Her glance came darting from the horizon and flickered at him fiercely.
"I mean, Mary Poppins" he began to stammer. Had he broken the thread of the story?
"I mean," he went on flatteringly, "you've got pink cheeks and blue eyes, too. Like lollipops and bluebells."
A slow smile of satisfaction melted her angry look, and Michael gave a sigh of relief as she took up the tale again.
Well, she went on, there was the brook, and there was the Goose-girl's reflection. And each time she looked at it, she was sorry for everyone in the world who was missing such a spectacle. And she pitied in particular the handsome Swineherd who herded his flock on the other side of the stream.
"If only," she thought, lamentingly, "I were not the person I am! If I were merely what I seem, I could then invite him over. But since I am something more than a goose-girl, it would not be right or proper."
And reluctantly she turned her back and looked in the other direction.
She would have been surprised, perhaps, had she known what the Swineherd was thinking.
He, too, for lack of a looking-glass, made use of the little river. And when it reflected his dark curls, and the curve of his chin and his well-shaped ears, he grieved for the whole human race, thinking of all it was missing. And especially he grieved for the Goose-girl.
"Undoubtedly," he told himself, "she is dying of loneliness sitting there in her shabby dress, braiding her yellow hair. It is very pretty hair, too, and but for the fact that I am who I am I would willingly speak a word to her and while away the time."
And reluctantly he turned his back and looked in the other direction.
What a coincidence, you will say! But there's more to the story than that. Not only the Goose-girl and the Swineherd, but every creature in that place was thinking the same thoughts.
The geese, as they nibbled the buttercups and flattened the grass into star-like shapes, were convinced and they made no secret of it they were something more than geese.
And the swine would have laughed at any suggestion that they were merely pigs.
And so it was with the grey Ass who pulled the Swineherd's cart to market; and the Toad who lived beside the stream, under one of the stepping-stones; and the barefoot Boy with the Toy Monkey who played on the bridge every day.
Each believed that his real self was infinitely greater and grander than the one to be seen with the naked eye.
Around his little shaggy body, the Ass was confident, a lordlier, finer, sleeker shape kicked its hooves in the daisies.
To the Toad, however, his true self was smaller than his outward shape, and very gay and green. He would gaze for hours at his reflection but, ugly as it truly was, the sight never depressed him.
"That's only my outside," he would say, nodding at his wrinkled skin and yellow bulging eyes. But he kept his outside out of sight when the Boy was on the bridge. For he dreaded the curses that greeted him if he showed as much as a toe.
"Heave to!" the ferocious voice would cry. "Enemy sighted to starboard! A bottle of rum and a new dagger to the man who rips him apart!"
For the Boy was something more than a boy as you'll probably have guessed. Inside, he knew the Straits of Magellan as you know the nose on your face. Honest mariners paled at his fame, his deeds were a byword in seven seas. He could sack a dozen ships in a morning and bury the treasure so cleverly that even he could not find it.
To a passer-by it might have seemed that the Boy had two good eyes. But in his own private opinion, he was only possessed of one. He had lost the other in a hand-to-hand fight somewhere off Gibraltar. His everyday name always made him smile when people called him by it. "If they knew who I really am," he would say, "they wouldn't look so cheerful!"
As for the Monkey, he believed he was nothing like a monkey.
"This old fur coat," he assured himself, "is simply to keep me warm. And I swing by my tail for the fun of it, not because I must."
Well, there they all were, one afternoon, full of their fine ideas. The sun spread over them like a fan, very warm and cosy. The meadow flowers hung on their stems, bright as newly-washed china. Up in the sky the larks were singing on and on, song without end, as though they were all wound up.
The Goose-girl sat among her geese, the Swineherd with his swine. The Ass in his field, and the Toad in his hole, were nodding sleepily. And the Boy and his Monkey lolled on the bridge discussing their further plans for bloodshed.
Suddenly the Ass snorted and his ear gave a questioning twitch. Larks were above and the brook beneath, but he heard among these daily sounds the echo of a footstep.
Along the path that led to the stream a ragged man was lounging. His tattered clothes were so old that you couldn't find one bit of them that wasn't tied with string. The brim of his hat framed a face that was rosy and mild in the sunlight, and through the brim his hair stuck up in tufts of grey and silver. His steps were alternately light and heavy, for one foot wore an old boot and the other a bedroom slipper. You would have to look for a long time to find a shabbier man.