And then I
remembered that hot summer afternoon, so long ago, when nurse left me by
myself in the shade, and the white people came out of the water and out
of the wood, and played, and danced, and sang, and I began to fancy that
nurse told me about something like it before I saw them, only I couldn't
recollect exactly what she told me. Then I wondered whether she had been
the white lady, as I remembered she was just as white and beautiful, and
had the same dark eyes and black hair; and sometimes she smiled and
looked like the lady had looked, when she was telling me some of her
stories, beginning with 'Once on a time,' or 'In the time of the
fairies.' But I thought she couldn't be the lady, as she seemed to have
gone a different way into the wood, and I didn't think the man who came
after us could be the other, or I couldn't have seen that wonderful
secret in the secret wood. I thought of the moon: but it was afterwards
when I was in the middle of the wild land, where the earth was made into
the shape of great figures, and it was all walls, and mysterious
hollows, and smooth round mounds, that I saw the great white moon come
up over a round hill. I was wondering about all these things, till at
last I got quite frightened, because I was afraid something had happened
to me, and I remembered nurse's tale of the poor girl who went into the
hollow pit, and was carried away at last by the black man. I knew I had
gone into a hollow pit too, and perhaps it was the same, and I had done
something dreadful. So I did the charm over again, and touched my eyes
and my lips and my hair in a peculiar manner, and said the old words
from the fairy language, so that I might be sure I had not been carried
away. I tried again to see the secret wood, and to creep up the passage
and see what I had seen there, but somehow I couldn't, and I kept on
thinking of nurse's stories. There was one I remembered about a young
man who once upon a time went hunting, and all the day he and his hounds
hunted everywhere, and they crossed the rivers and went into all the
woods, and went round the marshes, but they couldn't find anything at
all, and they hunted all day till the sun sank down and began to set
behind the mountain. And the young man was angry because he couldn't
find anything, and he was going to turn back, when just as the sun
touched the mountain, he saw come out of a brake in front of him a
beautiful white stag. And he cheered to his hounds, but they whined and
would not follow, and he cheered to his horse, but it shivered and stood
stock still, and the young man jumped off the horse and left the hounds
and began to follow the white stag all alone. And soon it was quite
dark, and the sky was black, without a single star shining in it, and
the stag went away into the darkness. And though the man had brought his
gun with him he never shot at the stag, because he wanted to catch it,
and he was afraid he would lose it in the night. But he never lost it
once, though the sky was so black and the air was so dark, and the stag
went on and on till the young man didn't know a bit where he was. And
they went through enormous woods where the air was full of whispers and
a pale, dead light came out from the rotten trunks that were lying on
the ground, and just as the man thought he had lost the stag, he would
see it all white and shining in front of him, and he would run fast to
catch it, but the stag always ran faster, so he did not catch it. And
they went through the enormous woods, and they swam across rivers, and
they waded through black marshes where the ground bubbled, and the air
was full of will-o'-the-wisps, and the stag fled away down into rocky
narrow valleys, where the air was like the smell of a vault, and the man
went after it. And they went over the great mountains and the man heard
the wind come down from the sky, and the stag went on and the man went
after. At last the sun rose and the young man found he was in a country
that he had never seen before; it was a beautiful valley with a bright
stream running through it, and a great, big round hill in the middle. And the stag went down the valley, towards the hill, and it seemed to
be getting tired and went slower and slower, and though the man was
tired, too, he began to run faster, and he was sure he would catch the
stag at last. But just as they got to the bottom of the hill, and the
man stretched out his hand to catch the stag, it vanished into the
earth, and the man began to cry; he was so sorry that he had lost it
after all his long hunting. But as he was crying he saw there was a door
in the hill, just in front of him, and he went in, and it was quite
dark, but he went on, as he thought he would find the white stag. And
all of a sudden it got light, and there was the sky, and the sun
shining, and birds singing in the trees, and there was a beautiful
fountain. And by the fountain a lovely lady was sitting, who was the
queen of the fairies, and she told the man that she had changed herself
into a stag to bring him there because she loved him so much. Then she
brought out a great gold cup, covered with jewels, from her fairy
palace, and she offered him wine in the cup to drink. And he drank, and
the more he drank the more he longed to drink, because the wine was
enchanted. So he kissed the lovely lady, and she became his wife, and he
stayed all that day and all that night in the hill where she lived, and
when he woke he found he was lying on the ground, close to where he had
seen the stag first, and his horse was there and his hounds were there
waiting, and he looked up, and the sun sank behind the mountain. And he
went home and lived a long time, but he would never kiss any other lady
because he had kissed the queen of the fairies, and he would never drink
common wine any more, because he had drunk enchanted wine. And sometimes
nurse told me tales that she had heard from her great-grandmother, who
was very old, and lived in a cottage on the mountain all alone, and most
of these tales were about a hill where people used to meet at night long
ago, and they used to play all sorts of strange games and do queer
things that nurse told me of, but I couldn't understand, and now, she
said, everybody but her great-grandmother had forgotten all about it,
and nobody knew where the hill was, not even her great-grandmother. But
she told me one very strange story about the hill, and I trembled when I
remembered it. She said that people always went there in summer, when it
was very hot, and they had to dance a good deal. It would be all dark at
first, and there were trees there, which made it much darker, and people
would come, one by one, from all directions, by a secret path which
nobody else knew, and two persons would keep the gate, and every one as
they came up had to give a very curious sign, which nurse showed me as
well as she could, but she said she couldn't show me properly.