CHAPTER TEN.

THE MAGIC ROSE.

The days and weeks and months went on, till it was full summer time again; more than full summer indeed. For it was August, and in a day or two Rafe and Alix were to go to the seaside for several weeks. They were very pleased of course, but still there is always a _little_ sad feeling at "going away," especially from one's own home, even though it is only for a short time. They went all round the garden saying good-bye, as well as to the stables and the poultry yard and all the familiar places.

Then a sudden thought struck Alix.

"Rafe," she said--it was the very evening before they left--"do let's say good-bye to the old garden too. And perhaps if we stood close to the corner of the wall and called through very loud, _perhaps_ Mrs Caretaker would hear us. It seems so funny that we've never seen her again. I think she _must_ be away."

"I don't know, I'm sure," Rafe replied.

"I've sometimes had a feeling like you, Alix, that she was there all the time."

"And of course it was she who made the birds tell us their stories," said Alix, "so we really should be very much obliged to her. Just think what nice games we've made out of them; and what nice things we've begun to get ready for the poor children next Christmas. I do think, Rafe, we've _never_ felt dull since we've played so much in the Lady wood garden."

Rafe quite agreed with her, and they made their way down the lane and through the well-known old gateway. It was the first time they had been in the deserted grounds so late of an evening. For they had had tea long ago, and it was not so _very_ far off bedtime: already the bushes and shrubs began to look shadowy and mysterious in the twilight, and the moon's profile--for it was about half-way to full--to gleam pearl-like up among the branches.

"We mustn't stay very long," said Rafe.

"Nurse won't mind our being a little later than usual, as she's busy packing," said Alix. "And it's still so hot, indoors at least. Last night I _couldn't_ get to sleep, though I pushed off everything except one sheet. I was just boiling. And when I told mamma she said it was no use going to bed only to toss about, and that we might as well sit up a little later."

"I hope it will be cooler at the seaside," said Rafe.

"It's pretty sure to be," Alix replied. "If it was just about as cool as it is here just now. Isn't it lovely? And that breeze is so refreshing."

They were standing near the walled-up mound as she spoke, and the wind came with a long sighing sound through the trees. It seemed at first like a sigh, but by degrees it changed into a soft kind of laughter, which did not fade away, but grew, as they listened, more and more distinct. And then it sounded as if coming not from up among the trees overhead, but from somewhere underground. And it was not the wind after all, for by this time everything was perfectly, strangely still. The children looked at each other; they were used to odd things happening in the garden. They just stood still and waited to see what was going to take place.

The laughing ceased, and there came a voice instead, and the voice grew clearer as the hidden door in the wall which they had sought for so often, swung round, and out from the dark passage came the small figure, red cloak, hood, and all, of Mrs Caretaker. She was still laughing just a little, and her laugh was so bright and rippling that it made the children laugh too, though they did not know why.

"And so you are going away, my dears," said their old friend. How she got up so quickly to where they stood they did not see, but there she was, as alert as possible. And again she laughed.

"If you please, if it's not rude, we'd like to know what you're laughing at," said Alix, not quite sure if she was pleased or not.

"Only a little joke, my dear; only a little joke I was having all to myself. I hear so many funny stories, you see. They all have to tell me them: the wind and the rain often chatter to me, as well as the birds and the bees and all the others that _you_ call living creatures. And the sea, ah! the sea has grand stories to tell sometimes."

"We're going to the seaside," said Rafe.

Mrs Caretaker nodded.

"I know," she said, "I know most things about my friends. I thought you would come to say good-bye before you left. I've been waiting for you. And if there is anything you would like me to take care of for you while you're away, you have only to tell me."

"Thank you," said the children. But Alix did not feel quite pleased yet.

"Mrs Caretaker," she said, "you shouldn't speak as if this was the only time we've come to see you. We've been and been _ever_ so often, but we never could find the door. And we've always kept saying how kind you'd been; making the birds tell us stories too."

"It's all right, my dear," said the old woman. "Yes, I heard you on the other side of the wall. But I'm very busy sometimes; too busy for visitors. I'm not busy to-night though, and it's getting chilly out here. Come inside with me for a while, and tell me about where you're going to."

"We mustn't stay long," said the children. "It's later than usual for us to be out, but it's been so hot all day; we got leave to stay a little longer."

"I will see you home. Don't be uneasy," said Mrs Caretaker. She led the way to the wall--almost without her seeming to touch it, the door opened, and they followed her along the little passage into the kitchen.

The fire was pleasantly low; the curtains were drawn back, and through the open window the moonlight, much clearer and fuller than in the garden outside, fell on a little lake of water, where two or three snow-white swans were floating dreamily. Rafe and Alix almost screamed with surprise, but Mrs Caretaker only smiled.

"You didn't know what a view I had out of my window," she said, as she seated herself in her rocking-chair, and drew forward two stools--one on each side for the children. "Yes, it is beautiful with the moon on it; and to-morrow night you will be looking at a still more beautiful sight--the great sea itself."

"Do you love the sea?" they asked.

"Sometimes," Mrs Caretaker replied. "You said it told you stories," said Alix. "Will you tell us one of them? Just for a treat, you know, as we are going away, and we can think of it when we are walking along the shore watching the waves coming in."

Mrs Caretaker did not speak for a moment.

Then she said--and her voice sounded rather sad--"I can't tell you one of the stories the sea tells me. They're not of the laughing kind, and it's best for you to hear them for yourselves when you are older. But I will tell you a little story, if you like, of some of the folk that live in the sea. Did you ever hear tell of mermaids?"

"Oh yes!" cried the children, eagerly; "often. There are lovely stories about them in some of our fairy books; and when we are at the seaside we do _so_ wish we could see them."

Mrs Caretaker smiled.

"I can't promise you that you ever will," she said; "but you shall have my story. Yes; sit closer, both of you, and rest your heads on my knees."

"You're not knitting to-night," said Alix. "The last time the needles made us hear the story better somehow; it was like as if you took us a long way off, and the story came so clear and distinct."

"It will be all right, never fear," said the old woman. And as she spoke, she gently stroked the children's heads. Then the same strange feeling came over them; they felt as if they were far away; they forgot all about its being nearly bedtime and about going away to-morrow; they just lived in the story which Mrs Caretaker's clear voice began to tell.

"It is called `The Magic Rose,'" said she; "but it is a story of those that live in the sea. Down, deep down below the waves, all is calm and still, and there is the country of the mermen. Strange things have happened before now down there among the sea-folk. Some who have been thought drowned have been cared for there, and lived their lives long after those who had known them up above were past and gone. For the mer-folk are long-lived; what men count age is to them but youth; their days follow each other in a calm that human beings could scarce imagine. They live now in these stirring times as their forbears lived when men and women had their homes in the forests, long before there were houses or towns, or roads, or any of the things which you now think the commonest necessities.

"But the sea-folk have their troubles too, sometimes; and my story has to do with trouble. The Queen--the beautiful Queen of the sea-country-- was ill, and the King was in despair. Now I must tell you that the Queen was not quite one of the sea race--so at least it was believed. Her grandmother--or her great-grandmother, maybe--was a maiden of the land, who had fallen into the sea as a little baby, and had been brought back to life and cared for by the mer-folk; and when she grew up, a great lord among them loved her for her beauty and made her his bride. She had no memory of her native land, of course; but still there were strange things about her and her children, and their children again, which told whence they had come.

"And now that the young Queen was so ill, one of these old feelings had awakened."

"I shall die," she said. "I shall surely die unless I can smell the scent of a rose--a deep-red rose, such as the land maidens love. It has come to me in my dreams. Though I have never seen one, I know what it must be like, and I feel that life would return--life and strength that are fast fading away--if I could breathe its exquisite fragrance and bury my face among its soft petals."

They were amazed to hear her speak thus. The great court physicians at first said she was wandering in her mind, and no attention should be paid to her. But she kept on ever the same entreaty; and the King, who loved her devotedly, at last could bear it no longer.

"It all comes of her ancestor having been so foolish as to wed a human bride," said one of the doctors, feeling in a very bad temper, as they all were.

The sea-doctors are not very wise, I fear, because they have so very little experience. It happens so rarely that any of the mer-folk fall