It was a hot afternoon in mid-June, and Paul was lying with his pipe upon the lawn. His sister was out driving. He was alone with the children and the smaller portion of the menagerie,—smaller in size, that is, not in numbers; cats, kittens, and puppies were either asleep, or on the hunt, all about them. And from an open window a parrot was talking ridiculously in mixed French and English.
The giant cedars spread their branches; in the limes the bees hummed drowsily; the world lay a scented garden around him, and a very soft wind stole to and fro, stirring the bushes with sleepy murmurs and making the flowers nod.
China and Japan lay panting in the shade behind him, and not far off reposed the big grey Persian, Mrs. Tompkyns. Regardless of the heat, Pouf, Zezette, and Dumps flitted here and there as though the whole lawn was specially made for their games; and Smoke, the black cat, dignified and mysterious, lay with eyes half-closed just near enough for Paul to stroke his sleek, hot sides when he felt so disposed. He—Smoke that is—blinked indifferently at passing butterflies, or twitched his great tail at the very tip when a bird settled in the branches overhead; but for the most part he was intent upon other matters—matters of genuine importance that concerned none but himself.
A few yards off Jonah and Toby were doing something with daisies—what it was Paul could not see; and on his other side Nixie lay flat upon the grass and gazed into the sky. The governess was—where all governesses should be out of lesson-time—elsewhere.
'Nixie, you're sleeping. Wake up.'
She rolled over towards him. 'No, Uncle Paul, I'm not. I was only thinking.'
'Thinking of what?'
'Oh, clouds and things; chiefly clouds, I think.' She pointed to the white battlements of summer that were passing very slowly over the heavens. 'It's so funny that you can see them move, yet can't see the thing that pushes them along.' 'Wind, you mean? '
'H'mmmmm.'
They lay flat on their backs and watched. Nixie made a screen of her hair and peered through it. Paul did the same with his fingers.
'You can touch it, and smell it, and hear it,' she went on, half to herself, 'but you can't see it.'
'I suspect there are creatures that can see the wind, though,' he remarked sleepily.
'I 'spect so too,' she said softly. 'I think I could if I really tried hard enough. If I was very, oh very kind and gentle and polite to it, I think '
'Come and tell me quietly,' Paul said with excitement. 'I believe you're right.'
He scented a delightful aventure. The child turned over on the grass twice, roller fashion, and landed against him, lying on her face with her chin in her hands and her heels clicking softly in the air.
She began to explain what she meant. 'You must listen properly because it's rather difficult to explain, you know'; he heard her breathing into his ear, and then her voice grew softer and fainter as she went on. Lower and lower it grew, murmuring like a distant mill-wheel, softer and softer; wonderful sentences and words all running gently into each other without pause, somewhere below ground. It began to sound far away, and it melted into the humming of the bees in the lime trees. . . . Once or twice it stopped altogether, Paul thought, so that he missed whole sentences. . . . Gaps came, gaps filled with no definite words, but only the inarticulate murmur of summer and summer life. . . .
Then, without warning, he became conscious of a curious sinking sensation, as though the solid lawn beneath him had begun to undulate. The turf grew soft like air, and swam up over him in green waves till his head was covered. His ears became muffled; Nixie's voice no longer reached him as something outside himself; it was within—curiously running, so to speak, with his blood. He sank deeper and deeper into a delicious, soothing medium that both covered and penetrated him.
The child had him by the hand, that was all he knew, then—a long sliding motion, and forget-fulness.
'I'm off,' he remembered thinking, 'off at last into a real aventure!'
Down they sank, down, down; through soft darkness, and long, shadowy places, passing through endless scented caverns, and along dim avenues that stretched, for ever and ever it seemed, beneath the gloom of mighty trees. The air was cool and perfumed with earth. They were in some underworld, strangely muted, soundless, mysterious. It grew very dark.
'Where are we, Nixie?' He did not feel alarm; but a sense of wonder, touched delightfully by awe, had begun to send thrills along his nerves. Her reply in his ear was like a voice in a tiny trumpet, far away, very soft. 'Come along! Follow me!'
'I'm coming. But it's so dark.'
'Hush,' she whispered. 'We're in a dream together. I'm not sure where exactly. Keep close to me.'
'I'm coming,' he repeated, blundering over the roots beside her; 'but where are we? I can't see a bit.'
'Tread softly. We're in a lost forest—just before the dawn,' he heard her voice answer faintly.
'A forest underground? You mean a coal measure?' he asked in amazement.
She made no answer. 'I think we're going to see the wind,' she added presently.
Her words thrilled him inexplicably. It was as if—in that other world of gross values—some one had said, 'You're going to make a million!' It was all hushed and soft and subdued. Everything had a coating of plush.
'We've gone backwards somewhere—a great many years. But it's all right. There's no time in dreams.'
'It's dreadfully dark,' he whispered, tripping again.
The persuasion of her little hand led him along over roots and through places of deep moss. Great spaces, he felt, were about him. Shadows coated everything with silence. It was like the vast primeval forests of his country across the seas. The map of the world had somehow shifted, and here, in little England, he found the freedom of those splendid scenes of desolation that he craved. Millions of huge trees reared up about them through the gloom, and he felt their presence, though invisible.
'The sun isn't up yet,' she added after a bit. He held her hand tightly, as they stumbled slowly forward together side by side. He began to feel extraordinarily alive. Exhilaration seized him. He could have shouted with excitement.
'Hush!' whispered his guide, 'do be careful. You'll upset us both.' The trembling of his hand betrayed him. 'You stumble like an om'ibus! '
'I'm all right. Go ahead!' he replied under his breath. 'I can see better now!'
'Now look,' she said, stopping in front of him and turning round.
The darkness lifted somewhat as he bent down to follow the direction of her gaze. On every side, dim and thronging, he saw the stems of immense trees rising upwards into obscurity. There were hundreds upon hundreds of them. His eyes followed their outline till the endless number bewildered him. Overhead, the stars were shining faintly through the tangled network of their branches. Odours of earth and moss and leaves, cool and delicate, rose about them; vast depths of silence stretched away in every direction. Great ferns stood motionless, with all the magic of frosted window-panes, among their roots. All was still and dark and silent. It was the heart of a great forest before the dawn—prehistoric, unknown to man.
'Oh, I wonder—I wonder 'began Paul,
groping about him clumsily with his hands to feel the way.
'Oh, please don't talk so loud,' Nixie whispered, pinching his arm; 'we shall wake up if you do. Only people in dreams come to places like this.'
'You know the place?' he exclaimed with increasing excitement. 'So do I almost. I'm sure this has all happened before, only I can't remember '
'We must keep as still as mice.'
'We are—still as mice.'
'This