The Enchanted Castle - E. Nesbit (best novels to read for students TXT) 📗

all could see that they were in a rough stone cave, that went straight on for about three or four yards and then turned sharply to the right.

“Death or victory!” remarked Gerald. “Now, then⁠—Slow march!”

He advanced carefully, picking his way among the loose earth and stones that were the floor of the cave.

“A sail, a sail!” he cried, as he turned the corner.

“How splendid!” Kathleen drew a long breath as she came out into the sunshine.

“I don’t see any sail,” said Jimmy, following.

The narrow passage ended in a round arch all fringed with ferns and creepers. They passed through the arch into a deep, narrow gully whose banks were of stones, moss-covered; and in the crannies grew more ferns and long grasses. Trees growing on the top of the bank arched across, and the sunlight came through in changing patches of brightness, turning the gully to a roofed corridor of goldy-green. The path, which was of greeny-grey flagstones where heaps of leaves had drifted, sloped steeply down, and at the end of it was another round arch, quite dark inside, above which rose rocks and grass and bushes.

“It’s like the outside of a railway tunnel,” said James.

“It’s the entrance to the enchanted castle,” said Kathleen. “Let’s blow the horns.”

“Dry up!” said Gerald. “The bold Captain, reproving the silly chatter of his subordinates⁠—”

“I like that!” said Jimmy, indignant.

“I thought you would,” resumed Gerald, “⁠—of his subordinates, bade them advance with caution and in silence, because after all there might be somebody about, and the other arch might be an icehouse or something dangerous.”

“What?” asked Kathleen anxiously.

“Bears, perhaps,” said Gerald briefly.

“There aren’t any bears without bars⁠—in England, anyway,” said Jimmy. “They call bears bars in America,” he added absently.

“Quick march!” was Gerald’s only reply.

And they marched. Under the drifted damp leaves the path was firm and stony to their shuffling feet. At the dark arch they stopped.

“There are steps down,” said Jimmy.

“It is an icehouse,” said Gerald.

“Don’t let’s,” said Kathleen.

“Our hero,” said Gerald, “who nothing could dismay, raised the faltering hopes of his abject minions by saying that he was jolly well going on, and they could do as they liked about it.”

“If you call names,” said Jimmy, “you can go on by yourself.” He added, “So there!”

“It’s part of the game, silly,” explained Gerald kindly. “You can be Captain tomorrow, so you’d better hold your jaw now, and begin to think about what names you’ll call us when it’s your turn.”

Very slowly and carefully they went down the steps. A vaulted stone arched over their heads. Gerald struck a match when the last step was found to have no edge, and to be, in fact, the beginning of a passage, turning to the left.

“This,” said Jimmy, “will take us back into the road.”

“Or under it,” said Gerald. “We’ve come down eleven steps.”

They went on, following their leader, who went very slowly for fear, as he explained, of steps. The passage was very dark.

“I don’t half like it!” whispered Jimmy.

Then came a glimmer of daylight that grew and grew, and presently ended in another arch that looked out over a scene so like a picture out of a book about Italy that everyone’s breath was taken away, and they simply walked forward silent and staring. A short avenue of cypresses led, widening as it went, to a marble terrace that lay broad and white in the sunlight. The children, blinking, leaned their arms on the broad, flat balustrade and gazed. Immediately below them was a lake⁠—just like a lake in The Beauties of Italy⁠—a lake with swans and an island and weeping willows; beyond it were green slopes dotted with groves of trees, and amid the trees gleamed the white limbs of statues. Against a little hill to the left was a round white building with pillars, and to the right a waterfall came tumbling down among mossy stones to splash into the lake. Steps fed from the terrace to the water, and other steps to the green lawns beside it. Away across the grassy slopes deer were feeding, and in the distance where the groves of trees thickened into what looked almost a forest were enormous shapes of grey stone, like nothing that the children had ever seen before.

“That chap at school⁠—” said Gerald.

“It is an enchanted castle,” said Kathleen.

“I don’t see any castle,” said Jimmy.

“What do you call that, then?” Gerald pointed to where, beyond a belt of lime-trees, white towers and turrets broke the blue of the sky.

“There doesn’t seem to be anyone about,” said Kathleen, “and yet it’s all so tidy. I believe it is magic.”

“Magic mowing machines,” Jimmy suggested.

“If we were in a book it would be an enchanted castle⁠—certain to be,” said Kathleen.

“It is an enchanted castle,” said Gerald in hollow tones.

“But there aren’t any.” Jimmy was quite positive.

“How do you know? Do you think there’s nothing in the world but what you’ve seen?” His scorn was crushing.

“I think magic went out when people began to have steam-engines,” Jimmy insisted, “and newspapers, and telephones and wireless telegraphing.”

“Wireless is rather like magic when you come to think of it,” said Gerald.

“Oh, that sort!” Jimmy’s contempt was deep.

“Perhaps there’s given up being magic because people didn’t believe in it any more,” said Kathleen.

“Well, don’t let’s spoil the show with any silly old not believing,” said Gerald with decision. “I’m going to believe in magic as hard as I can. This is an enchanted garden, and that’s an enchanted castle, and I’m jolly well going to explore. The dauntless knight then led the way, leaving his ignorant squires to follow or not, just as they jolly well chose.” He rolled off the balustrade and strode firmly down towards the lawn, his boots making, as they went, a clatter full of determination.

The others followed. There never was such a garden⁠—out of a picture or a fairytale. They passed quite close by the deer, who only raised their pretty heads to look, and did not seem startled at all. And