Once on a Time

  CHAPTER XV

  THERE IS A LOVER WAITING FOR HYACINTH

  So the next morning before breakfast Wiggs went up on to the castlewalls and wished. She looked over the meadows, and across thepeaceful stream that wandered through them, to the forest where shehad met her fairy, and she gave a little sigh. "Good-bye, dancing,"she said; and then she held the ring up and went on bravely, "Please Iwas a very good girl all yesterday, and I wish that Prince Udo may bewell again."

  For a full minute there was silence. Then from the direction of Udo'sroom below there came these remarkable words:

  "_Take the beastly stuff away, and bring me a beefsteak and a flagonof sack!_"

  Between smiles and tears Wiggs murmured, "He _sounds_ all right. I_am_ g--glad."

  And then she could bear it no longer. She hurried down and out of thePalace--away, away from Udo and the Princess and the Countess and alltheir talk, to the cool friendly forest, there to be alone and tothink over all that she had lost.

  It was very quiet in the forest. At the foot of her own favouritetree, a veteran of many hundred summers who stood sentinel over anopen glade that dipped to a gurgling brook and climbed gently awayfrom it, she sat down. On the soft green yonder she might havedanced, an enchanted place, and now--never, never, never. . . .

  How long had she sat there? It must have been a long time--becausethe forest had been so quiet, and now it was so full of sound. Thetrees were murmuring something to her, and the birds were singing it,and the brook was trying to tell it too, but it would keep chucklingover the very idea so that you could hardly hear what it was saying,and there were rustlings in the grass--"Get up, get up," everythingwas calling to her; "dance, dance."

  She got up, a little frightened. Everything seemed so strangelybeautiful. She had never felt it like this before. Yes, she woulddance. She must say, "Thank you," for all this somehow; perhaps theywould excuse her if it was not very well expressed.

  "This will just be for 'Thank you'" she said as she got up. "I shallnever dance again."

  _And then she danced_]

  And then she danced. . . .

  _Where are you, Hyacinth? There is a lover waiting for you somewhere,my dear._

  It is the first of Spring. The blackbird opens his yellow beak, andwhistles cool and clear. There is blue magic in the morning; the sky,deep-blue above, melts into white where it meets the hills. The windwaits for you up yonder--will you go to meet it? Ah, stay here! Thehedges have put on their green coats for you; misty green are the tallelms from which the rooks are chattering. Along the clean white road,between the primrose banks, he comes. Will you be round thiscorner?----or the next? He is looking for you, Hyacinth.

  (She rested, breathless, and then danced again.)

  It is summer afternoon. All the village is at rest save one."Cuck-oo!" comes from the deep dark trees; "Cuck-oo!" he calls again,and flies away to send back the answer. The fields, all green andgold, sleep undisturbed by the full river which creeps along them.The air is heavy with the scent of may. Where are you, Hyacinth? Isnot this the trysting-place? I have waited for you so long! . . .

  She stopped, and the watcher in the bushes moved silently away, hismind aflame with fancies.

  Wiggs went back to the Palace to tell everybody that she could dance.

  * * * * *

  "Shall we tell her how it happened?" said Udo jauntily. "I justrecited a couple of lines--poetry, you know--backwards, and--well,here I am!"

  "O----oh!" said Wiggs.