two-shilling pieces, and buy the Lamb a three-pound fifteen
rocking-horse, like those in the big stores, with a part of the money.
It was settled that, as soon as they had wished for the money and got
it, they would get Mr. Crispin to drive them into Rochester again,
taking Martha with them if they could not get out of taking her. And
they would make a list of things they really wanted before they started.
Full of high hopes and excellent resolutions, they went round the safe
slow cart-road to the gravel-pits, and as they went in between the
mounds of gravel a sudden thought came to them, and would have turned
their ruddy cheeks pale if they had been children in a book. Being real
live children, it only made them stop and look at each other with rather
blank and silly expressions. For now they remembered that yesterday,
when they had asked the Psammead for boundless wealth, and it was
getting ready to fill the quarry with the minted gold of bright
guineas--millions of them--it had told the children to run along outside
the quarry for fear they should be buried alive in the heavy splendid
treasure. And they had run. And so it happened that they had not had
time to mark the spot where the Psammead was, with a ring of stones, as
before. And it was this thought that put such silly expressions on their
faces.
"Never mind," said the hopeful Jane, "we'll soon find him."
But this, though easily said, was hard in the doing. They looked and
they looked, and, though they found their seaside spades, nowhere could
they find the Sand-fairy.
At last they had to sit down and rest--not at all because they were
weary or disheartened, of course, but because the Lamb insisted on being
put down, and you cannot look very carefully after anything you may have
happened to lose in the sand if you have an active baby to look after at
the same time. Get someone to drop your best knife in the sand next time
you go to the seashore and then take your baby brother with you when you
go to look for it, and you will see that I am right.
The Lamb, as Martha had said, was feeling the benefit of the country
air, and he was as frisky as a sandhopper. The elder ones longed to go
on talking about the new wishes they would have when (or if) they found
the Psammead again. But the Lamb wished to enjoy himself.
He watched his opportunity and threw a handful of sand into Anthea's
face, and then suddenly burrowed his own head in the sand and waved his
|