THE THREE BLACK PONDS At the bottom of the valley, approached by sunken honeysuckle lanes that seemed winding into the centre of the earth, lay three black ponds, almost hidden in a cul-de-sac of woodland. Though long since appropriated by nature, made her own by moss and rooted oaks, they were so set one below the other, with green causeways between each, that an ancient art, long since become nature, had evidently designed and dug them, years, perhaps centuries, ago. So long dead were the old pond-makers that great trees grew now upon the causeways, and vast jungles of rush and water grasses choked the trickling overflows from one pond to the other. Once, it was said, when the earth of those parts had been rich in iron, these ponds had driven great hammers,—but long before the memory of the oldest cottager they had rested from their labours, and lived only the life of beauty and silence. Where iron had once been was now the wild rose, and the grim wounds of the earth had been healed by the kisses of five hundred springs. About these ponds stole many a secret path, veined with clumsy roots, shadowed with the thick bush of many a clustering parasite, and echoing sometimes beneath from the hollowed shelter of coot or water-rat. Lilies floated in circles about the ponds, like the crowns of sunken queens, and sometimes a bird broke the silence with a frightened cry. It was here that Beatrice and Wonder would often take their morning walk,—Wonder, though but a little girl of four, having grown more and more of a companion to her mother, since Antony's love for Silencieux. A morning in August the two were walking hand in hand. Wonder was one of those little girls that seem to know all the meanings of life, while yet struggling with the alphabet of its unimportant words. The soul of such a child is, of all things, the most mysterious. There was that in her face, as she clung on to her mother's hand, which seemed to say: "O mother, I understand it all, and far more; if I might only talk to you in the language of heaven,—but my words are like my little legs, frail and uncertain of their footing, and, while I think all your strange grown-up thoughts, I can only talk of toys and dolls. Mother, father's blood as well as yours is in my veins, and so I understand you both. Poor little mother! Poor little father!" Little Wonder looked these things, she may indeed have thought them; but all she said was: "O mother, what was that?" "That was a rabbit, dear. See, there is another! See his fluffy white tail!" And again: "O mother, what was that?" "That was a water-hen, dear. She has a little house, a warm nest, close to the water among the bushes yonder, and she calls like that to let her little children know she's coming home with some dainty things for lunch. She means 'Hush! Hush! Don't be frightened. I'm coming just as fast as I can.'" "Funny little mother! What pretty stories you tell me. But do the birds really talk—Oh, but look, little mother, there's Daddy—" It was Antony, deep in some dream of Silencieux. "Daddy! Daddy!" cried the little girl. He took her tenderly by the hand. "Daddy, where have you been all this long time? You have brought me no flowers for ever so long." "Flowers, little Wonder—they are nearly all gone away, gone to sleep till next year—But see, I will gather you something prettier than flowers." And, hardly marking Beatrice, he led Wonder up and down among the winding underwood. Fungi of exquisite yellows and browns were popping up all about the wood. He gathered some of the most delicate, and put them into the fresh small hands. "But, Daddy, I mustn't eat them, must I?" "No, dear—they are too beautiful to eat. You must just look at them and love them, like flowers." "But they are not flowers, Daddy. They don't smell like flowers. I would rather have flowers, Daddy." "But there are no flowers till next year. You must learn to love these too, little Wonder; they are more beautiful than flowers." "Oh, no, Daddy, they are not—" "Antony," said Beatrice, "how strange you are! Would you poison her? See, dear," (turning to Wonder) "Daddy is only teasing. Let us throw them away. They are nasty, nasty things. Promise me never to gather them, won't you, Wonder?" "Yes, mother. I don't like them. They frighten me." Antony turned into a by-path with a strange laugh, and was lost to them in the wood. |