Milly and Olly Part 10

For the sun had almost sunk behind the mountains at their back, and the wind blowing across the lake was beginning to get a little cold, while over their heads the rooks went flying, singing "caw, caw," on their way to bed. And how the sun was turning the water to gold! It seemed to be making a great golden pathway across the lake, and the mountains were turning a deep blue, and plash, plash, went the little waves on the rocks, so softly they seemed to be saying "Good-night! good-night!"

"Well," said Aunt Emma, settling herself on a soft piece of heather, and putting her arms round Milly and Olly, "Once upon a time there was a great king. He was a good king and a wise man, and he tried to make all the people round about him wiser and better than they were before he came to rule over them; and for a long time he was very powerful and happy, and he and the brave men who helped him and were his friends did a great deal of good, and kept the savage people who lived all about him in order, and taught them a great many things. But at last some of the savage people got tired of obeying the king, and they said they would not have him to reign over them any more; so they made an army, and they came together against the king to try and kill him and his friends. And the king made an army too, and there was a great battle; and the savage people were the strongest, and they killed nearly all the king's brave men, and the king himself was terribly hurt in the fight. And at last, when night came on, there were left only the king and one of his friends--his knights, as they were called. The king was hurt so much that he could not move, and his friend thought he was dying. They were left alone in a rocky desert place, and close by there was a great lake with mountains round it--like this, Olly. It was very cold, and the moon was shining, and the king lay so still that once or twice his friend almost thought that he was dead. But at last, about the middle of the night, he began to speak, and he told his friend to take his sword that was by his side and to go down to the side of the lake and throw it as far as he could into the water. Now, this sword was a magic sword. Long before, the king was once walking beside this lake, when he suddenly saw an arm in a long white sleeve rising out of the lake, and in the hand at the end of it was a splendid sword with a glistening handle. And the king got into a boat and rowed as fast as he could till he got near enough to take hold of the sword, and then the arm sank down under the water and was seen no more. And with the sword the king won a great many battles, and he loved it, and never would part with it; but now that he was dying, he told his friend to take the sword and throw it back into the lake where he had found it, and see what would happen. And his friend took it, and went away over the rocks till he came to the edge of the lake, and then he took the sword out of its case and swung it above his head that he might throw it far into the water; but as he lifted it up the precious stones in the handle shone so splendidly in the moonlight that he could not make up his mind to throw it into the water, it seemed such a pity. So he hid it away among the rushes by the water side, and went back to the king. And the king said, 'What did you see by the lake?'

"And the knight said, 'I saw nothing except the water, and the mountains, and the rushes.'

"And the king said, 'Oh, unkind friend! Why will you not do as I ask you, now that I am dying and can do nothing for myself? Go back and throw the sword into the lake, as I told you.'

"And the knight went back, and once more he lifted the sword to throw it into the water but it looked so beautiful that he _could_ not throw it away. There would be nothing left, he thought, to remember the king by when he was dead if he threw away the sword; so again he hid it among the rushes, and then he went back to the king. And again the king asked, 'What did you see by the lake?' and again the knight answered, 'I saw nothing except the water and the mountains.'

"'Oh, unkind, false friend!' cried the king, 'you are crueller to me than those who gave me this wound. Go back and throw the sword into the water, or, weak as I am, I will rise up and kill you.'

"Back went the knight, and this time he seized the sword without looking at it, so that he should not see how beautiful it was, and then he swung it once, twice, thrice, round his head, and away it went into the lake.

And as it fell, up rose a hand and arm in a long white sleeve out of the water, and the hand caught the sword and drew it down under the water.

And then for a moment, all round the lake, the knight fancied he heard a sound of sobbing and weeping, and he thought in his heart that it must be the water-fairies weeping for the king's death.

"'What did you see by the lake?' asked the king again, when he came back, and the knight told him. Then the king told him to lift him up and carry him on his back down to the edge of the lake, and when they got there, what do you think they saw?"

But the children could not guess, and Milly pressed Aunt Emma's hand hard to make her go on.

"They saw a great black ship coming slowly over the water, and on the ship were numbers of people in black, sobbing and crying, so that the air was full of a sound of weeping, and in front sat three queens in long black dresses, and with gold crowns on their heads, and they, too, were weeping and wringing their hands.

"'Lift me up,' said the king, when the ship came close beside them, 'and put me into the ship.' And the knight lifted him up, while the three queens stretched out their hands and drew him into the ship.

"'Oh, king! take me with you,' said the knight, 'take me too. What shall I do all alone without you?' But the ship began to move away, and the knight was left standing on the sh.o.r.e. Only he fancied he heard the king's voice saying, 'Wait for me, I shall come again. Farewell!'

"And the ship went faster and faster away into the darkness, for it was a fairy ship, till at last the knight could see it no more. So then he knew that the king had been carried away by the fairies of the lake--the same fairies who had given him the sword in old days, and who had loved him and watched over him all his life. But what did the king mean by saying, 'I shall come again'?"

Then Aunt Emma stopped and looked at the children.

"What did he mean, auntie?" asked Milly, who had been listening with all her ears, and whose little eyes were wet, "and did he ever come back again?"

"Not while the knight lived, Milly. He grew to be quite an old man, and was always hoping that the fairies would bring the king again. But the king never came, and his friend died without seeing him."

"But did he _ever_ come again?" asked Olly.

"I don't know, Olly. Some people think that he is still hidden away somewhere by the kind water-fairies, and that some day, when the world wants him very much, he will come back again."

"Do you think he is here in this lake?" whispered Milly, looking at the water.

"How can we tell what's at the bottom of the lake?" said Aunt Emma, smiling. "But no, I don't think the king is hidden in this lake. He didn't live near here."

"What was his name?" asked Milly.

"His name was King Arthur. But now, children, hurry; there is father putting all the baskets into the boat. We must get home as quick as we can."

They rowed home very quickly, except just for a little time when Milly rowed, and they did not go quite so fast as if father were rowing alone.

It was quite evening now on the lake, and there were great shadows from the mountains lying across the water. Somehow the children felt much quieter now than when they started in the afternoon. Milly had curled herself up inside mother's arm, and was thinking a great deal about King Arthur and the fairy ship, while Olly was quite taken up with watching the oars as they dipped in and out of the water, and occasionally asking his father when he should be big enough to row quite by himself. It seemed a very little time after all before they were stepping out of the boat at Aunt Emma's boathouse, and the picnic and the row were both over.

"Good-bye, dear lake," said Milly, turning with her hands full of water-lilies to look back before they went up to the house. "Good-night, mountains; good-night, Birdsnest Point. I shall soon come and see you again."

A few minutes more, and they were safely packed into a carriage which drove them back to Ravensnest, and Aunt Emma was saying good-bye to them.

"Next time, I shall come and see you, Milly," she said, as she kissed Milly's little sleepy face. "Don't forget me till then."

"Then you'll tell us about old Mother Quiverquake," said Olly, hugging her with his small arms. "Aunt Emma, I haven't given Johnny back his stockings. They did tickle me so in the boat."

"We'll get them some time," said Aunt Emma. "Good-night, good-night."

It was a sleepy pair of children that nurse lifted out of the carriage at Ravensnest. And though they tried to tell her something about it, she had to wait till next morning before she could really understand anything about their wonderful day at Aunt Emma's house.

CHAPTER VI

WET DAYS AT RAVENSNEST

For about a week after the row on the lake the weather was lovely, and Milly wondered more than ever what the old gentleman who warned them of the rain in the mountains could have been thinking about. She and Olly were out all day, and nearly every afternoon nurse lifted the tea-table through the low nursery window on to the lawn, and let them have their tea out of doors among the flowers and trees and twittering birds. They had found out a fly-catcher's nest in the ivy above the front door, and every evening the two children used to fetch out their father to watch the parent birds catching flies and carrying them to the hungry little ones, whom they could just hear chirping up above the ivy. Olly was wild to get the gardener's ladder that he might climb up and look into the nest, but Mr. Norton would not have it lest it should frighten away the old birds.

One delicious warm morning, too, the children had their long-promised bathe, and what fun it was. Nurse woke them up at five o'clock in the morning--fancy waking up as early as that!--and they slipped on their little blue bathing gowns, and their sand shoes that mother had bought them in Cromer the year before, and then nurse wrapped them up in shawls, and she and they and father went down and opened the front door while everybody else in the house was asleep, and slipped out. What a quiet strange world it seemed, the gra.s.s and the flowers dripping with dew, and overhead such a blue sky with white clouds sailing slowly about in it.

"Why don't we always get up at five o'clock, father?" asked Olly, as he and Milly skipped along--such an odd little pair of figures--beside Mr.

Norton. "Isn't it nice and funny?"

"Very," said Mr. Norton. "Still, I imagine Olly, if you had to get up every day at five o'clock, you might think it funny, but I'm sure you wouldn't always think it nice."

"Oh! I'm sure we should," said Milly, seriously. "Why, father, it's just as if everything was ours and n.o.body else's, the garden and the river I mean. Is there _anybody_ up yet do you think--in those houses?" And Milly pointed to the few houses they could see from the Ravensnest garden.

"I can't tell, Milly. But I'll tell you who's sure to be up now, and that's John Backhouse. I should think he's just beginning to milk the cows."

"Oh then, Becky and Tiza'll be up too," cried Milly, dancing about. "I wish we could see them. Somehow it would be quite different seeing them now, father. I feel so queer, as if I was somebody else."

If you have ever been up _very_ early on a summer morning, you will know what Milly meant, but if not I can hardly explain it. Such a pretty quiet little walk they had down to the river. n.o.body on the road, n.o.body in the fields, but the birds chattering and the sun shining, as if they were having a good time all to themselves, before anybody woke up to interrupt them. Mr. Norton took the children down to the stepping-stones, and then, while Milly and nurse stayed on the bank he lifted Olly up, and carried him to the middle of the stepping-stones, where the water would about come up to his chest. Mr. Norton had already taken off his own shoes and stockings, and when they came to the middle stone, he put Olly down on the stone, and stepped into the water himself. "Now, Olly, give me your hands and jump in. Mind, it'll feel very cold."

Olly shut his eyes, and opened his mouth, as he always did when he felt just a little frightened, and then in he went; splash! ugh! it was so cold--much colder than the sea used to feel--but after a few splashes Olly began to get used to it, and to think it fine fun.

"Oh, father, fetch Milly, and then we'll all dance about," entreated Olly.

"Come, Milly," called Mr. Norton. "Try whether you can manage the stepping-stones by yourself." So Milly came, holding up her bathing dress, and stepping from one big stone to another with a very grave face, as if she felt that there would be an end of her altogether if she tumbled in. And then, splash! In she jumped by the side of Olly, and after a little shiver or two she also began to think that the river was a delightful bathing place, almost as nice as the sea, perhaps in some ways nicer, because it was such a strange and funny one. They danced and splashed about in the brown sparkling water till they were tired, and at last Olly stopped to take breath.

"I should think the fishes must be frightened of us," he said, peering down into the river. "I can't see any, father."

"Well, they wouldn't choose to swim about just where little children are shouting and capering. The fishes are hidden safe away under the banks and the big stones. Besides, it's going to be a very hot day, and they like the shady bits of the river. Just here there's no shade."

Suddenly there was a great commotion in the river, and when Mr. Norton looked round for a second he could see nothing of Milly, till up came a dripping head and a pair of hands, and there was Milly kneeling on the stones at the bottom of the river, with just her head above water, looking very much astonished and rather frightened.

"Why, what happened, old woman?" said Mr. Norton, holding out his hand to help her up.