Part 22 (1/2)

'Then I will look for the Magic Horn directly I get home,' cried little William John, 'and if I can find it I'll come back and blow it over you, if you think I can.'

'I am sure you can,' answered the little White Hare. 'You must go now, for your Great-Aunt is coming into the valley. It is not wrong to come into this orchard, since she has not forbidden you; but she knows it is haunted by a little White Hare, and is afraid if you see it it will work you harm. So you must be patient with her.'

The Hare vanished as it spoke, and little William John found himself alone with the yellow-headed daffadillies, and the trees and dear little birds, and he soon went back to the house.

'Have you been out anywhere?' asked Great-Aunt Ann, when she had come in and taken off her bonnet.

'Yes, into the orchard,' said the boy truthfully. 'It is a lovely place, full of song-birds and flowers.'

'Was that all you saw there?' she asked anxiously.

'No,' answered little William John again, lifting his clear child-eyes to the stern old maid's. 'I saw trees with snow on them, and a dear little Hare with fur as white as milk.'

The old lady shook all over like a wind-tossed leaf when he said that, but she did not scold him or say he ought not to have gone into her orchard, but the next day she sent him home.

At the end of three years William John came again to stay with his Great-Aunt Ann--not that she wanted him, but because his guardian thought the balmy air of the lovely Vale would do him good.

The spring was very early this year, and when William John arrived the daffadillies had gone, and the pear and cherry trees had scattered all their snow-white blossoms on the gra.s.s; but the apple flowers were out in rosy splendour on the gnarled old trees, and where the daffadillies had made 'golden dawns' there were blue-grey periwinkles trying to lift themselves to the heavenly blue s.h.i.+ning down upon them.

William John was anxious to go out into the orchard directly he came, but Great-Aunt Ann said the gra.s.s was too wet.

The gra.s.s was always 'too wet,' according to the old maid, and the boy was afraid she would not allow him to go into the orchard at all.

When he had been there two weeks and a day, Great-Aunt Ann had again occasion to go to St. Columb town, and as there was only room in the gig for the driver and herself, she was obliged to leave him at home.

The moment the gig was out of sight William John made his way to the orchard, where he found the gra.s.s as green and beautiful as spring gra.s.s could be, and his little friend the Hare sitting under the blasted tree, whiter and smaller than ever.

'I began to fear you would never come into this orchard again,'

said the White Hare plaintively.

'I began to fear so myself,' responded William John, stroking very gently the little White Hare. 'This is my first opportunity of coming here.'

'Have you found the Magic Horn?' the small creature asked anxiously.

'Not yet, and I have never stopped looking for it since I was last here. I have searched all over the old castle, and every stone has been lifted on the place, and the ground dug up both outside the ruins and inside, and I am afraid the Magic Horn was not hidden away in that old castle, as you said.'

'It was hidden there, and is there now,' insisted the little White Hare, 'and I do hope you aren't going to give up looking for it.'

'I won't, for your sake, you dear little soft thing!' cried the boy, and again he stroked her gently and tenderly; 'and as you are sure it is there somewhere, I'll search until I find it.'

'Have you looked in the cave under the castle?' asked the little White Hare.

'No,' returned William John; 'the entrance to it is not known, and even if it were, the pa.s.sage leading down to the cave is so foul with bad air, my guardian said, that it would be death to anybody who went through it.'

'If you are not afraid to go down into the cave, I can give you a plant that will purify all the foul air you pa.s.s through.'

'I will not be afraid for your sake, dear little White Hare,' said the boy.

The Hare vanished, and in a little while became visible again, and in her mouth she held a strange-looking weed, the like of which he had never seen before.