Chapter III: At the Owls’ Inn

The storm broke, sounding like a cannon-ball rolling against a thousand giant ninepins. The rain gushed out of the sky like water from a trough, the winds screamed, and the lightning flashed in forks and zigzags of green and gold and purple and diamond-white against the big banks of clouds.

The children would have been frightened at any other time, but now the storm seemed only part of the excitement and queerness of everything. It went with the owls and the wind channels, and the rest of the strange things with which they had come in contact for the first time.

Bizzybuzz took a tiny lantern from somewhere in his laced-up doublet, and set it on the ground. It seemed to light itself instantly, giving out greenish blue rays.

“Fire from the marshes,” he explained. “Goblin-fire! Isn’t it pretty?”

The children looked about them, staring at the occupants of the Owls’ Inn with great curiosity.

“This is the Owl Innkeeper, known as the Tail-less One,” declared Bizzybuzz, with a wave of his hand.

The Owl Innkeeper bowed politely, though very solemnly. He was a large, fine owl, but he had no tail-feathers at all.

“How did he lose them?” asked Bab, in a whisper.

“He’ll tell you before long,” answered Bizzybuzz. “He always does.”

“What are all these owls?” asked Meg.

“Carriers,” said Bizzybuzz. “The owls are the chief carriers,—steeds,—conveyances,—what you like,—for the Make Believe People. Of course some sprites use bats or smaller birds, and the very little elves have a liking for moths. But most of us Make-Believers prefer the owls. They are the biggest and strongest and most steady, and then they are very patient, and so wise!”

“I’d like to talk to our owl,” said Bab. “He looks kind.”

“Oh, he is,” said Bizzybuzz, “and wise. Dear, dear! How very wise he is, to be sure!”

The owls talked little, but looked volumes. They sat around in rows, staring unblinkingly with their great shining eyes. Every minute a new one would flap heavily into the cave, settle down, and begin to stare like the others.

“Did I ever tell any of you how I lost my tail-feathers?” asked the Owl Innkeeper, at last, in a sad deep voice.

“_All_ of us!” said the owls, in a chorus.

“No, no!” cried Bab, eagerly, “not all! _We_ haven’t heard it.”

“Then listen,” said the Owl Innkeeper, solemnly. “For it is my best story, though very painful to me.”

He settled himself down in the centre of the cave, and blinked three times, by way of a preface.

“It is about ghosts,” he began.

“Ghosts!” repeated Bab, with a laugh.

“Ghosts!” exclaimed Meg, scornfully.

“Did you ever see a ghost?” asked Dick.

“Did I ever see a ghost?” said the Owl Innkeeper. “My eyes and feathers! Yes! Hundreds, thousands of them. That is one of the very easiest things we owls do. We can see all sorts of things that you can’t, because we can see in the dark. Cats do the same, and bats. And the dark is always full of ghosts. If _you_ could see in the dark, you would see ghosts too!”

“Yes,—because _if_ we could see in the dark, we’d be owls or cats or bats ourselves!” laughed Meg.

“The owls,” explained their feathered friend, solemnly, “have no sense of humor, so that is lost on me.”

“Oh, go on, please!” urged Bab, who was really anxious to hear the ghost-story.

“Well,” proceeded the owl, “I once lived in a yew-tree near an old house,—oh, a very old house! It was peopled only by ghosts, and a horrid lot they were,—ill natured and even quite savage sometimes. And they were so strong, through living so many hundreds of years undisturbed, that they were really almost quite solid, like real people.

“Well, one day the old place was bought by a young man, who laughed when they told him that it was haunted. _I_ didn’t laugh. I felt quite worried, for I like young people (when they don’t make too much noise in the daytime), and I did not know what those horrid ghosts would do to that poor lad. So, the night he moved in, _I_ moved in too; that is, I sat on the window-sill, where I could see everything that went on inside.

“Dinner was served by a man-servant, and there were lights and shiny things on the table, and wine, and a smell of cooked food, and queer enough it did seem, to be sure! Suddenly, just as the young man was helping himself to the roast, in walked one of the head ghosts,—an old fellow in armour he was, with a sinfully ugly face.

“‘I always did like beef,’ said he, as bold as brass, ‘so I’ll take some!’ and he picked the roast off the silver platter the man was holding, and began to eat it—right in his fingers!

“The servant’s eyes bulged out of his head, and I could see his knees giving way. Suddenly down went the silver platter, and out of the house he went, and the other servants after him. I knew _they_ were gone for good! But my young friend at the table looked at his visitor quite calmly.

“‘This is very good in you,’ he said. ‘I was feeling a bit lonely this evening, all by myself. What will you have to drink?’

“Well, they ate and drank together amiably enough for a while, but by and by the other ghosts began to come in by twos and threes, and I soon saw there was bound to be trouble.

“‘Now, young man,’ said the old fellow in armour, when he had about thirty of his own kind to back him up. ‘We want you to get out. We have owned this house for three hundred and fifty-three years, two months, four days, five hours, seventeen minutes, and half a second. Now, we don’t propose to have you here, disturbing us. Get out!’

“‘_That_ I will not!’ said the young man, with a good show of spirit. ‘It’s you who will get out, you old wretch—’

“Then the ghosts set upon him, all of them at once, and I was sure they would smother him or tear him limb from limb. So into the room I flew, tu-whooing at the top of my lungs. The ghosts all scattered and stood still at the sound, for they all respect an owl. You know an owl’s feather is the only thing that will make a ghost entirely alive again.

“The young man got up from the floor panting. I settled down on the dinner-table and addressed the room. I won’t repeat to you my discourse, but it was an admirable one. I have often wished that it might be published. I tried to induce those ghosts to let the boy alone; but they were firm and very angry, and after a while they all flew at him again—in spite of everything I had said! I flapped my way into the thick of the fight, and tried to beat and peck them off. Then, growing quite desperate, I cried, ‘If you will go away, I will give a feather to the leader.’

“That stopped them for a bit, and I let the armoured ghost pull out a tail-feather. Then others came around me and demanded feathers, and, one by one, they pulled and pulled until I was quite tail-less!

“The old leader became human first. And he said, looking longingly at the young man, ‘Now that we’re all men together, I’d dearly love to finish that upstart!’

“‘I appeal to your honour as a gentleman and a ghost!’ I cried; though I trembled in my remaining feathers, for, to tell the truth, he did not look overburdened either with honour or gentlemanliness. But he shook his head regretfully, and then they all departed together and went to a tailor-shop, I suppose, to buy themselves some up-to-date clothes.

“‘Well,’ said the young man to me, ‘I’m sure I’m tremendously obliged to you, and I wish I could do something for you in return. But I can’t give you back your tail-feathers, and I don’t suppose it would be any use to even offer you a drink! You’ve really done me a great service.’

“‘Don’t mention it, sir!’ replied I, with a flourish. But just then I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the big mirror, and I blushed all over my beak and claws. However, I left the room slowly and with as much dignity as I could, and I heard the young man suppress a giggle as I went. I really could not blame him!

“And that,” concluded the Owl Innkeeper, sadly and impressively, “is the true story of how I lost my tail-feathers!”

“I think he was horrid to let you give up your tail-feathers just to save him!” exclaimed Bab, indignantly.

“I think myself,” said the owl, “that he might have—well—protested.”

“Hark!” said Meg. They noticed for the first time that the noise of wind and rain and thunder had died down.

“The storm is over,” announced one of the owls at the door. “Come, brothers, it is high time to be off!”

The cave was filled with the sound of rushing wings, and a minute later the three children found themselves again mounting their feathered steed.

“Good-bye, good-bye!” called the Owl Innkeeper, from the entrance of the cave. “May you keep all your feathers until you are old, and always have plenty of mice for supper!”—which, after all, was the best sort of a wish he knew how to make!

This time they were so tired that they fell asleep at once, with the fresh, damp winds blowing over them. And they seemed to have but just closed their eyes when Bizzybuzz waked them. As they stared about them sleepily, the air seemed full of a shining silver light.

“Look!” said Bizzybuzz, pointing. “Look your last upon your own country for some time to come, for we have passed over the border, and are now in Make Believe Land.”

Stretching far, far away—to the very edge of the world, it seemed—lay a country which in this clear pale light looked dark and dull and ugly. There were mountains there, but in the distance they seemed to be nothing but a lot of stupid little bumps.

“That is your own country,—what some people call the Real World,” said Bizzybuzz. “Now look beneath you!”

Beneath them were clouds of pink and gold and sky-blue and violet and pale green. Here and there a tall tower shot up, shining through the rainbow colours. In other places there was the gleam of silver water.

“That is part of Make Believe Land,” said Bizzybuzz, “and a very important part, too: the City of Dreams. Some day you shall go there, if you like, and see the Garden of Good Dreams and the Forest of Nightmares. That city is on the dividing line between the Real World and Make Believe Land. See where the coloured clouds begin! First they are gray and dull,—that is because they are still on the side of the Real World; then they grow bright and lovely, for they are floating, as we are, over the City of Dreams.”

The owl flew on faster and faster. All sorts of wonderful things glimmered past beneath: forests of silver trees with fruit of gold, meadows with jewels for flowers, green woodland places from which the softest magical music rose forever, dreamy gardens, and marvellous rivers; and still on and on they went.

“Ah!” exclaimed Bizzybuzz, and his voice sounded quite frightened. “Look well now, for this is a place which you will hear of very soon again: this is the Sea of Glass!”

The Sea of Glass was broad and gleaming. There was something very queer about its motionless, shiny surface. It was still a little distance away, but just under them was a city built entirely of some bright red stuff. It glittered scarlet in the soft light.

“What is this place under us?” asked Dick.

“That,” said Bizzybuzz, in a shuddering whisper, “is the terrible Red City,—the City of the Wicked King!”

They wanted to ask more about it, but there were too many things at which to look. I could not even try to describe to you that wonderful flight over Make Believe Land. The children never forgot it, and among their many strange adventures it really made the greatest impression,—perhaps because it was the first.

At last they found themselves flying over a wooded country, where there were quaint little houses and funny animals,—and even groups of people, all in Kate Greenaway costumes. It seemed homelike and commonplace, and really comforting after all the mists and towers and rivers and seas they had seen, and they asked eagerly, “What is this place?”

“This,” answered their guide, “is Mother Goose’s own country, and you are at your journey’s end.”

IV

_Mother Goose’s Cottage_