Steps led down the steep sides to the bottom,\nwhich was a perfect thicket of ferns, mostly of the deep green delicate\nkind, which loves darkness and water.\n\nWinfried stooped and lifted, by a ring fixed into it, a heavy stone.\n\n\"You won't be frightened,\" he said.  \"This is the way.  We have to go\ndown the well.  I'll go first; you'll find it quite easy.\"\n\nIt scarcely looked so, for it was very dark.  Winfried stepped in--there\nwas a ladder against the side--and soon disappeared, all but his head,\nthen Mavis, and lastly, trembling a little it must be confessed, Ruby.\nAs soon as they were all inside, the stone lid shut itself down; but\ninstead, as one might have expected, of this leaving them in darkness, a\nclear almost bright light shone upwards as if a large lamp had been\nlighted at the foot of the well, and without difficulty the children\nmade their way down the ladder.\n\n\"That's very nice,\" said Ruby.  \"I was so afraid we were going to be in\nthe dark.\"\n\n\"Were you, dear?\" said a voice whose sweet tones were not strange to\nher.  \"No fear of that when I have to do with things.  Jump, that's\nright; here you are, and you too, Mavis.\"\n\nThe princess was standing in the boat, for the \"well\" widened out at one\nside into a little stream large enough to row along.\n\n\"The brook takes us to the river, and the river to the sea; that is your\nway home,\" she said.  \"Winfried will row, and you two shall nestle up to\nme.\"\n\nShe put an arm round each, and in silence, save for the gentle drip of\nthe oars, the little boat made its way.  It was a still evening, not yet\ndark, though growing dusk, and though they were back in the winter world\nby now the children felt no cold--who could have felt cold with the\nprincess's mantle round them?  They grew sleepy, too sleepy to notice\nhow, as she had said, the brook turned into the river, and the river led\non to the sea, the familiar sea, not more than a mile or two from the\ncove below the castle.  And it was only when the boat grated a little on\nthe pebbly shore that both Ruby and Mavis started up to find themselves\nalone with Winfried.  The princess had left them.\n\n\"I will go up to the door with you,\" said the boy.  \"Miss Hortensia is\nexpecting you.  See, there she is standing under the archway with a\nlantern.\"\n\n\"My darlings,\" said their cousin.  \"So Winfried has brought you safe\nhome.\"\n\n\"And I must hurry back,\" said the fisher-lad.  And almost before they\ncould thank him or say good-night, he had disappeared again in the\nfast-gathering gloom.\n\nIt seemed to the children as Miss Hortensia kissed them that _years_ had\npassed since they had seen her or their home.\n\n\"Haven't you been dreadfully lonely without us all this time, dear\ncousin?\" said Mavis.\n\n\"No, dears, not particularly so.  It is a little later than usual, but\nwhen Winfried ran back to tell me he would bring you safe home, he said\nit might be so.\"\n\n\"Was it only _this_ afternoon we went?\" said Ruby wonderingly.\n\nMiss Hortensia looked at her anxiously.\n\n\"My dear, are you very tired?  You seem half asleep.\"\n\n\"I am rather sleepy,\" said Ruby.  \"Please may we go to bed at once.\"\n\n\"Certainly.  I will tell Ulrica to take your supper upstairs.  I do hope\nyou haven't caught cold.  We must shut the door;\" for they were standing\nall this time at the entrance under the archway.  \"Bertrand is behind\nyou, I suppose?\"\n\nThe little girls looked at each other.\n\n\"We have not seen him for ever so long,\" they replied.\n\n\"He would not stay with me,\" said Ruby.\n\n\"I thought perhaps we should find him here,\" said Mavis.\n\nMiss Hortensia looked more annoyed than anxious.  \"I suppose he will\nfind his way back before long,\" she said.  \"Bad pennies always turn up.\nBut he is a most troublesome boy.  I wish I had asked Winfried what to\ndo--\"\n\n\"I don't think he could have done anything,\" said Mavis.  \"But--I'm sure\nBertrand is safe.  What's the matter, Ulrica?\"\n\nFor at that moment--they were on their way upstairs by this time--the\nyoung maid-servant came flying to meet them, her face pale, her eyes\ngleaming with fear.\n\n\"Oh,\" she cried, \"I am glad the young ladies are safe back.  Martin has\nseen the blue light in the west turret; he was coming from the village a\nfew minutes ago, and something made him look up.  It is many and many a\nyear since it has been seen, not since the young ladies were babies, and\nit always--\"\n\n\"Stop, Ulrica,\" said Miss Hortensia sharply.  \"It is very wrong of you\nto come startling us in that wild way, and the young ladies so tired as\nyou see.  Call Bertha and Joseph.  You take the children to their room,\nand see that they are warm and comfortable.  I will myself go up to the\nwest turret with the others and put a stop to these idle tales.\"\n\nBut Ruby and Mavis pressed forward.  A strange thought had struck them\nboth.\n\n\"Oh cousin, let us go too,\" they said.  \"We are not a bit frightened.\"\n\nSo when old Joseph and Bertha had joined them, the whole party set off\nfor the turret.\n\nAs they got near to the top of the stair, a slight sound made them all\nstart.\n\n\"Hush!\" said Miss Hortensia.  They stood in perfect silence.  It came\nagain--a murmur of faint sobs and weeping.  Ulrica grew whiter and\nwhiter.\n\n\"I told you so,\" she began, but no one listened.  They all pressed on,\nMiss Hortensia the first.\n\nWhen she opened the door it was, except for the lamp she held in her\nhand, upon total darkness.  But in one corner was heard a sort of\nconvulsive breathing, and then a voice.\n\n\"Who's there?  Who's there?  Oh the pain, the cruel pain!\"\n\nAnd there--lying on the same little couch-bed on which years and years\nago Miss Hortensia had slept and dreamt of the lovely fairy lady--was\nBertrand--weeping and moaning, utterly broken down.\n\nBut he turned away sullenly from Miss Hortensia when she leant over him\nin concern and pity; he would not look at Ruby either, and it was not\ntill after some moments had passed that they at last heard him whisper.\n\n\"Mavis, I want to speak to Mavis.  Go away everybody.  I only want\nMavis.\"\n\nThey all looked at each other in mute astonishment.  They thought he was\nwandering in his mind.  But no; he kept to the same idea.\n\n\"Mavis,\" he repeated, \"come here and give me your hand.  I can't see\nyou.  Oh the pain, the pain!\"  Then Mavis came forward, and the others\ndrew back in a group to the door.\n\n\"Try and find out what it is; surely it is not another naughty trick\nthat he is playing,\" said Miss Hortensia anxiously.\n\n\"No, no.  I am sure it isn't.  Don't be afraid, dear cousin,\" said the\nlittle girl.\n\nCHAPTER TWELVE.\n\nOPENED EYES.\n\n  \"The world that only thy spirit knows\n  Is the fairest world of the three.\"\n\n  _Three Worlds_.\n\n\"Mavis,\" whispered Bertrand, when he was sure the others were out of\nearshot, \"you can understand; they would think I was mad.  Listen--stoop\ndown--it is _she_.  You know who I mean.  She made me see her, and oh,\nthe pain is too awful.  It isn't only in my eyes, it goes down into my\nheart somehow.  What shall I do?  Can't you make her come to take it\naway?  I've been crying and crying to her, but she won't.\"\n\n\"Perhaps it is that you _must_ bear it,\" said Mavis.  \"Think that way,\nand see if that makes it any better.\"  The boy gasped, but did not\nspeak.  After a moment or two he went on again.\n\n\"I was in the caves behind the cottage.  I ran in to get out of the\nstorm, and because I didn't want to go looking for you.  I thought you\nwere drowned, and I didn't want to see your white face,\" he shivered.\n\"And I was peeping about in one of the caves when I fell; I don't know\nhow or where.  I fell down, down, ever so far.  I thought I was never\ngoing to stop, and then my breath went away, and I didn't know anything\ntill I found myself in another cave, all knocked about and bruised.  I'm\naching now all over, but I don't mind that.  And then, Mavis, _she_ came\nand looked at me.\"\n\n\"You saw her?\" said Mavis.\n\n\"Yes--oh Mavis, she made my eyes go up to hers.  And oh, the pain!  She\ndidn't say anything except just `Bertrand.'  But I knew all she meant,\nbetter than by any speaking.  And she was kind; she lifted me and\ncarried me up here.  And she put something on my leg; that was where I\nwas most hurt, I think.  Then she sat by me here, and she put it all\ninto my mind, all the naughty things I'd ever done.  Mavis, I didn't\nknow, I _really_ didn't, how bad I was.  It came out of her eyes\nsomehow, though I dared not look again; and when she went away, even\nthough I _think_ she kissed me, the pain got worse and worse.  Oh Mavis,\nwill it ever go?  Will my eyes ever feel the same again?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Mavis, \"I don't think they'll ever feel the _same_, for\nthey'll feel much, much better than they used to.  The pain will go,\nthough it may come back sometimes, to _remind_ you.\"\n\n\"I shan't need reminding,\" said the boy.  \"I can't ever forget.  I'm\nsure of that.  I wish I could!\"\n\n\"No, Bertrand, I don't think you do wish that.\"\n\nHe gave an impatient wriggle, but without speaking.\n\n\"Oh the pain,\" he cried again in a moment or two, \"and it did seem a\nlittle better.\"\n\nMiss Hortensia came forward.\n\n\"Mavis, my dear, what is it?  Where is he hurt?  And why did you hide\nyourself up here, Bertrand, instead of coming to me?\"\n\nBertrand would not answer.  He turned his face away again.\n\n\"He's had a fall, cousin Hortensia,\" said Mavis.  \"But I don't think\nit's very bad, he says he's only bruised and sore.  Bertrand, do you\nthink you can manage to get down to your own room?\"\n\n\"If you'll come at one side and Joseph at the other, I'll try,\" said the\nboy, with unusual graciousness.  \"And when I'm in bed, will you stay\nbeside me, Mavis?  I think the pain isn't so bad when you're there,\" he\nwhispered, so that no one else could hear.\n\nMiss Hortensia was quick-witted.\n\n\"I will order a fire to be lighted in Bertrand's room,\" she said; \"and\nif you like, Mavis, you may have your supper there beside him.\"\n\nShe hurried away, calling Ruby to go with her.  It was a sign of a very\ndifferent state of things with Ruby that she showed, and felt, no\njealousy at Bertrand's preference for her sister.\n\n\"Poor Bertrand,\" she said to herself softly, \"perhaps I made him\nnaughtier than he would have been.\"\n\nThe boy was more hurt than he would allow, but he put great constraint\non himself, and limped downstairs with scarcely a groan.\n\n\"It's nothing compared to the other pain,\" he murmured.  And when he was\nat last safely deposited in his little bed, he looked so white and\npitiful that for the first time Mavis stooped down and gave him a loving\nkiss.  Bertrand started.\n\n\"What is it?\" said Mavis.\n\n\"I don't know,\" he replied.  \"When you kissed me, the pain got worse for\na moment; it gave a great stab, but now it seems better.  If you'll kiss\nme again, Mavis, the last thing when you say good-night, perhaps I'll be\nable to go to sleep.\"\n\nShe stayed beside him all the rest of the evening.  He scarcely spoke,\nonly groaning a little from time to time.  When Miss Hortensia came in\nto send Mavis to bed, she began for the first time to feel really uneasy\nabout the boy.\n\n\"Mavis,\" she said, not meaning Bertrand to hear, \"if he isn't better\nto-morrow morning, we must send for the doctor.\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" said the little girl, \"he could do something to take away the\naching--poor Bertrand is aching all over from his fall.\"\n\n\"I don't mind that,\" said the boy suddenly.  \"It isn't that, you know it\nisn't, Mavis, and I won't have the doctor.\"\n\nRuby, who had stolen in behind her cousin, crept up to Mavis.\n\n\"Do you think,\" she whispered, \"do you think, Mavis, that he has seen\n_her_, and that that's it?\"  Mavis did not answer.\n\n\"Bertrand,\" she said, \"we are going to bed now; do you mind being left\nalone for the night?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said, \"I'd rather, unless it was you, and you can't stay.\nYou'd be too tired.  Listen,\" and he drew her down to him, \"do you think\nperhaps she'll come again and take away the pain?  For I _am_ sorry\nnow--I am sorry--and I didn't know how bad I was.\"\n\n\"Poor Bertrand,\" whispered Mavis pityingly.  \"Perhaps she will come.\nAny way, if you are patient and try to think the pain has to be, I think\nit will get better, even if it doesn't go away altogether.\"\n\nAnd again she kissed him.\n\n\"Mavis,\" said Ruby, as the two little sisters were lying side by side in\ntheir white curtained beds, \"cousin Hortensia may not know it, and\nnobody may know it, but _I_ know it, and it is that years have passed\nsince we went to bed here last night.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mavis.  \"I think so too.  There are some things that you\ncan't count time for, which are really far more than any time.\"\n\n\"All my hating of Bertrand has gone away now,\" continued Ruby.  \"Only I\ndon't want him to stay here, because the naughty in him and the naughty\nin me might get together again like it did before.\"\n\n\"Why don't you think of the good in him and the good in you joining to\nmake you both better; and the good in me too!  I suppose it isn't\nconceited to think there is a little good in oneself, at least there's\ntrying to be and wanting to be,\" said Mavis, with a little sigh.  \"But\nyou're so much quicker and cleverer than I am, Ruby, I wish you would\nthink about helping me and not about being naughty.  And, oh Ruby, isn't\nit lovely to think that we may go sometimes to Forget-me-not Land?\"\n\n\"Let's go to sleep now as quick as we can and dream of it,\" said Ruby.\n\nBertrand looked still very white and ill the next day.  He was very\nquiet and subdued, and even gave in to Miss Hortensia's decision that\nthe doctor must be sent for.  The doctor came \"and shook his head.\"  The\nboy was not in a satisfactory condition,--which they knew already as it\nhappened, otherwise the doctor would not have been sent for,--he had\nbeen shaken by the fall, and it was possible that his back had been\ninjured.  There was not much comfort in all this, certainly, but it\ndecided one thing, that he was to stay where he was for the present, not\nto attempt to get up or to move about.  And, strange to say, this too\nBertrand accepted uncomplainingly.\n\nHe said no word to the doctor of the strange pain he had confided about\nto Mavis; and though his eyes seemed sad and wearied, they had a new\nlook in them which had never been there before.  Even Miss Hortensia was\nmoved by it, though hitherto, and rightly, she had been inclined to\ntreat Bertrand's troubles as well deserved.\n\n\"Is there anything we can do for you, my poor boy?\" she said kindly.\n\n\"No, thank you,\" he replied; \"except to let Mavis come to stay beside me\nsometimes--and--\" he hesitated, \"if the fisher-boy, Winfried, comes to\nthe castle, I'd like to see him.\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" Miss Hortensia answered.  \"But I doubt if he will come any\nmore.  I hear in the village that his grandfather has gone away, quite\naway, to a milder part of the country.  I can't understand it, it seems\nso sudden.\"\n\nBut Winfried did come, that very afternoon.  His new home was not so\nvery far away, he told Miss Hortensia with a smile.  \"Gran's home, that\nis to say,\" he went on.  \"But I myself am going to have a different kind\nof home now.  I'm going to sea; I've always wished it, and gran has\nwished it for me.\"\n\n\"But won't he miss you terribly?\" asked the lady.  \"I'll often be with\nhim, and he's well cared for where he is,\" said the boy.\n\nAnd then Mavis took him up to see Bertrand, with whom she left him alone\nfor some time.\n\nThere was a brighter look in the boy's face when she went back to him.\n\n\"Winfried has promised to come again before he goes quite away,\" he\nsaid.  \"Did you know, Mavis, that he is going ever so far away?  He is\ngoing to be a sailor, a real sailor, not a fisherman.  He says he has\nalways wanted it, but he couldn't leave his grandfather alone here where\nthe village people were not--\" Bertrand stopped suddenly, as it struck\nhim that it was not the ignorant village people only who had been unkind\nto good old Adam.  Mavis understood but said nothing.  And after a bit\nBertrand went out again.\n\n\"Mavis,\" he said, \"I've seen her again.  Either I saw her or I dreamt of\nher.  I don't much mind which it was, for it's all come true.  She said\nI must try to bear it, like what you said, Mavis; and it has got better.\nBut she said it would come back again, and that I'd get to want it to\ncome back--at least, unless I wanted to forget her, and I don't want to\ndo that.  I don't think I _could_, even if I tried.  And she kissed me--\nmy eyes, Mavis; so you see I couldn't forget her now.\"\n\n\"You never could, I'm sure,\" said Mavis; \"that's what she is; it's her\nname.\"\n\nBertrand threw himself back with a sigh.\n\n\"I can't feel like you,\" he said.  \"I've never thought about being good,\nand sometimes I think I won't try.  Oh Mavis!\"\n\n\"Was it the pain again?\" said the little girl sympathisingly, though in\nher heart she felt inclined to smile a very little.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Bertrand dolefully, \"I'm afraid it will take an awfully long\ntime before I begin to get the least bit good,\" and he sighed again\nstill more deeply.\n\nJust then Ruby put her head in at the door.  She and Bertrand were not\nyet quite at ease with each other, but she came up to his bedside very\ngently and said she hoped he was better, to which he replied meekly\nenough, though rather stiffly.\n\n\"Mavis,\" said Ruby eagerly, pleased to find something to talk about,\n\"have you heard about Winfried? about his going to be a real sailor?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mavis.  \"Bertrand was talking about it.\"\n\nBertrand sat up and his eyes sparkled.\n\n\"I didn't mean to tell you,\" he said, \"but I think I must.  Do you know,\nI believe I shall be a sailor too?  Papa has always wanted it since I\nwas quite little, and I shall soon be old enough to begin.  But I\nthought I wouldn't like it till I came here and saw the sea; and now\nWinfried's talking has made it come into my mind, just the way papa said\nit did into his when he was a boy.\"\n\nRuby glanced at him admiringly.\n\n\"How brave you are, Bertrand!\" she said, which was a very foolish\nspeech.\n\n\"No,\" he said with a touch of his old roughness, \"I'm not.  It isn't\nthat at all.  Mavis, would you be glad for me to be a sailor?\"\n\n\"If you found it the best thing for you I'd be glad,\" said Mavis.\n\"Sailors must see wonderful and beautiful things,\" she went on\nthoughtfully.\n\n\"Perhaps you and Winfried might be sailors together some time,\" said\nRuby.  \"That would be nice.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Bertrand.  \"When I got to be captain or something like that,\nI'll look him up, and--\" but he stopped abruptly.  There had been a\ntouch of arrogance in his tone.\n\nJust then Ruby ran off.  Mavis was going too, but Bertrand stopped her.\n\n\"Mavis,\" he said, \"Winfried knows all about _her_.  He calls her his\nprincess.\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Mavis.\n\n\"And,\" Bertrand went on, \"he says he knows she'll never be far away if\nhe wants her.  Even _ever_ so far away, over at the other side of the\nworld, out at sea with no land for weeks and months; he says it would be\njust the same, or even better.  The loneliness makes it easier to see\nher sometimes, he says.  I can fancy that,\" he went on dreamily, \"her\neyes are a little like the sea, don't you think, Mavis?\"\n\n\"Like the sea when it is _quite_ good, quite at peace, loving and\ngentle,\" she replied.  \"But still, if you had lived beside the sea as\nlong as we have, Bertrand, you'd understand that there's never a sure\nfeeling about it, you never know what it won't be doing next; and the\nprincess, you know, makes you feel surer than sure; that's the best of\nher.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Bertrand, \"the sea's like Ruby and me.  Now just at this\ntime I want more than anything to be good, and never to be selfish or\ncruel, or--or boasting, or mischievous.  But when I get about again with\nRuby--even though she's very good now, and she never was anything like\nas bad as me--I don't feel sure but what we might do each other harm and\nforget about being good and all that; do you see?\"\n\n\"I think it's a very good thing that you do _not_ feel sure,\" said\nMavis.  But she was struck by his saying just what Ruby herself had\nsaid, and it made her a little anxious.\n\nThe children's new resolutions, however, were not put to the test in the\nway they expected.  Bertrand quickly got well again and was able to run\nabout in his usual way.  But very soon after this his uncle, the father\nof Ruby and Mavis, came unexpectedly for one of his short visits to the\ncastle, to his little daughters' great delight.  And when he left he\ntook Bertrand away with him.  There was more than one reason for the\nboy's visit coming to an end so much sooner than had been intended.\nMiss Hortensia may have had something to do with it, for though she had\ngrown to like Bertrand much better during his illness, and no one could\nhave been more delighted than she at the improvement in him, it was not\nto be wondered at if she trembled at continuing to have the charge of\nhim.  Then, too, Bertrand confided to his uncle his wish to be a sailor,\nin which he never again wavered.\n\nRuby and Mavis felt sad when the travellers had left them.  Their\nfather's \"good-byes\" were the only alloy to the pleasure of his visits.\nAnd this time there was Bertrand to say good-bye to also!\n\n\"Who would have thought,\" said Mavis, \"that we should ever be sorry to\nsee him go?  But I am glad to feel sorry.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Miss Hortensia, \"much better for him to go while his present\nmood lasts, and we are able to regret him.  And may be he will come to\npay us a visit again some time or other.\"\n\n\"I hope he will,\" said Mavis.  \"I don't think he will _ever_ again be\nlike what he was, cousin.\"\n\n\"Mavis,\" said Ruby, when they were alone, \"when Bertrand does come to\nsee us again, we must plan all to go to Forget-me-not Land together.  It\nwould be so nice, all four of us.  Winfried will come to see us again\nsoon; he said he would whenever he comes to his grandfather; let us ask\nhim.  I am sure the princess wouldn't mind now Bertrand is so\ndifferent.\"\n\n\"I am sure she wouldn't,\" said Mavis, smiling.  \"And who knows,\" Ruby\nwent on, \"what lovely new things and places we shan't see when we go\nthere again.  Winfried says there's no end to them, and that every time\nwe go we'll find more to see.\"\n\n\"Perhaps it's because we learn to see better and better,\" said Mavis.\n\nAnd I think she was right.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nThe End.","title":"The Children of the Castle","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":38772}