The River Beulah flowed through Nontland, and it was bounded on the
north by the Celestial Mountains; on the south by the red brick wall,
where the big pears grew; on the west by the Rose of Sharon tree; and
on the east by the pig-sty. That last sounds something of a descent,
but it wasn't really a pig-sty, and I can't think why it was called
so, for, to my knowledge, it had never harboured anything but two
innocent white Russian rabbits with pink eyes. It was situated at the
foot of the kitchen-garden, next door to the hen-houses; the roof,
made of pavement flags, was easy to climb, and, sloping as it did to
the top of the wall overlooking the high-road, was greatly prized by
us as a watch-tower from which we could see the world go by.
To get into our Kingdom we knocked at the Wicket Gate, murmuring as we
did so:
"El Dorado
Yo he trovado,"
and it opened--with a push. We hadn't an idea then, nor have I now,
what the words meant. We got them out of a book called _The Spanish
Brothers_, and thought them splendidly mysterious.
Besides ourselves, and Nont, and the Russian rabbits, there was only
one other denizen of our Kingdom--a turkey with a broken leg, a
lonely, lovable fowl which John, out of pity, raised to the peerage
and the office of Prime Minister. I have a vivid recollection of
riding in hot haste on a rake to tell the King--not in proper fairy
fashion that the skies were fallen, but that Lord Turkey of Henhouse
was dead.
Pages:
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83