But what I saw was not changed at all, and
had not grown old, and I wondered again and again how such things could
happen, and whether nurse's stories were really true, because in the
daytime in the open air everything seemed quite different from what it
was at night, when I was frightened, and thought I was to be burned
alive. I once told my father one of her little tales, which was about a
ghost, and asked him if it was true, and he told me it was not true at
all, and that only common, ignorant people believed in such rubbish. He
was very angry with nurse for telling me the story, and scolded her,
and after that I promised her I would never whisper a word of what she
told me, and if I did I should be bitten by the great black snake that
lived in the pool in the wood. And all alone on the hill I wondered what
was true. I had seen something very amazing and very lovely, and I knew
a story, and if I had really seen it, and not made it up out of the
dark, and the black bough, and the bright shining that was mounting up
to the sky from over the great round hill, but had really seen it in
truth, then there were all kinds of wonderful and lovely and terrible
things to think of, so I longed and trembled, and I burned and got cold. And I looked down on the town, so quiet and still, like a little white
picture, and I thought over and over if it could be true. I was a long
time before I could make up my mind to anything; there was such a
strange fluttering at my heart that seemed to whisper to me all the time
that I had not made it up out of my head, and yet it seemed quite
impossible, and I knew my father and everybody would say it was dreadful
rubbish. I never dreamed of telling him or anybody else a word about it,
because I knew it would be of no use, and I should only get laughed at
or scolded, so for a long time I was very quiet, and went about thinking
and wondering; and at night I used to dream of amazing things, and
sometimes I woke up in the early morning and held out my arms with a
cry. And I was frightened, too, because there were dangers, and some
awful thing would happen to me, unless I took great care, if the story
were true. These old tales were always in my head, night and morning,
and I went over them and told them to myself over and over again, and
went for walks in the places where nurse had told them to me; and when
I sat in the nursery by the fire in the evenings I used to fancy nurse
was sitting in the other chair, and telling me some wonderful story in a
low voice, for fear anybody should be listening. But she used to like
best to tell me about things when we were right out in the country, far
from the house, because she said she was telling me such secrets, and
walls have ears. And if it was something more than ever secret, we had
to hide in brakes or woods; and I used to think it was such fun creeping
along a hedge, and going very softly, and then we would get behind the
bushes or run into the wood all of a sudden, when we were sure that none
was watching us; so we knew that we had our secrets quite all to
ourselves, and nobody else at all knew anything about them. Now and
then, when we had hidden ourselves as I have described, she used to show
me all sorts of odd things. One day, I remember, we were in a hazel
brake, overlooking the brook, and we were so snug and warm, as though it
was April; the sun was quite hot, and the leaves were just coming out. Nurse said she would show me something funny that would make me laugh,
and then she showed me, as she said, how one could turn a whole house
upside down, without anybody being able to find out, and the pots and
pans would jump about, and the china would be broken, and the chairs
would tumble over of themselves. I tried it one day in the kitchen, and
I found I could do it quite well, and a whole row of plates on the
dresser fell off it, and cook's little work-table tilted up and turned
right over 'before her eyes,' as she said, but she was so frightened and
turned so white that I didn't do it again, as I liked her. And
afterwards, in the hazel copse, when she had shown me how to make
things tumble about, she showed me how to make rapping noises, and I
learnt how to do that, too. Then she taught me rhymes to say on certain
occasions, and peculiar marks to make on other occasions, and other
things that her great-grandmother had taught her when she was a little
girl herself. And these were all the things I was thinking about in
those days after the strange walk when I thought I had seen a great
secret, and I wished nurse were there for me to ask her about it, but
she had gone away more than two years before, and nobody seemed to know
what had become of her, or where she had gone. But I shall always
remember those days if I live to be quite old, because all the time I
felt so strange, wondering and doubting, and feeling quite sure at one
time, and making up my mind, and then I would feel quite sure that such
things couldn't happen really, and it began all over again. But I took
great care not to do certain things that might be very dangerous. So I
waited and wondered for a long time, and though I was not sure at all, I
never dared to try to find out. But one day I became sure that all that
nurse said was quite true, and I was all alone when I found it out. I
trembled all over with joy and terror, and as fast as I could I ran into
one of the old brakes where we used to go--it was the one by the lane,
where nurse made the little clay man--and I ran into it, and I crept
into it; and when I came to the place where the elder was, I covered up
my face with my hands and lay down flat on the grass, and I stayed there
for two hours without moving, whispering to myself delicious, terrible
things, and saying some words over and over again. It was all true and
wonderful and splendid, and when I remembered the story I knew and
thought of what I had really seen, I got hot and I got cold, and the air
seemed full of scent, and flowers, and singing. And first I wanted to
make a little clay man, like the one nurse had made so long ago, and I
had to invent plans and stratagems, and to look about, and to think of
things beforehand, because nobody must dream of anything that I was
doing or going to do, and I was too old to carry clay about in a tin
bucket. At last I thought of a plan, and I brought the wet clay to the
brake, and did everything that nurse had done, only I made a much finer
image than the one she had made; and when it was finished I did
everything that I could imagine and much more than she did, because it
was the likeness of something far better. And a few days later, when I
had done my lessons early, I went for the second time by the way of the
little brook that had led me into a strange country. And I followed the
brook, and went through the bushes, and beneath the low branches of
trees, and up thorny thickets on the hill, and by dark woods full of
creeping thorns, a long, long way.