"Are you sure there isn't a bull?" she would ask, perched precariously on the upper rungs of a five-barred gate.
At last, they found the track again-a faint depression in the turfy grass. No more hedges; the hill swelled steeply above them. There were chalk and harebells and an occasional clump of beech trees. They followed the curve of the hill until at last the view widened beneath them and a sweet breeze stole their breath. Carey found a fossil; Miss Price mislaid a glove.
While they were searching, Emelius went ahead; turning a sudden corner, he seemed to disappear. When at last they came upon him, he was standing in a hollow, knee-deep in brambles. Among the brambles, there were stones and rubble. It might well have been the ruin of a house, Carey thought- looking about her-awash with elder bushes and trailing honeysuckle. Tears of disappointment came to her eyes. "Was it really here? " she asked, hoping he might be mistaken.
"Indeed, yes," Emelius assured her. He seemed elated rather than depressed-as though this was proof of his having skipped the centuries. He took Miss Price's hand and helped her down-quite excited he had become, almost boyish-and left her marooned on a piece of coping while gingerly he jumped from stone to stone, showing the general layout of the rooms. "Here was the parlor, here the dairy. This," he explained as he jumped down into a long hollow, "was the sunken garden where my aunt grew sweet herbs." He kicked the sandy rubble from some flat stones. "And here the cellar steps." He showed them where the apple orchard had been and the barn. "It was a comely, neat house," he repeated proudly. "And none to inherit it save I." When they reached the main road, a strange incident occurred. Emelius disappeared. One moment he was walking just behind them, and the next he was nowhere to be seen. Miss Price stopped Dr. Lamond in his old Ford and asked him if he had seen, along the road, a young man of Emelius's description.
"Yes," said the doctor. "As I turned the corner, he was close behind you; then he made a dart for that field." They found Emelius behind the hedge, white and shaking. It was the car that had unnerved him. His panic, in the face of such a monster, had left no place for courtesy. It was some time before Miss Price could calm him. When the mail van passed them later, Emelius stood his ground, but the sweat broke on his brow, and he quivered like a horse about to shy. He did not speak again until they reached home.
6 MAGIC IN MODERATION Breaking Emelius into twentieth-century life was not easy, but Miss Price had great patience. He learned to clean his own shoes and to pass the bread and butter at tea. He became more modern in his speech, and once was heard to say O.K. They had no sooner got him used to cars when he saw a jeep, and all their good work was undone. Airplanes he marveled at, but they did not come close enough to frighten him. But daily, as he learned more of the state of the world, modern inventions and the march of "progress," he clung closer to Miss Price as the one unassailable force in the midst of nightmarish havoc.
On warm evenings, after the children were in bed, he would be with Miss Price in the garden, stripping damsons with a rake (for bottling), and they would talk about magic. Carey could hear them through her window, their voices rising and falling in restrained but earnest argument as the damsons pattered into the basket and the sun sank low behind the trees. "I never scrape the scales from an adder," she once heard Miss Price say earnestly. "It takes force from any spell except those in which hemlock is combined with fennel. The only time I ever scrape the scales from an adder is in spells against St. Vitus's dance; then for some reason, it gives better results. . . ." Sometimes, when Emelius had been speaking, Miss Price would exclaim rather scornfully: "Well, if you want to go back to the wax image and pin school-" and Carey always wondered what the wax image and pin school was, and why Emelius, having graduated, should want to go back there.
One evening Carey overheard a most curious conversation. It began by Miss Price saying brightly: "Have you ever tried intrasubstantiary-locomotion? " There was a mystified silence on the part of Emelius. Then he said, rather uncertainly: "No. At least, not often." (He had never confessed to Miss Price that, after a lifetime's study of magic, he had never yet got a spell to work.) "It's awfully jolly," she went on. "I had a positive craze for it once." The damsons pattered gently into the basket, and Carey wondered if Emelius was as curious as she was.
Miss Price gave a little laugh. She sounded almost girlish. "Of course^ as spells go, it's child's play. But sometimes the easiest things are the most effective, don't you think?" Emelius cleared his throat. "I'm not sure that I haven't got it a little muddled in my mind," he ventured guardedly. "I may be confusing it with-" Miss Price laughed quite gaily. "Oh, you couldn't confuse intrasubstantiary-locomotion with anything else." She seemed amused.
"No," admitted Emelius. "No. I suppose you couldn't." "Unless," said Miss Price, suddenly thoughtful, leaning forward on the rake and gazing earnestly into the middle distance, "you mean-" "Yes," put in Emelius hastily, "that's what I do mean." "What?" asked Miss Price wonderingly.
"That's what I was confusing it with." "With what?" "With-" Emelius hesitated. "With what you were going to say." "But intrasubstantiary-locomotion is quite different." Miss Price sounded surprised and rather puzzled.
"Oh, yes," admitted Emelius hastily, "it's completely different, but all the same-" "You see intrasubstantiary-locomotion is making a pair of shoes walk without any feet in them." "Ah, yes," agreed Emelius with relief. "Shoes. That's it." "Or a suit of clothes get up and sit down." "Yes," said Emelius, but he sounded a little less sure of himself.
"Of course," went on Miss Price enthusiastically,. "the very best results are got from washing on a line." She laughed delightedly. "It's amazing what you can do with washing on a line." "Astounding," agreed Emelius. He gave a nervous little laugh.
"Except sheets," Miss Price pointed out.
"Oh, sheets are no good." "It has to be wearing apparel. Something you can make look as if a person was inside it." "Naturally," said Emelius rather coldly.
At first Miss Price, anxious not to have him on her hands for too long, had taken great trouble to explain the circumstances that governed the length of Emelius's visit, but, latterly, as he began to settle down and find happiness in the discovery of friends, she, too, seemed sad at the thought of his departure. And contented as he was, he himself was a little worried about the Fire of London and what might have happened to his rooms in Cripplegate, and, also, he felt in duty bound (having read of his aunt's death in the churchyard) to attend to the business of inheriting her estate. "I can always come back and visit you," he would explain, "if you could come and fetch me." But Miss Price didn't approve of this idea. "One thing or another," she would say, "not this dashing about between centuries. A settled life is good for everyone. I think the wise thing to do would be to give up your London establishment and settle down in your aunt's house at Pepperinge Eye. And we could walk up there sometimes, and it would be nice to think of your living there. You would not seem so far away." Emelius thought this over. "It's a good piece of land," he said at last, but he spoke rather sadly.
Carey, who was present, said warmly, as if to comfort him: "We'd go there often. We'd sit on the stones in the parlor, near where the fireplace was, and we'd feel awfully near you-" Emelius looked at her. "I'd like you to see the house," he said. "As it is in my day." Carey turned to Miss Price.