With it came the scent of flowers and forests, of fields and
peaty smoke from cottage chimneys....
But there was another perfume too. Far down the sky swept some fleet
and sparkling thing that made the world look different. It was
delicate and many-tinted, soft as a swallow's wing, and full of
butterflies and tiny winds.
For, with the last stroke of midnight from the old church tower, May
had waked April; and April had run off into the mountains with the
dawn. Her final shower of tears still shone upon the ground. Already
May was busy drying them.
That afternoon, when school was over, Monkey and Jimbo found
themselves in the attics underneath the roof together. They had
abstracted their father's opera-glasses from the case that hung upon
the door, and were using them as a telescope.
'What can you see?' asked Jimbo, waiting for his turn, as they looked
towards the hazy mountains behind the village.
'Nothing.'
'That must be the opening, then,' he suggested, 'just air.'
His sister lowered the glasses and stared at him. 'But it can't be a
real place?' she said, the doubt in her tone making her words a
question. 'Daddy's never been there himself, I'm sure--from the way he
told it. You only dreamed it.' 'Well, anyhow,' was the reply with
conviction, 'it's there, so there must be _somebody_ who believes in
it.
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