Set in Silver
the middle of the sacrificial altar, the priest could see the sun rise
(at the summer solstice) just above that stupendous stone. I stood
there, imagining a white-robed Druid looking up, his knife suspended
over a fair girl victim, waiting to strike until his eye should meet the
red eye of the sun. Oh, I shall have bad dreams about Stonehenge, I
know! But I shan't mind, if I can dream about the Duke of Buckingham
digging for treasure there at midnight. And if I were like Du Maurier's
dear Peter Ibbetson, I could "dream back," and see at what far distance
the builders of Stonehenge got their mysterious syenite, and that one
black sandstone so different from the rest. I could dream who were the
builders; whether Phoenicians, or mourning Britons of Arthur's day--as
Geoffrey of Monmouth tells.
Sir Lionel and I like to think it was the Britons, for that gives him a
family feeling for the place, since he read out of a book Warton's
sonnet:
"Thou noblest monument of Albion's Isle,
Whether by Merlin's aid from Scythia's shore
To Amber's fatal plain Pendragon bore,
Huge frame of giants' hands, the mighty pile
To entomb his Britons slain by Hengist's guile,
Or Druid priests, sprinkled with human gore,
Taught 'mid the massy maze their mystic lore."
Next time, I want to see Stonehenge from an airship, or, at a pinch, a
balloon, because I can judge better of the original form, the two
circles and the two ellipses, which the handsomest policeman I ever saw
out of a Christmas Annual explained to me, pacing the rough grass. He
lives at Stonehenge all day, with a dog, and they are both guardians. I
asked him if he had not beautiful thoughts, but he said, not in winter,
Miss, it was too cold to think then, except about hot soup. Stonehenge
is very becoming to this young man, especially at sunset. And, dearest,
you can hardly imagine the glory of those piled stones as you look back
at them, going slowly, slowly away, and seeing them purple-black against
a crimson streak of sunset like a smoking torch.
We got lost, trying to find the river road, going home, and had great
fun, straying into meadows, and onto ploughed ground, which poor Apollo
resented. The way was beautiful, past some lovely old houses and
exquisite cottages; and the Avon was idyllic in its pretty windings. But
the villages of Wiltshire I don't find as poetical as those in Surrey
and Sussex or Hampshire.
You would never guess what I'm going to do to-morrow morning? I'm not
sure you'd let me, if you knew. But a ward doesn't need a chaperon with
a guardian. He plays both parts. I'm to get up early--before the sun is
awake--and Sir Lionel is to motor me out to Stonehenge, so that I can
see it by sunrise as well as sunset. It is a beautiful idea, and the
handsome policeman has promised to be there and let us in.
Seeing a sunrise is like a glorified Private View, I think. I expect to
feel as Louis of Bavaria must have felt when he had a Wagner opera all
to himself.
Now I am going down to post this, so that it can leave for London by the
last train, and start for Switzerland in the morning--of my birthday. I
shall count the sunrise a birthday present from heaven if it's fine; and
if it isn't I shall know, what I suspect already, that I don't deserve
one.
Your loving Changeling,
Audrie.
XII
AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER
_Compton Arms, Stony Cross, New Forest_,
_July 25th_
Little Star-Mother: It's very late to-night, or early
to-morrow, but I did want to write you on my birthday; and besides, I am
in a hurry to tell you about the fairylike experience I have had. I am
in fairyland even here and now; but I have been to the heart of it. I
shall never forget.
Oh, but first--the sunrise, my birthday sunrise. It was wonderful, and
made me think how much time I have wasted, hardly ever accepting its
invitations. I believe I will turn over a new leaf. I shall get up very,
very early every day, and go to bed very, very late, so as to squeeze
all the juice out of the orange, and wring every minute out of my youth.
I feel so alive, I don't want to lose the "morning glory." When I'm old
I shall do differently. I'll go to bed directly after dinner and sleep
late, so that age may be short, following a long youth. Isn't that a
good plan to make on my twenty-first birthday?
Sir Lionel hadn't forgotten, and wished me many happy returns of the
day; but he didn't give me a present, so I hoped he had changed his
mind. We got back to Salisbury about the time Mrs. Norton and Mrs.
Senter were having their breakfasts in bed (they hadn't heard of our
expedition, and the word had gone out that we weren't to start for the
New Forest till after luncheon, as it would be a short run), and we had
nearly finished our tea, toast, and eggs, when Dick strolled into the
coffee-room. He seemed decidedly _intrigue_ at sight of us together at a
little table, talking cozily; and that detective look came into his eyes
which cats have when a mouse occurs to them. He laughed merrily, though,
and chaffed us on making "secret plans." Dick hasn't a very nice laugh.
It's too explosive and loud. (Don't you think other animals must
consider the laughter of humans an odd noise, without rhyme or reason?)
Also Dick has a nasty way of saying "thank you" to a waiter; with the
rising inflection, you know, which is nicely calculated to make the
servant feel himself the last of God's creatures.
By two o'clock we had said good-bye to Salisbury ("good-bye" for me, "au
revoir" for the others, perhaps), and were kinematographing in and out
of charming scenery, lovelier perhaps than any we'd seen yet. Under
green gloom of forests, where it seemed a prisoned dryad might be
napping in each tree, and where only a faun could have been a suitable
chauffeur; past heatherland, just lit to rosy fire by the sun's blaze;
through billowy country where grain was gold and silver, meadows were
"flawed emeralds set in copper," and here and there a huge dark blot
meant a prehistoric barrow.
The car played us a trick for the first time, and Young Nick, looking
more like Buddha than ever, got down to have a heart-to-heart talk with
the motor. I think Apollo had swallowed a crumb, or something, for he
coughed and wheezed, and wouldn't move except with gasps, until he had
been patted under the bonnet, and tickled with all sorts of funny
instruments, such as a giant's dentist might use. It was fun, though,
for us irresponsible ones, while Sir Lionel and Nick tried different
things to get the crumb out of Apollo's throat. Other motorists flew by
scornfully, like the Priest and the Levite, or slowed up to ask if they
could help, and looked with some interest at Mrs. Senter and me, sitting
there like mantelpiece ornaments. I didn't even want to slaughter them
for the dust they made, now that I'm a real motorist myself, for "dog
cannot eat dog"; and even cyclists seemed like our poor relations.
One elderly woman bumped by, sitting in a kind of dreadful bath chair
fastened in front of a motor bicycle, spattering noise and petrol. You
couldn't see her features under her expression, which was agonized. The
young man who propelled her was smirking conceitedly, as if to say,
"What a kind chap I am, giving my maiden aunt a good time!"
Presently a small car came limping along that had "We Know It" printed
in large, rough letters on a card, tied to a broken wheel. Wasn't that a
good idea, when they'd got nervous prostration having everybody tell
them?
Cows paused, gazed at us, and sneered; but at last Apollo's crumb was
extracted; Young Nick brushed the dust off his sleeves by rubbing his
arms together, the way flies clean their antennae, and we were ready to
go on. "It's a wise car that knows its own chauffeur," said Mrs. Senter.
Just because this happened, and because a tire presently burst in sheer
sympathy, we travelled in the beginning of sunset, which was divine. The
scene swam in rose-coloured light, so pink it seemed as if you could
bottle it, and it would still be pink. The tree trunks were cased in
ruddy gold, like the gold leaf wrapped round royal mummies. Making up
for lost time, the white road smoked beneath our tires, and we were soon
in the New Forest--the old, old New Forest, perfumed like the fore-court
of heaven.
We came to this pretty little hotel, in the midst of heathery spaces
like a cutting in the aromatic forest. I like my room, but I didn't want
to stop in it and begin dressing for dinner. Looking out of my window, I
saw a little white moon, curved like a baby's arm, cushioned among banks
of sky azaleas, so I felt I must go out and drink the sunset. I had left
too much of that rose-red wine in the bottom of the silver goblet. I
must have the last drop!
So I ran downstairs; and I warn you, now comes the experience which I
liked so much, but of which you won't approve.
The landlord stood in the hall, and I asked him if there were anything
wonderful I could go and see in a few minutes. He smiled, and said it
wouldn't take me very long to find Rufus's Stone, but he would not
advise me to do it. I replied that I wouldn't ask him to advise, if he'd
point out the road, and probably I should only venture a little way. He
was a nice man, so he went out in front of the hotel to point, and lent
me a puppy as a companion.
The puppy was no respecter of persons. All he cared for was a walk, so
he kindly consented to take me with him, gambolling ahead as if he knew
where I wanted to go. That tempted me on, and the way wasn't hard to
find, for the puppy or for me. We played into each other's paws, and
when I was lost he found me, or vice versa. The first thing I knew,
there was the Stone. Nobody could mistake it, even from a distance; and
going down to it from the top of a hill, it was still light enough to
read the inscription.
This was my first entrance into the heart of fairyland.
William Rufus couldn't have chosen a more ideal spot to die in, if he'd
picked it out himself from a list of a hundred others; and the evening
silence under the great, gray beeches seemed as if it had lasted a
thousand years, always the same, old and wise as Mother Earth. Then,
suddenly, it was broken by the rustle and stir of a cock pheasant, which
appeared from somewhere as if by magic, and stood for an instant all
kingly, his breast blazing with jewelled orders in the sunset. Me he
regarded with the haughty defiance of a Norman prince, and screamed with
rage at the puppy, all his theories upset, because he had been so
positive the world was entirely his. So it was, if he'd only stopped to
let me assure him that he owned all the best things in it; but he
whirred and soared; and thus I realized instantly that he was a fairy in
disguise. How stupid of me not to have guessed while he was there!
You know, the New Forest is haunted with fairies, good and bad. There
are the "malfays" that came because of William the Conqueror's cruelty
in driving away the peasants to make the great deer-forest for his
hunting; and there are the good fays that help the cottage housewives,
and the "tricksies" that frighten the wild ponies and pinch the cattle.
I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that that pheasant was Puck
himself, for no doubt Puck has a hunting-lodge somewhere in the New
Forest.
I meant to sit by the Stone only five minutes, but the fairies put a
spell upon my five minutes, and the first thing I knew, the sun was
gone. So was the puppy, which was even more serious, for I was
handicapped by not knowing his name, and no self-respecting canine thing
would respond to shouts of "dog," or "here, pup, pup, pup!"