One elderly woman bumped by, sitting in a kind of dreadful bath chair fastened in front of a motor bicycle, spattering noise and petrol. You couldn't see her features under her expression, which was agonized. The young man who propelled her was smirking conceitedly, as if to say, "What a kind chap I am, giving my maiden aunt a good time!"
Presently a small car came limping along that had "We Know It" printed in large, rough letters on a card, tied to a broken wheel. Wasn't that a good idea, when they'd got nervous prostration having everybody tell them?
Cows paused, gazed at us, and sneered; but at last Apollo's crumb was extracted; Young Nick brushed the dust off his sleeves by rubbing his arms together, the way flies clean their antennæ, and we were ready to go on. "It's a wise car that knows its own chauffeur," said Mrs. Senter.
Just because this happened, and because a tire presently burst in sheer sympathy, we travelled in the beginning of sunset, which was divine. The scene swam in rose-coloured light, so pink it seemed as if you could bottle it, and it would still be pink. The tree trunks were cased in ruddy gold, like the gold leaf wrapped round royal mummies. Making up for lost time, the white road smoked beneath our tires, and we were soon in the New Forest—the old, old New Forest, perfumed like the fore-court of heaven.
We came to this pretty little hotel, in the midst of heathery spaces like a cutting in the aromatic forest. I like my room, but I didn't want to stop in it and begin dressing for dinner. Looking out of my window, I saw a little white moon, curved like a baby's arm, cushioned among banks of sky azaleas, so I felt I must go out and drink the sunset. I had left too much of that rose-red wine in the bottom of the silver goblet. I must have the last drop!
So I ran downstairs; and I warn you, now comes the experience which I liked so much, but of which you won't approve.
The landlord stood in the hall, and I asked him if there were anything wonderful I could go and see in a few minutes. He smiled, and said it wouldn't take me very long to find Rufus's Stone, but he would not advise me to do it. I replied that I wouldn't ask him to advise, if he'd point out the road, and probably I should only venture a little way. He was a nice man, so he went out in front of the hotel to point, and lent me a puppy as a companion.
The puppy was no respecter of persons. All he cared for was a walk, so he kindly consented to take me with him, gambolling ahead as if he knew where I wanted to go. That tempted me on, and the way wasn't hard to find, for the puppy or for me. We played into each other's paws, and when I was lost he found me, or vice versa. The first thing I knew, there was the Stone. Nobody could mistake it, even from a distance; and going down to it from the top of a hill, it was still light enough to read the inscription.
This was my first entrance into the heart of fairyland.
William Rufus couldn't have chosen a more ideal spot to die in, if he'd picked it out himself from a list of a hundred others; and the evening silence under the great, gray beeches seemed as if it had lasted a thousand years, always the same, old and wise as Mother Earth. Then, suddenly, it was broken by the rustle and stir of a cock pheasant, which appeared from somewhere as if by magic, and stood for an instant all kingly, his breast blazing with jewelled orders in the sunset. Me he regarded with the haughty defiance of a Norman prince, and screamed with rage at the puppy, all his theories upset, because he had been so positive the world was entirely his. So it was, if he'd only stopped to let me assure him that he owned all the best things in it; but he whirred and soared; and thus I realized instantly that he was a fairy in disguise. How stupid of me not to have guessed while he was there!