Off she went, trapesing over the field in the moonlight, her wings folded behind her, her body bent a little forward as she searched, and in ten minutes she came back with her hands full. That was undoubtedly the time to enjoy mushrooms at their best, with the dew still on their tight little jackets, and the sweet odour of the earth caught under their umbrellas.
Soon they were all eaten, and Jimbo was lying back on a pile of hay, his shoulders against the wall of the stack, and his wings gathered round him like a warm cloak of feathers. He felt cosy and dozy, full of mushrooms inside and covered with hay and feathers outside. The governess had once told him that a sort of open-air sleep sometimes came after a long flight. It was, of course, not a real sleep, but a state in which everything about oneself is forgotten; no dreams, no movement, no falling asleep and waking up in the ordinary sense, but a condition of deep repose in which recuperation is very great.
Jimbo would have been greatly interested, no doubt, to know that his real body on the bed had also just been receiving nourishment, and was now pa.s.sing into a quieter and less feverish condition. The parallel always held true between himself and his body in the nursery, but he could not know anything about this, and only supposed that it was this open-air sleep that he felt gently stealing over him.
It brought at first strange thoughts that carried him far away to other woods and other fields. While Miss Lake sat beside him eating her mushrooms, his mind was drawn off to some other little folk. But it was always stopped just short of them. He never could quite see their faces.
Yet his thoughts continued their search, groping in the darkness; he felt sure he ought to be sharing his adventures with these other little persons, whoever they were; they ought to have been sitting beside him at that very moment, eating mushrooms, combing their wings, comparing the length of their feathers, and snuggling with him into the warm hay.
But they obstinately hovered just outside his memory, and refused to come in and surrender themselves. He could not remember who they were, and his yearnings went unsatisfied up to the stars, as yearnings generally do, while his thoughts returned weary from their search and he yielded to the seductions of the soothing open-air sleep.
The moon, meanwhile, rose higher and higher, drawing a silver veil over the stars. Upon the field the dews of midnight fell silently. A faint mist rose from the ground and covered the flowers in their dim seclusion under the hedgerows. The hours slipped away swiftly.
"Come on, Jimbo, boy!" cried the governess at length. "The moon"s below the hills, and we must be off!"
The boy turned and stared sleepily at her from his nest in the hay.
"We"ve got miles to go. Remember the speed we came at!" she explained, getting up and arranging her wings.
Jimbo got up slowly and shook himself.
"I"ve been miles away," he said dreamily, "miles and miles. But I"m ready to start at once."
They looked about for a raised place to jump from. A ladder stood against the other side of the haystack. The governess climbed up it and Jimbo followed her drowsily. Hand in hand they sprang into the air from the edge of the thatched roof, and their wings spread out like sails to catch the wind. It smote their faces pleasantly as they plunged downwards and forwards, and the exhilarating rush of cool air banished from the boy"s head the last vestige of the open-air sleep.
"We must keep up a good pace," cried the governess, taking a stream and the hedge beyond in a single sweep. "There"s a light in the east already."
As she spoke a dog howled in a farmyard beneath them, and she shot upwards as though lifted by a sudden gust of wind.
"We"re too low," she shouted from above. "That dog felt us near. Come up higher. It"s easier flying, and we"ve got a long way to go."
Jimbo followed her up till they were several hundred feet above the earth and the keen air stung their cheeks. Then she led him still higher, till the meadows looked like the squares on a chess-board and the trees were like little toy shrubs. Here they rushed along at a tremendous speed, too fast to speak, their wings churning the air into little whirlwinds and eddies as they pa.s.sed, whizzing, whistling, tearing through s.p.a.ce.
The fields, however, were still dim in the shadows that precede the dawn, and the stars only just beginning to fade, when they saw the dark outline of the Empty House below them, and began carefully to descend.
Soon they topped the high elms, startling the rooks into noisy cawing, and then, skimming the wall, sailed stealthily on outspread wings across the yard.
Cautiously dropping down to the level of the window, they crawled over the sill into the dark little room, and folded their wings.
CHAPTER XII
THE FOUR WINDS
The governess left the boy to his own reflections almost immediately. He spent the hours thinking and resting; going over again in his mind every incident of the great flight and wondering when the real, final escape would come, and what it would be like. Thus, between the two states of excitement he forgot for a while that he was still a prisoner, and the spell of horror was lifted temporarily from his heart.
The day pa.s.sed quickly, and when Miss Lake appeared in the evening, she announced that there could be no flying again that night, and that she wished instead to give him important instruction for the future. There were rules, and signs, and times which he must learn carefully. The time might come when he would have to fly alone, and he must be prepared for everything.
"And the first thing I have to tell you," she said, exactly as though it was a schoolroom, "is: _Never fly over the sea._ Our kind of wings quickly absorb the finer particles of water and get clogged and heavy over the sea. You finally cannot resist the drawing power of the water, and you will be dragged down and drowned. So be very careful! When you are flying high it is often difficult to know where the land ends and the sea begins, especially on moonless nights. But you can always be certain of one thing: if there are no sounds below you--hoofs, voices, wheels, wind in trees--you are over the sea."
"Yes," said the child, listening with great attention. "And what else?"
"The next thing is: _Don"t fly too high._ Though we fly like birds, remember we are not birds, and we can fly where they can"t. We can fly in the ether----"
"Where"s that?" he interrupted, half afraid of the sound.
She stooped and kissed him, laughing at his fear.
"There is nothing to be frightened about," she explained. "The air gets lighter and lighter as you go higher, till at last it stops altogether.
Then there"s only ether left. Birds can"t fly in ether because it"s too thin. We can, because----"
"Is that why it was good for me to get lighter and thinner?" he interrupted again in a puzzled voice.
"Partly, yes."
"And what happens in the ether, please?" It still frightened him a little.
"Nothing--except that if you fly too high you reach a point where the earth ceases to hold you, and you dash off into s.p.a.ce. Weight leaves you then, and the wings move without effort. Faster and faster you rush upwards, till you lose all control of your movements, and then----"
Miss Lake hesitated a moment.
"And then----?" asked the fascinated child.
"You may never come down again," she said slowly. "You may be sucked into anything that happens to come your way--a comet, or a shooting star, or the moon."
"I should like a shooting star best," observed the boy, deeply interested. "The moon frightens me, I think. It looks so dreadfully clean."
"You won"t like any of them when the time comes," she laughed. "No one ever gets out again who once gets in. But you"ll never be caught that way after what I"ve told you," she added, with decision.
"I shall never want to fly as high as that, I"m sure," said Jimbo. "And now, please, what comes next?"
The next thing, she went on to explain, was the _weather_, which, to all flying creatures, was of the utmost importance. Before starting for a flight he must always carefully consider the state of the sky, and the direction in which he wished to go. For this purpose he must master the meaning and character of the Four Winds and be able to recognise them in a moment.
"Once you know these," she said, "you cannot possibly go wrong. To make it easier, I"ve put each Wind into a little simple rhyme, for you."
"I"m listening," he said eagerly.
"The North Wind is one of the worst and most dangerous, because it blows so much faster than you think. It"s taken you ten miles before you think you"ve gone two. In starting with a North Wind, always fly _against_ it; then it will bring you home easily. If you fly _with_ it, you may be swept so far that the day will catch you before you can get home; and then you"re as good as lost. Even birds fly warily when this wind is about. It has no lulls or resting-places in it; it blows steadily on and on, and conquers everything it comes against--everything except the mountains."
"And its rhyme?" asked Jimbo, all ears.
"It will show you the joy of the birds, my child, You shall know their terrible bliss; It will teach you to hide, when the night is wild, From the storm"s too pa.s.sionate kiss.
For the Wind of the North Is a volleying forth That will lift you with springs In the heart of your wings, And may sweep you away To the edge of the day.
So, beware of the Wind of the North, my child, Fly not with the Wind of the North!"
"I think I like him all the same," said Jimbo. "But I"ll remember always to fly against him."
"The East Wind is worse still, for it hurts," continued the governess.