The Piskey Purse Part 22

'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.

'It is called the little All-Pure,' said the White Hare, as William John took it in his hand. 'Keep it close to your heart until you have discovered the pa.s.sage to the cave, and when it is foul hold it in your hand until its brightness s.h.i.+nes on the Magic Horn.'

Again she disappeared, and the boy, after waiting some time to see if she would appear again, went back to the house, where he found his Great-Aunt Ann limping in at the front-door.

The old lady had hurt her leg in getting out of the gig, and when he told her he had been in the orchard, she made her slight accident an excuse to send him back to his home, which she did that same day.

William John did not have the chance of paying another visit to his Great-Aunt Ann until he was a youth of nineteen, and he would not have come then if he had waited to be invited.

The old maid was now terribly old and feeble, and had to keep a servant. Unhappily for William John, the servant was quite as crabbed and silent as her mistress, and even more opposed to his going into the old orchard. She even locked the orchard-gate and kept the key in her pocket.

But William John, being now no longer a child, but a handsome youth with a strong will of his own, was determined to get into the orchard with or without permission, for he had found the Magic Horn.

He watched his opportunity, and one day when the servant was out he went to the wicket gate and sprang over it, and quickly made his way to the blasted tree, where he found, as he had expected to find, the little White Hare sitting on her haunches under it.

She was very white and ever so small--so small, in fact, that she did not look much bigger than a baby hare.

'You have come at last,' she said, as the tall handsome lad knelt on the gra.s.s and caressed her. 'Have you found the Magic Horn?'

'I have found it,' he answered gladly.

'When did you find it?'

'Only yesterday,' returned the youth. 'Every day since I last saw you I have searched for the entrance to the cave, and at last, when I was in despair of ever finding it, I came upon it under my bedroom window. I discovered it quite by accident, as I was planting maiden-blush rose-trees. I never knew till then that our house was built on the old castle grounds. The pa.s.sage opened on to steps, which led down and down till they ended at the door of the cave.'

'Were you not afraid?' asked the little White Hare very softly.

'I was a little bit,' confessed the youth, 'for I did not know where it would lead me. But love and pity for poor little you made me go on. And I had the little All-Pure to cheer me; for it not only made the foul air through which I pa.s.sed pure and sweet, but gave out a soft clear light. I found the Magic Horn on a slab of stone in the corner of the cave. I took it up quickly and returned the way I came, and started the earliest moment to pay a visit to my Great-Aunt Ann.'

'Have you brought the Magic Horn with you?' asked the little White Hare, with deep anxiety in her voice.

'Yes,' he said, with s.h.i.+ning eyes, 'and here it is;' and he laid a black thing in the shape of a horn on the gra.s.s beside her.

'It is the Magic Horn!' cried the little White Hare joyfully. 'Will you blow over me three strong, clear blasts, dear William John? If you are as pure-hearted as you are kind-hearted, as I am sure you are, the last blast will break the Witch's spell, and give me back my own shape. The Horn should be blown at sunset.'

'It is sundown now,' said William John, looking westward, where between the trees he could see a splendour of rose and gold painted on the lower sky.

'Then blow it now!' cried the little White Hare; and stiffening herself on her form, she crossed her paws on her breast and waited.

William John took up the Magic Horn in his strong young hands and put it to his mouth, and in a minute or less there sounded out through the orchard, all gay with apple-blossom and melody of birds, and over the Vale of Lanherne, a great blast, so rich in sound that the thrushes stopped their singing, and the people in St. Mawgan village came rus.h.i.+ng to their doors to know whatever it was. It was quickly followed by two more blasts, richer and louder than the first. When the last blast had died away, William John, looking down at the foot of the blasted tree, saw in the place of the little White Hare the most beautiful maiden he had ever seen.

The Magic Horn fell from his hand at so lovely a sight, and he blushed red as the buds clinging in rosy infancy to the apple-trees, and stammered something out that he had not expected to see her half so beautiful.

'I am myself now, thanks to you,' laughed the maiden; and William John thought it was the sweetest laugh he had ever heard in all his life. 'I can never be sufficiently grateful for all you have done for me.'

'Mine is the grat.i.tude for having been allowed to find the Magic Horn and loosen you from the wicked spell,' said the lad, still stammering and blus.h.i.+ng.

'You are very good to say so,' said the lovely maid, blus.h.i.+ng in her turn as she felt the gaze of the handsome youth upon her. 'Now the evil spell has been undone I must go my way.'

'What way?' asked William John eagerly, drinking in the beauty of her face.