Old Battershall guffawed.
"You wasn' sarchin' for flowers, was you? Dang me, but that's a good 'un!… I don't raise my own seed, missie, if that's your meanin'; an' that bein' so, he'd have to get up early as would find a flower in my parsley."
Ah, this might explain it! As she eyed him, her childish mind searching the mystery, yet keeping its own secret, Corona resolved to steal down to the garden one of these fine mornings very early indeed.
"Now I'll tell you something about parsley," said Mr. Battershall; "something very curious, and yet it must be true, for I heard the Master tell it in one of his sermons. The ancients, by which I mean the Greeks, set amazin' store by the yerb. There was a kind of Athletic Sports—sort of Crystal Palace meetin'—the great event, as you might say, and attractin' to sportsmen all over Greece—"
"All over what?"
"Greece. Which is a country, missy, or, at any rate, was so. The meeting was held every four years; and what d'ye suppose was the top prize, answerin', as you may say, to the Championship Cup? Why, a wreath o' parsley! 'Garn!' says you. And 'Parsley!' says you. Which a whole wreath of it might cost fivepence at the outside.…"
Now Corona, whose mind was ever picking up and hoarding such trifles, had heard Uncle Copas two days before drop a remark that the Greeks knew everything worth knowing. Plainly, then, the parsley held some wonderful secret after all. She must contrive to outwit old Battershall, and get to the garden ahead of him, which would not be easy, by the way.
To begin with, on these summer mornings old Battershall rose with the lark, and boasted of it; and, furthermore, the door of her father's bedroom stood open all night. To steal abroad she must pass it, and he was the lightest of sleepers. She did not intend to be beaten, though; and meanwhile she punctually visited the parsley morning and evening.
Heaven knows how the day-dream came to take possession of her. She was not consciously lonely. She worshipped this marvellous new home. Sometimes in her rambles she had to pinch herself to make sure this was all really happening. But always in her rambles she saw St. Hospital peopled with children—boys, girls, and little toddlers—chasing one another across the lawns, laughing at hide-and-seek in the archways, bruising no flower-bed, filling old souls with glee. They were her playmates, these innocents of her fancy, the long day through. At evening in her prayers she called them home, and they came reluctant—
No, no, let us play, for it is yet day
And we cannot go to sleep;
Besides, in the sky the little birds fly
And the hills are all covered with sheep.