“Of course,” said Winfried cheerily. “It would never do, young as I am, not to work. And we shouldn’t enjoy this half as much if we had it always—it’s the rest and refreshment after common life that makes half the happiness. It’s different for gran—he’s done his part, none better, and now his work should be light I’m thankful to know he’s safe here. Now we had better go—down that little hill is the way to his cottage.”
Children, you have perhaps never been in fairyland, nor, for that matter, have I been there either. But I have had glimpses of it a good many times in my life, and so I hope have you. And these glimpses, do you know, become more frequent and are less fleeting as one grows older. I, at least, find it so. Is not that something to look forward to? Though, after all, this sweet country to which our three little friends, thanks to the beautiful princess, had found their way, was scarcely the dream region which we think of as fairyland; it was better described by little Mavis’s own name for the nameless garden—“Forget-me-not Land”; for once having entered there, no one can lose the remembrance of it, any more than once having looked into her eyes one can forget Princess Forget-me-not herself.
But it would be difficult to describe this magic land; I must leave a good deal of it to that kind of fancy which comes nearer truth than clumsy words. Though, as it is nice to be told all that can be told of the sweetest and most beautiful things, I will try to tell you a little of what Ruby and Mavis saw.
It might not have seemed such a lovely place to everybody, perhaps. Time had been even when Ruby herself might not have thought it so; for this garden-land was not a gorgeous place; it was just sweet and restful. As I told you, all the flowers were wild flowers; but that gives you no idea of what they looked like, for they were carefully tended and arranged, growing in great masses together in a way we never see, except sometimes in spring when the primroses almost hide the ground where they grow, or at midsummer when a rich luxuriance of dog-roses and honeysuckle makes it seem as if they had been “planted on purpose,” as children say. All along the grassy paths where Winfried led them, every step made the little girls exclaim in new admiration.
“Oh see, Ruby, there is a whole bank of ‘Robin.’ I could not have believed it would look so beautiful; and there—look at those masses of ‘sweet Cicely,’ just like snowflakes. And in our fields it is such a poor frightened little weed of a flower you scarcely notice it,” said Mavis.
“But it’s lovely if you look into it closely,” said Winfried. “Some of the very tiniest flowers are really the most beautiful.”
Then they came in sight of a stretch of hair-bells—white and blue—the kind that in some places are called “blue-bells.”
“Stop a moment,” said the boy. “Stop and listen—hush—there now, do you hear them ringing? That is a sound you can never hear in—anywhere but here.”
They listened with all their ears, you may be sure. Yes, as they grew accustomed to the exceeding stillness, to the clear thin fineness of the air, they heard the softest, sweetest tinkle you can imagine; a perfect fairy bell-ringing, and the longer they listened the clearer it grew.