The Count dismounted and sent his servants to the house, but himself set out secretly for the garden; soon he reached the fence, found an opening in it, and slunk in quietly, as a wolf into a sheepfold; unluckily he jostled some dry gooseberry bushes. The little gardener glanced around as though frightened by the rustling, but perceived nothing; however, she ran to the other side of the garden. But along the edge, among the great sorrel plants and amid the leaves of burdock, the Count, leaping like a frog over the grass, quietly crawled near on his hands and knees; he put out his head, and beheld a marvellous sight.
In that part of the garden grew scattered cherry trees; among them grain and vegetables, purposely of mixed varieties: wheat, maize, beans, bearded barley, millet, peas, and even bushes and flowers. The housekeeper had devised such a garden for the poultry; she was famous for her skill—her name was Mrs. Hennibiddy, born Miss Turkee. Her invention made an epoch in poultry-raising: to-day it is universally known, but in those times it was still passed about as a novelty and received under the seal of secrecy by only a few persons, until at last the almanac published it under the heading, A cure for hawks and kites, or a new method of raising poultry—that meant this garden patch.
As soon as the cock that keeps watch stands still, and, throwing back and holding motionless his bill, and inclining to one side his head with its red comb, that he may the more easily aim at the heavens with his eye, perceives a hawk hanging beneath the clouds, he calls the alarm: at once the hens take refuge in this garden—even the geese and peacocks, and the doves in their sudden fright, if they have not time to hide beneath the roof.
Now no enemy was to be seen in the sky, but the summer sun was burning fiercely; from it the birds had taken refuge in the grove of grain: some were lying on the turf, others bathing in the sand.
Amid the birds' heads rose little human heads, uncovered, with short hair, white as flax, their necks bare to the shoulders; in their midst was a girl, a head higher than they, with longer hair. Just behind the children sat a peacock, and spread out wide the circle of its tail into a many-coloured rainbow, against the deep blue of which the little white heads were relieved [pg 64] as on the background of a picture; they gathered radiance, being surrounded by the gleaming eyes of the tail as by a wreath of stars, and they shone amid the grain as in the transparent ether, between the golden stalks of the maize, the English grass with its silvery stripes, the coral mercury, and the green mallow, the forms and colours of which were mingled together like a lattice plaited of silver and gold, and waving in the air like a light veil.
Above the mass of many-coloured ears and stalks hung like a canopy a bright cloud of butterflies,[50] whose four-parted wings were light as a spider's web and transparent as glass; when they hover in the air they are hardly visible, and, though they hum, you fancy that they are motionless.
The girl waved in her uplifted hand a grey tassel, like a bunch of ostrich plumes, and seemed to be protecting with it the heads of the children from the golden rain of the butterflies—in her other hand shone something horn-like and gilded, apparently an instrument for feeding children, for she approached it to each child in turn; it was formed like the golden horn of Amalthea.
Even though thus engaged she turned her head towards the gooseberry bushes, mindful of the rustling she had heard among them, and not knowing that her assailant had already drawn near from the opposite direction, crawling like a serpent over the borders. Suddenly he jumped out from the burdock; she looked—he was standing near at hand, four beds away from her, and was bowing low. She had already turned away her head and lifted her arms, and was hurrying to fly away like a frightened lark, and already her light steps [pg 65] were brushing over the leaves, when the children, frightened by the entrance of the stranger, and the flight of the girl, began to wail piteously. She heard them, and felt that it was unseemly to desert little children in their fright; she went back, hesitating, but she must needs go back, like an unwilling spirit, summoned by the incantations of a diviner. She ran up to divert the child that was shrieking the loudest, sat down by him on the ground, and clasped him to her bosom; the others she soothed with her hand and with tender words until they became calm, hugging her knees with their little arms and snuggling their heads, like chickens beneath their mother's wing. “Is it nice to cry so?” she said, “is it polite? This gentleman will be afraid of you; he did not come to frighten you, he is not an ugly old beggar; he is a guest, a kind gentleman, just see how pretty he is.”
She looked herself; the Count smiled pleasantly, and was evidently grateful to her for so many praises. She noticed this, and stopped, lowered her eyes, and blushed all over like a rosebud.
He was really a handsome gentleman; of tall stature, with an oval face, fair and with rosy cheeks; he had mild blue eyes and long blonde hair. The leaves and tufts of grass in the Count's hair, which he had torn off in crawling over the borders, showed green like a disordered wreath.