witch reached a kneeling position, damaging her refuge with every
movement in spite of her care. She gasped with pain, and Harold tried to
look very strong and hopeful to comfort her. He straightened his back,
and she crawled into the saddle. The tremor of their launching split the
cloud into several parts, which disintegrated. There was no more
foot-hold on it; the tide had come up and submerged it.

Harold the Broomstick was crippled, he stumbled as he flew, sometimes he
dropped a score of feet, and span. He did stunts by mistake.

They had not strength enough between them to get home. They made a
forced landing in the silver loneliness of Kensington Gardens. It was a
fortunate place, for there is much magic there. Wherever there are
children who pretend, there grows a little magic in the air, and
therefore the wind of Kensington Gardens thrills with enchantment, and
the Round Pond, full of much pretence of great Armadas, crossed and
re-crossed with the abiding wakes of ships full of treasure and romance,
is a blessed lake to magic people.

The witch bathed Harold, her broomstick, in the Round Pond. He evidently
felt its healing quality at once, for after the first minute of
immersion, he swam about exultantly, and shook drops full of moonlight
out of his mane.

The bugles sounded All-clear in many keys all round the ear's horizon;
their sound matched the waning moonlight.

The witch bathed her shoulder, and then she found her way to a little
quiet place she knew of, where no park-keeper ever looks, a place where
secret and ungardened daffodils grow in springtime, a place where all