“No,” she said, “nor any of thine. It fell from the sky, from another world, deary, that’s strange to ours, and the gipsies found it in the wild places of the woods. There was a smell came from it like the sugar of all flowers, and it was as light as foam and as hard as the beaten rocks.”
She undid the packet while she spoke, and I saw a number of tiny grey cubes, like frothy pumice-stone, one of which she detached, and gave to me.
“It wrought upon them even to madness,” she said, “so that they took and broke it with their mattocks. And, lo! the nameless thing was found in its scattered parts a virtue, even like the poisons which, taken in little, heal. Smell to it when the world is dark, and your brain shall flash into light, like an inn to the tired traveller. Smell to it when your feet go sick and heavy, and you shall feel them like the birds’ whose bones are full of wind. But tell not of the gift or giver, lest I die!”
Involuntarily, as she spoke, I had raised the stone to my nostrils. A faint scent as of menthene intoxicated my brain. The downs and the sky swam before me in one luminous mist. Lightness and delight took all my soul and body with rapture....
A shout brought me to myself. I was sitting on the grass, with the duck-stone still tight in my clutch. The gipsy was gone, how long I could not tell, and up the road was coming a second cortège, more brilliant than the former. A dozen young fellows, all volunteer runners and dressed in white, preceded a coach in which sat a rich-apparelled lady, very bold and handsome, and escorted by a splendid cavalcade of gentlemen. It was the Duchess of Cumberland, who followed her husband to the seaside, as I was to learn by and by; for while I was collecting my drowsy young wits to look, a wonderful thing happened. A horseman drew up with a cry, dismounted, seized and bore me to his saddle, and rode away with me after the carriage. It was my father, flushed and jovial, the pink and Corinthian of his company, as he always was.
He showed no curiosity over the encounter, nor scruple in taking me with him. He was in wild spirits, laughing and teasing, and sometimes he reeled in his saddle in a way to endanger my balance. But the rush of air restored me to myself, and I had the wit, for all my excitement, to slip my charm, which I still held, into a pocket.
So we raced for the town, and presently drew up at the Castle Tavern, where His Royal Highness and his wife, the late Mrs. Horton, were quartering themselves.
The time which followed is confused in my remembrance. I was put in charge of a chambermaid, given a dish of tea and cake, and presently fell fast asleep, to awake smiling and rosy to the summons of my pleasant Clarinda. A lackey in a magnificent scarlet livery awaited me at the door, received me into his arms, and carried me downstairs to a long room blazing with waxlights, where, at a white table spilt all over with a profusion of fruit and crystal, sat a gorgeous company of gentlemen and ladies. Such silks and laces, such feathers and diamonds, I had never in my young day encountered. It was like the most beautiful fair I had ever seen, and the red faces of the company were the coloured bladders bobbing in the stalls. Still, I had not lost my self-possession, when my father reeled round in his chair, and catching me away from the servant, set me on my feet on the table itself.
I was a little confused by the tumult which greeted my exaltation.
“Diane,” whispered my father in my ear, “go and tell the duke in a pretty speech that I send my love to him.”