“Alix,” said Rafe in his turn.
Then they looked at each other, thinking the same thoughts.
“Rafe,” whispered Alix, while the wren still stood there looking at them, “just look at her; she’s not a bird, she’s a fairy – or at least if she’s not a fairy she’s got some message for us from one.”
The wren hopped on a few steps, still looking back at them. The children slipped off the seat and moved softly after her without speaking. On she went, hopping, then fluttering just a little way above the ground, then hopping again, till in this way she had led them right across the wide stretch of lawn to some shrubberies at the far side. Here a small footpath, scarcely visible till you were close to it, led through the bushes to a strip of half-wild garden ground, used as a sort of nursery for young trees, which skirted a lane known by the name of the “Ladywood Path.” And indeed it was little more than a path nowadays, for few passed that way, though the story went that in the old days it had been a good road leading to a house that was no longer in existence.
Over the low wall clambered the children, to find to their delight that the wren was in the lane before them, just a little way ahead. But now she took to flying higher and faster than she had yet done; to keep up with her at all they had to run, and even with this they sometimes lost sight of her altogether for a minute or two. But they kept up bravely – they were too eager and excited to waste breath by speaking. The race lasted for some minutes, till at last, just as Alix was about to give in, Rafe suddenly twitched her arm.
“Stop, Alix,” he panted – truth to tell, the running was harder on him than on his sister, for Rafe was of an easy-going disposition, and not given to violent exercise – “stop, Alix, she’s lighted on the old gateway.”
They both stood still and looked. Yes, there was Madam Wren on the topmost bar of a dilapidated wooden gate, standing between two solid posts at what had once been the entrance to the beautiful garden of an ancient house.
How beautiful neither the children nor any one now living knew, for even the very oldest inhabitants of that part of the country could only dimly remember having been told by their grandparents, or great-grandparents perhaps, how once upon a time Ladywood Hall had been the pride of the neighbourhood.
The wren flapped her wings, then rose upwards and flew off. This time, somehow, the children felt that it was no use trying to follow her.
“She’s gone for good,” said Rafe dolefully; but Alix’s eyes sparkled.
“You are stupid,” she said. “Don’t you see what she’s told us. We’re to look for – for something, or some one, I don’t quite know what, in the Lady’s garden.” For so somehow the grounds of the vanished house had come to be spoken of. “I think it was very dull of us not to have thought of it for ourselves, for it is a very fairy sort of place.”
“If it is that way,” said Rafe, “they must have heard us talking, and sent the wren to tell us.”
“Of course,” said Alix, “that’s just what I mean. Perhaps the wren is one herself.”
“Shall we go on now?” said Rafe. “No” – for just at that moment the clear sound of a bell ringing reached them from the direction of their own home – “for there’s our dinner.” And dinner was an important event in Rafe’s eyes, even when rivalled by a fairy hunt.
“How provoking,” said Alix. “How quickly the morning has gone. We must go in now or they will come hunting us up and find out all about it; and you know, Rafe, if it has anything to do with fairies we must keep it a secret.”
Rafe nodded his head sagely.
“Of course,” he replied. “When do you think we had best come? This afternoon we are going a walk with nurse, and she’d never let us off.”
“No,” said Alix, with a sigh, for a walk with nurse was not a very interesting affair. “But I’ll tell you what, Rafe; if I can get hold of mamma to-night, just even for a minute, I’ll ask her if we mayn’t take something for dinner out with us to-morrow, and not come in till tea-time – the way we sometimes did last summer; for just now it’s really as fine and warm as if it was June. I think she’ll let us.”
“I do hope she will,” said the boy.
Chapter Two.
Tapping
The children were not very fortunate in their nurse. Perhaps this helped to make them feel lonely and dull sometimes, when there scarcely seemed real reason for their being so. She was a good woman, and meant to be kind, and their mother trusted her completely. But she was getting old, and was rather tired of children. She had had such a lot to bring up – the four big brothers and sisters of Rafe and Alix, and before them a large family of their cousins. And I don’t think she was really very fond of children, though she was devoted to tiny babies. She didn’t in the least understand children’s fancifulnesses or many of their little ways, and was far too fond of saying, “Stuff and nonsense, Master Rafe,” or “Miss Alix,” as the case might be.
The walk this afternoon would not have been any livelier than usual, so far as nurse was concerned, but the children were so brimful of their new ideas that they felt quite bright and happy, and after a while even nurse was won over to enter into their talk, or at least to answer their questions pretty cheerfully.
For though of course they had not the least idea of telling her their secret, it was too much on their minds for them not to chatter round about it, so to say.
“Have you ever seen a fairy, nurse?” said Alix; and, rather to her surprise, nurse answered quite seriously:
“No, my dear. Time was, I suppose, as such things were to be seen, but that’s past and gone. People have to work too hard nowadays to give any thought to fairies or fairyland.”
But on the whole this reply was rather encouraging.
“You must have heard of fairies, though,” said Rafe. “Can’t you remember any stories about them?”
Nurse had never been great at story-telling.
“Oh dear no, Master Rafe,” she replied; “I never knew any except the regular old ones, that you’ve got far prettier in your books than I could tell them. Sayings I may have heard, just countryside talk, when I was a child. My old granny, who lived and died in the village here, would have it that, for those that cared to look for them, there were odd sights and sounds in the grounds of the old house down the lane. Beautiful singing her mother had heard there when she was a girl; and once when a cow strayed in there for a night, they said when she came out again she was twice the cow she had been before, and that no milk was ever as good as hers.”
The children looked at each other.
“I wonder they didn’t turn all the cows in there,” said Rafe practically.
“Why didn’t they, nurse?”
“Oh dear me, Master Rafe, that’s more than I can tell. It was but an old tale. You can’t expect much sense in such.”
“Whom did the old house belong to? Who lived there?” said Alix.
“Nobody knows,” said nurse. “It’s too long ago to say. But there’s always been good luck about the place, that’s certain. You’ve seen the flowers there in the summer time. Some of them look as beautiful as if they were in a proper garden; and it’s certain sure there’s no wood near here like it for the nightingales.”
This was very satisfactory so far as it went, but nurse would say no more, doubtless because she had nothing more to say.
“I do believe, Rafe,” said Alix, when they were sitting together after tea, “that the old garden is a sort of entrance to fairyland, and that it’s been waiting for us to find it out.”
Her eyes were shining with eagerness, and Rafe, too, felt very excited.
“I do hope mamma will let us have all to-morrow to ourselves,”