And she bent down under the
bed, and raised up a stone, and there was a hollow place underneath, and
out of it she took a waxen image, just like the clay one that I and
nurse had made in the brake. And all the time her eyes were burning like
rubies. And she took the little wax doll up in her arms and held it to
her breast, and she whispered and she murmured, and she took it up and
she laid it down again, and she held it high, and she held it low, and
she laid it down again. And she said, 'Happy is he that begat the
bishop, that ordered the clerk, that married the man, that had the wife,
that fashioned the hive, that harboured the bee, that gathered the wax
that my own true love was made of.' And she brought out of an aumbry a
great golden bowl, and she brought out of a closet a great jar of wine,
and she poured some of the wine into the bowl, and she laid her mannikin
very gently in the wine, and washed it in the wine all over. Then she
went to a cupboard and took a small round cake and laid it on the
image's mouth, and then she bore it softly and covered it up. And Sir
Simon, who was watching all the time, though he was terribly frightened,
saw the lady bend down and stretch out her arms and whisper and sing,
and then Sir Simon saw beside her a handsome young man, who kissed her
on the lips. And they drank wine out of the golden bowl together, and
they ate the cake together. But when the sun rose there was only the
little wax doll, and the lady hid it again under the bed in the hollow
place. So Sir Simon knew quite well what the lady was, and he waited and
he watched, till the time she had said was nearly over, and in a week
the year and a day would be done. And one night, when he was watching
behind the curtains in her room, he saw her making more wax dolls. And
she made five, and hid them away. And the next night she took one out,
and held it up, and filled the golden bowl with water, and took the doll
by the neck and held it under the water. Then she said--

    Sir Dickon, Sir Dickon, your day is done,
    You shall be drowned in the water wan. And the next day news came to the castle that Sir Richard had been
drowned at the ford. And at night she took another doll and tied a
violet cord round its neck and hung it up on a nail. Then she said--

    Sir Rowland, your life has ended its span,
    High on a tree I see you hang. And the next day news came to the castle that Sir Rowland had been
hanged by robbers in the wood. And at night she took another doll, and
drove her bodkin right into its heart. Then she said--

    Sir Noll, Sir Noll, so cease your life,
    Your heart piercèd with the knife. And the next day news came to the castle that Sir Oliver had fought in a
tavern, and a stranger had stabbed him to the heart. And at night she
took another doll, and held it to a fire of charcoal till it was melted. Then she said--

    Sir John, return, and turn to clay,
    In fire of fever you waste away. And the next day news came to the castle that Sir John had died in a
burning fever. So then Sir Simon went out of the castle and mounted his
horse and rode away to the bishop and told him everything. And the
bishop sent his men, and they took the Lady Avelin, and everything she
had done was found out. So on the day after the year and a day, when she
was to have been married, they carried her through the town in her
smock, and they tied her to a great stake in the market-place, and
burned her alive before the bishop with her wax image hung round her
neck. And people said the wax man screamed in the burning of the flames. And I thought of this story again and again as I was lying awake in my
bed, and I seemed to see the Lady Avelin in the market-place, with the
yellow flames eating up her beautiful white body. And I thought of it so
much that I seemed to get into the story myself, and I fancied I was the
lady, and that they were coming to take me to be burnt with fire, with
all the people in the town looking at me. And I wondered whether she
cared, after all the strange things she had done, and whether it hurt
very much to be burned at the stake. I tried again and again to forget
nurse's stories, and to remember the secret I had seen that afternoon,
and what was in the secret wood, but I could only see the dark and a
glimmering in the dark, and then it went away, and I only saw myself
running, and then a great moon came up white over a dark round hill. Then all the old stories came back again, and the queer rhymes that
nurse used to sing to me; and there was one beginning 'Halsy cumsy Helen
musty,' that she used to sing very softly when she wanted me to go to
sleep. And I began to sing it to myself inside of my head, and I went to
sleep. The next morning I was very tired and sleepy, and could hardly do my
lessons, and I was very glad when they were over and I had had my
dinner, as I wanted to go out and be alone. It was a warm day, and I
went to a nice turfy hill by the river, and sat down on my mother's old
shawl that I had brought with me on purpose. The sky was grey, like the
day before, but there was a kind of white gleam behind it, and from
where I was sitting I could look down on the town, and it was all still
and quiet and white, like a picture. I remembered that it was on that
hill that nurse taught me to play an old game called 'Troy Town,' in
which one had to dance, and wind in and out on a pattern in the grass,
and then when one had danced and turned long enough the other person
asks you questions, and you can't help answering whether you want to or
not, and whatever you are told to do you feel you have to do it. Nurse
said there used to be a lot of games like that that some people knew of,
and there was one by which people could be turned into anything you
liked, and an old man her great-grandmother had seen had known a girl
who had been turned into a large snake. And there was another very
ancient game of dancing and winding and turning, by which you could take
a person out of himself and hide him away as long as you liked, and his
body went walking about quite empty, without any sense in it. But I came
to that hill because I wanted to think of what had happened the day
before, and of the secret of the wood. From the place where I was
sitting I could see beyond the town, into the opening I had found, where
a little brook had led me into an unknown country. And I pretended I was
following the brook over again, and I went all the way in my mind, and
at last I found the wood, and crept into it under the bushes, and then
in the dusk I saw something that made me feel as if I were filled with
fire, as if I wanted to dance and sing and fly up into the air, because
I was changed and wonderful.