Sally went on with her sewing.
CHAPTER IV
COCKNEYDOM
That night June made her nest among the chimney-pots. There was a broad cleft in the mortar which bound the stack, and a black hammock of thick cobweb swinging as the wind-drift blew upon it. June put the crown for safety underneath her; and, clasping the wand with both her guarding hands, reclined on the cobweb and waited for slumber.
Ordinarily sleep comes to fairies as it comes to birds, instantly and absolutely. But now June could not lose herself in its blessed forgetfulness. For a very long time she lay awake, staring at the veiled sky and listening with strained attention to the eternal throb and hum of the moving life around her.
Very far away, it seemed--far higher than ever in Fairyland it had appeared--the moon was ghostily journeying. There was now no such expression of interest on the lunar countenance, as there had been on the previous night, but dull wakefulness and watchful indifference. All the elves might have run awry and the flowers have withered, for aught the moon appeared to care.
June felt lonely then, especially as not a star was showing, and there were no nightingales. Fairyland seemed millions of miles away. She began to feel strange depression, to fear she had not done well in taking on herself the impossible quest. Just as every Quixote smarts from the despondence of folly, during the cold periods of a divine pilgrimage--so then did she.
June was as dismal as London could make her during those hours of involuntary vigil. As she swung in her cobweb, and stared at the starless mirk, she tried hard to impress on herself the need of her service, and the wisdom of that adventure. Owing to much weariness and the gloom, she took a lot of convincing.
The life of those mortals was truly a sad business. To think of Sally and her grown companions working continually for the sake of mere existence, enduring a life of want and ugliness, with the fairies nowhere near, was truly very sad! All the more need for her to go on and labour.
So it was settled.