The Four and Pavlo tore madly up the hill and, throwing themselves down on the pine needles under the trees, graciously signified to Chryseis that she “might tell stories.”
So the long fair hair was tossed back, the eyebrows were puckered for a moment, and then the quick little voice began:—
“There was once upon a time a dryad who lived in a great big tree ….”
Good old Kerberos had allowed Nikias to make a pillow of his soft black body, Philos lay curled up with his nose between his paws, and Deko stretched out his forelegs as far as they would stretch, making a prodigious curve in the middle of his back; then suddenly righting himself he sat back on his haunches, twitched his pointed ears backwards and forwards and prepared to listen with the rest.
Over their heads the “batti” made a soft roar as of the sea, in the pine branches the fir cones cracked in the heat, and far away over the Narrow Beach there were white-tipped waves on the open sea, that made Andromache whisper to Pavlo, “It will not be too hot later on; they will let us go to the Monastery.”
It was glorious! glorious! glorious! Certainly the Four had no words then to describe how they loved it all. Since then, Iason has turned some of the glory of those days into verse, and those who read it, feel the warm scent of the pine, the note of the tettix, and the blue of that sea, but he and the other three know that only when colour-words are invented can the real beauty of those sights and sounds be expressed!
IV
In the days that followed, Athens and Solon Street and the thick dust of the streets and Aphrodite’s cross frown seemed very far away indeed to Pavlo; even of his uncle he saw very little; now and then the doctor came to luncheon or to dinner on the terrace, but already he seemed to belong to a past life. There was so much to see and to do! There were delightful torpedo boats to watch, steaming in and out of the bay and sometimes passing quite close under the terrace; there were the long narrow boats from the Naval School, full of new sailors learning how to row; there was fishing with home-made bamboo rods off the end of the landing stage, while the broad flapping straw hats which they were all obliged to wear because of the sun were weighted down on the ground with stones, so as to be better out of their way, as soon as the grown-ups were not looking; there was fire-fishing with spearing rods from the boat at nights when there was no moon; there were rambling afternoon walks to the Monastery or to the beach of the little pines; there were longer expeditions to the Devil’s Bridge, to the lemon wood, or up to the Seven Mills;[15] there were visits to the funny little shops of the village in search of picture post cards, or even of what sweets Poros could supply, when the town stock ran out. For of course, visiting aunts and uncles and cousins generally brought proper boxes of chocolates and sweets from Athens; and though the grown-ups never failed to repeat the same stupid remarks such as, “How you are spoiling the children!” or, “Indeed that was quite unnecessary!” still visitors scarcely ever failed to fulfill this elementary duty. Once, a certain absent-minded uncle so far forgot his obligations, as to bring only some silly old caramels, and Pavlo heard all the abuse that was lavished on him.
