So saying, she drooped her limp figure on the wet grass and waited awhile, mute with disillusionment and weariness, stricken with the sorry prospect before her. Auna had no more dignity, then, than a broken butterfly. She had come to the wilderness, sharing the madness of June; and now, knowing its dreariness, remembered the deserted happiness. She was the first recruit to the glorious company of the disobedient.
Bim had not time to frame an answer to her question before his delight received another delicious shock. Here actually was one more fairy from Elfland--Laurel of the Golden Uplands--where the broom is in its glory and the brave gorse glows. She, too, had flown thither in obedience to June's appeal, and brought smiles with her. There was bravery in her eyes, but the influence of the elfless Metropolis affected her as it had affected June and Auna. She, also, drooped on the grass.
There followed others. Bim's eyes and mouth opened wider and wider as the numbers grew. It was a wonderful morning. One by one the fairies came, until seventeen of all degrees--knights and sweet presences--studded the grass beside him. He was flabbergasted. His wits, through this feast of joyous surprises, were stunned and groping, until, with a long, long pull, he got himself together again.
For a full half-hour the fairies rested. Bim felt the flattery of fine company. He forced himself to sit severely upright, as if he were one with them, as indeed he deserved to be, and kept the wand prominently forward. He felt towards them somewhat as a longshoreman does to the week-end tripper. He could speak with uncontradictable authority. He knew London; these, his masters, were novices.
The sun rose, swathing every dew-burdened grass-blade with light. An elderly starling and several sparrows gathered about the fairy circle, curious of these new-comers. Bim, seeing the gaping wonder of the drab creatures, "shoo-ed" them; but back they came, and always came, to chatter with many twitterings about these mimic immortals, whose existence in that jerry-built world they had learnt to be ignorant of. More and more sparrows arrived, with a few larger birds--draggled thrushes and shabby blackbirds, but no smaller birds of beauty. The sparrows had taken care of that.
It was the chattering of this inquiring concourse which roused the fairies from stupor. One of the knights--Felcine of the Silver Wings--addressed himself to Bim.
"You are the gnome who accompanied June?"
"I am," he replied proudly. "I am her servant and companion. What London was before we came--ah!" Bim drew a sweeping line with the wand, in gesture expressive.
"Then tell us what you have done," Felcine commanded.
Bim in his best voice told his tale to the hearers. It was, doubtless, a lame epitome of recent history, but it served to quicken their interest in the new departure, and to intensify their shame for having been so long in coming. He spoke of Paradise Court and Sally, of the want and the sweating; then of the improvements wrought in that colony of the very poor. He enlightened them about the world of commerce, the Lord Mayor's banquet, the Oldsteins' emporium; told of the Archdeacon's efforts; of the visit to Armingham House; of innumerable other episodes and experiences, many of which have necessarily been excluded, even from this chronicle and history. Not a word did he say of the coming of the fairy host to Paradise Court, or of its going again. Bim--tactful fellow!--knew how to dodge the disagreeable.