“There was too many bones in the—” Bruno began, but Sylvie frowned at him, and laid her finger on her lips, for, at this moment, the travelers were waited on by a very dignified officer, the Head-Growler, whose duty it was, first to conduct them to the King to bid him farewell, and then to escort them to the boundary of Dogland. The great Newfoundland received them most affably, but, instead of saying “goodbye,” he startled the Head-Growler into giving three savage growls, by announcing that he would escort them himself.
“It is a most unusual proceeding, your Majesty!” the Head-Growler exclaimed, almost choking with vexation at being set aside, for he had put on his best Court-suit, made entirely of cat-skins, for the occasion.
“I shall escort them myself,” his Majesty repeated, gently but firmly, laying aside the Royal robes, and changing his crown for a small coronet, “and you may stay at home.”
“I are glad!” Bruno whispered to Sylvie, when they had got well out of hearing. “He were so welly cross!” And he not only patted their Royal escort, but even hugged him round the neck in the exuberance of his delight.
His Majesty calmly wagged the Royal tail. “It’s quite a relief,” he said, “getting away from that Palace now and then! Royal Dogs have a dull life of it, I can tell you! Would you mind” (this to Sylvie, in a low voice, and looking a little shy and embarrassed) “would you mind the trouble of just throwing that stick for me to fetch?”
Sylvie was too much astonished to do anything for a moment: it sounded such a monstrous impossibility that a King should wish to run after a stick. But Bruno was equal to the occasion, and with a glad shout of “Hi then! Fetch it, good Doggie!” he hurled it over a clump of bushes. The next moment the Monarch of Dogland had bounded over the bushes, and picked up the stick, and came galloping back to the children with it in his mouth. Bruno took it from him with great decision. “Beg for it!” he insisted; and His Majesty begged. “Paw!” commanded Sylvie; and His Majesty gave his paw. In short, the solemn ceremony of escorting the travelers to the boundaries of Dogland became one long uproarious game of play!
“But business is business!” the Dog-King said at last. “And I must go back to mine. I couldn’t come any further,” he added, consulting a dogwatch, which hung on a chain round his neck, “not even if there were a Cat in sight!”
They took an affectionate farewell of His Majesty, and trudged on.
“That were a dear dog!” Bruno exclaimed. “Has we to go far, Sylvie? I’s tired!”
“Not much further, darling!” Sylvie gently replied. “Do you see that shining, just beyond those trees? I’m almost sure it’s the gate of Fairyland! I know it’s all golden—Father told me so—and so bright, so bright!” she went on dreamily.
“It dazzles!” said Bruno, shading his eyes with one little hand, while the other clung tightly to Sylvie’s hand, as if he were half-alarmed at her strange manner.
For the child moved on as if walking in her sleep, her large eyes gazing into the far distance, and her breath coming and going in quick pantings of eager delight. I knew, by some mysterious mental light, that a great change was taking place in my sweet little friend (for such I loved to think her) and that she was passing from the condition of a mere Outland Sprite into the true Fairy-nature.
Upon Bruno the change came later: but it was completed in both before they reached the golden gate, through which I knew it would be impossible for me to follow. I could but stand outside, and take a last look at the two sweet children, ere they disappeared within, and the golden gate closed with a bang.
And with such a bang! “It never will shut like any other cupboard-door,” Arthur explained. “There’s something wrong with the hinge. However, here’s the cake and wine. And you’ve had your forty winks. So you really must get off to bed, old man! You’re fit for nothing else. Witness my hand, Arthur Forester, M.D.”
By this time I was wide-awake again. “Not quite yet!” I pleaded. “Really I’m not sleepy now. And it isn’t midnight yet.”
“Well, I did want to say another word to you,” Arthur replied in a relenting tone, as he supplied me with the supper he had prescribed. “Only I thought you were too sleepy for it tonight.”
We took our midnight meal almost in silence; for an unusual nervousness seemed to have seized on my old friend.
“What kind of a night is it?” he asked, rising and undrawing the window-curtains, apparently to change the subject for a minute. I followed him to the window, and we stood together, looking out, in silence.
“When I first spoke to you about—” Arthur began, after a long and embarrassing silence, “that is, when we first talked about her—for I think it was you that introduced the subject—my own position in life forbade me to do more than worship her from a distance: and I was turning over plans for leaving this place finally, and settling somewhere out of all chance of meeting her again. That seemed to be my only chance of usefulness in life.”
“Would that have been wise?” I said. “To leave yourself no hope at all?”
“There was no hope to leave,” Arthur firmly replied, though his eyes glittered with tears as he gazed upwards into the midnight sky, from which one solitary star, the glorious “Vega,” blazed out in fitful splendour through the driving clouds. “She was like that star to me—bright, beautiful, and pure, but out of reach, out of reach!”
He drew the curtains again, and we returned to our places by the fireside.
“What I wanted to tell you was this,” he resumed. “I heard this evening from my solicitor. I can’t go into the details of the business, but the
