Part 11

Harold began to get annoyed. “I can't help it,” he replied. “It's the best sort of Argo I can manage, and it's all right if you only pretend enough; but YOU never could pretend one bit.”

Edward reflected. “Look here,” he said presently; “why shouldn't we get hold of Farmer Larkin's boat, and go right away up the river in a real Argo, and look for Medea, and the Golden Fleece, and everything? And I'll tell you what, I don't mind your being Jason, as you thought of it first.”

Harold tumbled out of the trough in the excess of his emotion. “But we aren't allowed to go on the water by ourselves,” he cried.

“No,” said Edward, with fine scorn: “we aren't allowed; and Jason wasn't allowed either, I daresay--but he WENT!”

Harold's protest had been merely conventional: he only wanted to be convinced by sound argument. The next question was, How about the girls? Selina was distinctly handy in a boat: the difficulty about her was, that if she disapproved of the expedition--and, morally considered, it was not exactly a Pilgrim's Progress--she might go and tell; she having just reached that disagreeable age when one begins to develop a conscience. Charlotte, for her part, had a habit of day-dreams, and was as likely as not to fall overboard in one of her rapt musings. To be sure, she would dissolve in tears when she found herself left out; but even that was better than a watery tomb. In fine, the public voice--and rightly, perhaps--was against the admission of the skirted animal: spite the precedent of Atalanta, who was one of the original crew.

“And now,” said Edward, “who's to ask Farmer Larkin? I can't; last time I saw him he said when he caught me again he'd smack my head. YOU'LL have to.”

I hesitated, for good reasons. “You know those precious calves of his?” I began.

Edward understood at once. “All right,” he said; “then we won't ask him at all. It doesn't much matter. He'd only be annoyed, and that would be a pity. Now let's set off.”

We made our way down to the stream, and captured the farmer's boat without let or hindrance, the enemy being engaged in the hayfields. This “river,” so called, could never be discovered by us in any atlas; indeed our Argo could hardly turn in it without risk of shipwreck. But to us 't was Orinoco, and the cities of the world dotted its shores. We put the Argo's head up stream, since that led away from the Larkin province; Harold was faithfully permitted to be Jason, and we shared the rest of the heroes among us. Then launching forth from Thessaly, we threaded the Hellespont with shouts, breathlessly dodged the Clashing Rocks, and coasted under the lee of the Siren-haunted isles. Lemnos was fringed with meadow-sweet, dog-roses dotted the Mysian shore, and the cheery call of the haymaking folk sounded along the coast of Thrace.

After some hour or two's seafaring, the prow of the Argo embedded itself in the mud of a landing-place, plashy with the tread of cows and giving on to a lane that led towards the smoke of human habitations. Edward jumped ashore, alert for exploration, and strode off without waiting to see if we followed; but I lingered behind, having caught sight of a moss-grown water-gate hard by, leading into a garden that from the brooding quiet lapping it round, appeared to portend magical possibilities.

Indeed the very air within seemed stiller, as we circumspectly passed through the gate; and Harold hung back shamefaced, as if we were crossing the threshold of some private chamber, and ghosts of old days were hustling past us. Flowers there were, everywhere; but they drooped and sprawled in an overgrowth hinting at indifference; the scent of heliotrope possessed the place, as if actually hung in solid festoons from tall untrimmed hedge to hedge. No basket-chairs, shawls, or novels dotted the lawn with colour; and on the garden-front of the house behind, the blinds were mostly drawn. A grey old sun-dial dominated the central sward, and we moved towards it instinctively, as the most human thing visible. An antique motto ran round it, and with eyes and fingers we struggled at the decipherment.

“TIME: TRYETH: TROTHE:” spelt out Harold at last. “I wonder what that means?”

I could not enlighten him, nor meet his further questions as to the inner mechanism of the thing, and where you wound it up.

I had seen these instruments before, of course, but had never fully understood their manner of working.

We were still puzzling our heads over the contrivance, when I became aware that Medea herself was moving down the path from the house. Dark-haired, supple, of a figure lightly poised and swayed, but pale and listless--I knew her at once, and having come out to find her, naturally felt no surprise at all. But Harold, who was trying to climb on the top of the sun-dial, having a cat-like fondness for the summit of things, started and fell prone, barking his chin and filling the pleasance with lamentation.

Medea skimmed the ground swallow-like, and in a moment was on her knees comforting him,--wiping the dirt out of his chin with her own dainty handkerchief,--and vocal with soft murmur of consolation.

“You needn't take on so about him,” I observed, politely. “He'll cry for just one minute, and then he'll be all right.”

My estimate was justified. At the end of his regulation time Harold stopped crying suddenly, like a clock that had struck its hour; and with a serene and cheerful countenance wriggled out of Medea's embrace, and ran for a stone to throw at an intrusive blackbird.

“O you boys!” cried Medea, throwing wide her arms with abandonment. “Where have you dropped from? How dirty you are! I've been shut up here for a thousand years, and all that time I've never seen any one under a hundred and fifty! Let's play at something, at once!”

“Rounders is a good game,” I suggested. “Girls can play at rounders. And we could serve up to the sun-dial here. But you want a bat and a ball, and some more people.”

She struck her hands together tragically. “I haven't a bat,” she cried, “or a ball, or more people, or anything sensible whatever. Never mind; let's play at hide-and-seek in the kitchen garden. And we'll race there, up to that walnut-tree; I haven't run for a century!”

She was so easy a victor, nevertheless, that I began to doubt, as I panted behind, whether she had not exaggerated her age by a year or two. She flung herself into hide-and-seek with all the gusto and abandonment of the true artist, and as she flitted away and reappeared, flushed and laughing divinely, the pale witch-maiden seemed to fall away from her, and she moved rather as that other girl I had read about, snatched from fields of daffodil to reign in shadow below, yet permitted once again to visit earth, and light, and the frank, caressing air.

Tired at last, we strolled back to the old sundial, and Harold, who never relinquished a problem unsolved, began afresh, rubbing his finger along the faint incisions, “Time tryeth trothe. Please, I want to know what that means.”

Medea's face drooped low over the sun-dial, till it was almost hidden in her fingers. “That's what I'm here for,” she said presently, in quite a changed, low voice. “They shut me up here--they think I'll forget--but I never will--never, never! And he, too--but I don't know--it is so long--I don't know!”

Her face was quite hidden now. There was silence again in the old garden. I felt clumsily helpless and awkward; beyond a vague idea of kicking Harold, nothing remedial seemed to suggest itself.

None of us had noticed the approach of another she-creature--one of the angular and rigid class--how different from our dear comrade! The years Medea had claimed might well have belonged to her; she wore mittens, too--a trick I detested in woman. “Lucy!” she said, sharply, in a tone with AUNT writ large over it; and Medea started up guiltily.

“You've been crying,” said the newcomer, grimly regarding her through spectacles. “And pray who are these exceedingly dirty little boys?”

“Friends of mine, aunt,” said Medea, promptly, with forced cheerfulness. “I--I've known them a long time. I asked them to come.”