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diff --git a/old/69668-0.txt b/old/69668-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 05cdee0..0000000 --- a/old/69668-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9285 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The education of Uncle Paul, by -Algernon Blackwood - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The education of Uncle Paul - -Author: Algernon Blackwood - -Release Date: December 31, 2022 [eBook #69668] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EDUCATION OF UNCLE -PAUL *** - - - - - - THE - - EDUCATION OF UNCLE PAUL - - - - -[Illustration] - - - MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED - - LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA - MELBOURNE - - - THE MACMILLAN COMPANY - - NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO - ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO - - - THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. - TORONTO - - - - - THE EDUCATION OF UNCLE PAUL - - - BY - - ALGERNON BLACKWOOD - - AUTHOR OF - ‘JIMBO,’ ‘JOHN SILENCE,’ ‘THE LISTENER,’ ETC. - - - MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED - ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON - 1909 - - - - -Know you what it is to be a child? It is to be something very different -from the man of to-day. It is to have a spirit yet streaming from the -waters of baptism; it is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, -to believe in belief; it is to be so little that the elves can reach to -whisper in your ear; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into -horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, for each -child has its fairy godmother in its own soul; it is to live in a -nutshell and to count yourself the king of infinite space; it is - - To see a world in a grain of sand, - And a heaven in a wild flower, - Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, - And eternity in an hour; - -it is to know not as yet that you are under sentence of life, nor -petition that it is to be commuted into death.—FRANCIS THOMPSON. - - - - - TO - - ALL THOSE CHILDREN - - BETWEEN THE AGES OF EIGHT AND EIGHTY - - WHO LED ME TO ‘THE CRACK’; - - AND HAVE SINCE JOURNEYED WITH ME THROUGH IT - - INTO - - THE LAND ‘BETWEEN YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW’ - - - - - CHAPTER I - - ... I stand as mute - As one with full strong music in his heart - Whose fingers stray upon a shattered lute. - ALICE MEYNELL. - - -All night the big liner had been plunging heavily, but towards morning -she entered quieter water, and when the passengers woke, her rising and -falling over the great swells was so easy that even the sea-sick women -admitted the relief. - -‘Land in sight, sir! We shall see Liverpool within twenty hours now, -barring fog.’ - -The friendly bathroom steward passed the open door of Stateroom No. 28, -and the big, brown-bearded man in the blue serge suit who was sitting, -already dressed, on the edge of the port-hole berth, started as though -he had been shot, and ran up on deck without waiting to finish tying the -laces of his india-rubber shoes. - -‘By Jove!’ he said, as he thundered along the stuffy passages of the -rolling vessel, and ‘By Gad!’ - -He emerged on the upper deck in the sunlight, having nearly injured -several persons in his impetuous journey, and, taking a great gulp of -the salt air with keen satisfaction, he crossed to the side in a couple -of strides, the shoe-laces clicking against the deck as he went. - -‘Twenty years ago,’ he muttered, ‘when I was barely out of my teens. And -now——!’ - -The big man was distinctly excited, though ‘moved’ perhaps is the better -word, seeing that the emotion was a little too searching, too tinged -with sadness, to include elation. He plunged both hands into his coat -pockets with a violence that threatened to tear the bottoms out, and -leaned over the railing. - -Far away a faint blue line, tinged delicately with green, rose out of -the sea. He saw it instantly, and his throat tightened unexpectedly, -almost like a reflex action. For, about that simple little blue line on -the distant horizon there was something strangely seizing, something -absolutely arresting. The sight of it was a hundred times more poignant -than he had imagined it would be; it touched a thousand springs of -secret life in him, and a mist rose faintly before his eyes. - -Paul Rivers had not realised that his emotion would be so intense; but -from that instant everything on the ship, otherwise familiar and rather -boring, looked different. A new sense of locality came to him. The -steamer became strange and new; he ‘recognised’ bits of it as though he -had just come aboard a ship known aforetime. It was no longer the -steamer that was merely crossing the Atlantic; it was the boat that was -bringing him home. And there, trimming the horizon in a thin ribbon of -most arresting beauty, was the coast-line of the first Island. - -‘But it seems so much more solid—and so much more real than I expected!’ - -Though it was barely seven o’clock a few early passengers were already -astir, and he made his way back again to the lower deck and thence -climbed up into the bows. He wished to be alone. Another man, apparently -from the steerage, was there before him, leaning over the rail and -peering fixedly under one hand at the horizon. The saloon passenger took -up his position a few feet farther on and stared hard. He, too, stared -with the eyes of memory, now grown a little dim. The air was fresh and -sweet, fragrant of long sea distances; there was a soft warmth in it -too, for it was late April and the spring made its presence known even -on the great waters where there was nothing to hang its fairy banners -on. - -‘So that’s land! That’s the Old Country!’ - -The words dropped out of their own accord; he could not help himself. -The sky seemed to come down a little closer, with a more familiar and -friendly touch; the very air, he fancied, had a new taste in it,—a whiff -of his boyhood days—a smell of childhood and the things of -childhood—ages ago, it seemed, in another life. - -The huge ship rose and fell on the regular, sweeping swells, and -sea-birds from the land already came out to meet her. He easily imagined -that the thrills in the depths of his own being somehow communicated -themselves to the mighty vessel that tore the seas asunder in her great -desire to reach the land. - -‘Twenty years,’ he repeated aloud, oblivious of his neighbour, ‘twenty -years since I last saw it!’ - -‘And it’s gol-darned nearer fifty since _I_ seen it,’ exclaimed a harsh -voice just behind him. - -He turned with a start. The steerage passenger beside him, he saw, was -an old man with a rough, grey face, and hair turning white; the hand -that shaded his eyes was thick and worn; there was a heavy gold ring on -the little finger, and the dirty cuff of a dark flannel shirt tumbled, -loosely and unbuttoned, over the very solid wrist. The face, he noticed, -at a second glance, was rugged, beaten, scored, the face of a man who -had tumbled terribly about life, battered from pillar to post; and it -was only the light in the hard blue eyes—eyes still fixed unwaveringly -on the distant line of the land—that redeemed it from a kind of grim -savagery. Beaten and battered, yes! Yet at the same time triumphant. The -atmosphere of the man proclaimed in some vibrant fashion beyond analysis -that he had failed in all he undertook—failed from stupidity rather than -character, and always doggedly beginning over again with the same lack -of intelligence—but yet had never given in, and never would give in. - -It was not difficult to reconstruct his history from his appearance; or -to realise his feelings as he saw the Old Country after fifty years—a -returned failure. Although the voice had vibrated with emotion, the face -remained expressionless and unmoved; but down both cheeks large tears -ran slowly, in sudden jerks, to drop with a splash upon the railing. And -Paul Rivers, after his intuitive fashion, grasped the whole drama of the -man with a sudden completeness that touched him with swift sympathy. At -the same time he could not help thinking of rain-drops running down the -face of a statue. He recognised with shame that he was conscious of a -desire to laugh. - -‘Fifty years! That’s a long time indeed,’ he said kindly. ‘It’s -half-a-century.’ - -‘That’s so, Boss,’ returned the other in a dead voice that betrayed -Ireland overlaid with acquired American twang and intonation; ‘and I -guess now I’ll never be able to stick it over here. Jest see it—and then -git back again.’ - -He kept his eyes fixed on the horizon, and never once turned his head -towards the man he was speaking to; only his lips moved; he did not even -lift a finger to brush off the great tears that fell one by one from his -cheeks to the deck. He seemed unconscious of them; as though it was so -long since those hard eyes had melted that they had forgotten how to do -it properly and the skin no longer registered the sensation of the -trickling. The tears continued to fall at intervals; Paul Rivers -actually heard them splash. - -‘I went out steerage,’ the man continued to himself, or to the sea, or -to any one else who cared to listen, ‘and I come back steerage. That’s -my trouble. And now’—his eye shifted for a fraction of a second and -watched a huge wave go thundering by—‘I’m grave-huntin’, I guess. And -that’s about the size of it. Jest see it and—git back again!’ - -The first-class passenger made some kind and appropriate reply—words -with genuine sympathy in them—and then, getting no further answer, found -it difficult to continue the conversation. The man, he realised, had -only wanted a peg to hang his emotion on. It had to be a living peg, but -any other living peg would do equally well, and before long he would -find some one in the steerage who would listen with delight to the flood -that was bound to come. And, presently, he took his departure to his own -quarters where the sailors, with bare feet, were still swabbing the -slippery decks. - -A couple of hours later, after breakfast, he leaned over the rail and -again saw the man on the steerage deck, and heard him talking volubly. -The tears were gone, but the smudges were still visible on the cheeks, -where they had traced a zigzag pattern. He was telling the history of -his fifty years’ disappointments and failures to one and all who cared -to listen. - -And, apparently, many cared to listen. The man’s emotion was real; it -found vigorous expression. The sight of the old, loved shore, not seen -for half-a-century, but the subject of ten thousand yearnings, had been -too much for him. He told in detail the substance of these ten thousand -dreams—ever one and the same dream, of course—and in the telling of it -he found the relief his soul sought. He got it all out; it did him a -world of good, saving his inner being from a whole army of severe mental -fevers and spiritual pains. The man revelled in a delirium of -self-expression, and in so doing found sanity and health for his -overburdened soul. - -And the picture of that hard-faced old man crying accompanied Paul -Rivers to the upper decks, and remained insistently with him for a long -time. It portrayed with such neat emphasis precisely what was so -deplorably lacking in his own character. There, in concrete form, though -not precisely his own case, still near enough to be extremely -illuminating, he had seen a grown-up man finding abundant and natural -expression for his emotion. The man was not ashamed of his tears, and -would doubtless have let them splash on the deck before a hundred -passengers, whereas he, Paul Rivers, was, it seemed, constitutionally -unable to reveal himself, to tell his deep longings, to find expression -through any sensible medium for the ten thousand dreams that choked his -life to the brim. He was unable, perhaps ashamed, to splash on the deck. - -It was not that the big, bronzed Englishman wanted to cry, or to wash -his soul in sentiment, but that the sight of this old man’s passion, and -its frank and easy utterance, touched with dramatic intensity the crying -need of his whole temperament. The need of the steerage passenger was -the need of a moment; his own was the need of an existence. - -‘Lucky devil!’ he exclaimed, half laughing, half sighing, as he went to -his cabin for the field-glasses; ‘he knows how to get it out—and does -get it out! while I—with my impossible yearnings and my absurd -diffidence in speaking of them to others—I haven’t got a single -safety-valve of any sort or kind. I can’t get it out of me—all this -ocean in my heart and soul—not a drop, not even a blessed tear!’ - -He laughed again and, stooping to pick up the glasses, he caught a -glimpse of his sunburned, bearded face in the cabin mirror. - -‘Even my appearance is against me,’ he went on with mournful humour; ‘I -look like a healthy lumberman more than anything else in God’s world!’ - -He bent forward and examined himself carefully in detail. - -‘What has such a face as that to do with beauty, and the stars, and the -moon sinking over a summer sea, or those night-winds I know rising -faintly from their hiding-places in the dim forests and stealing on soft -tiptoe about the sleeping world until the dawn gives them leave to run -and sing? Yet _I_ know—though I can never tell it to another—what so -many do not know! Who could ever believe that _that_ man’—he pointed to -himself in the glass, laughing—‘wants above all else in life, above -wealth, fame, success, the knowledge of spiritual things, which is -Reality—which is God?’ - -A flash of light from nowhere ran over his face, making it for one -instant like the face of a boy, shining, wonderful, radiantly young. - -‘_I_ know, for instance,’ he went on, the strange flush of enthusiasm -rising into his eyes, ‘that the pine trees hold wind in their arms as -cups hold rare wine, and that when it spills I hear the exquisite -trickling of its music—but I can’t tell any one _that_! And I can’t even -put the wild magic of it into verse or music. Or even into conduct,’ he -concluded with a laugh, ‘conduct that’s sane, that is. For, if I could, -I should find what I’m for ever seeking behind all life and behind all -expressions of beauty—I should find the Reality I seek!’ - -‘I’ve no safety-valves,’ he added, swinging the glasses round by their -strap to the imminent danger of various articles of furniture, ‘that’s -the long and short of it. Like a giraffe that can’t make any sound at -all although it has the longest throat in all creation. Everything in me -accumulates and accumulates. If only’—and the strange light came back -for a second to his brown eyes—‘I could write, or sing, or pray—live as -the saints did, or do something to—to express adequately the sense of -beauty and wonder and delight that lives, like the presence of a God, in -my soul!’ - -The lamp in his eyes faded slowly and he sat back on the little cabin -sofa, screwing and unscrewing his glasses till it was surprising that -the thread didn’t wear out. And as he screwed, a hundred fugitive -pictures passed thronging through his mind; moments of yearning and of -pain, of sudden happiness and of equally sudden despondency, vivid moods -of all kinds provoked by the smallest imaginable fancies, as the way -ever was with him. For the moods of the sky were his moods; the swift, -coloured changes of sea and cloud were mirrored in his heart as with all -too impressionable people, and he was for ever trying to seize the -secret of their loveliness and to give it form—in vain. Like many -another mystical soul he saw the invisible foundations of the visible -world—longed to communicate it to others—found he couldn’t—then suffered -all the pain and fever of repression that seeks in vain for adequate -utterance. Too shy to stammer his profound yearnings to ears that would -not hear, and, never having known the blessed relief of a sympathetic -audience, he perforce remained choked and dumb, the only mitigation he -knew being that loss of self which follows prolonged contemplation. In -his contemplation of Nature, for instance, he would gaze upon the -landscape, the sky, a tree or flower, until their essential beauty -passed into his own nature. For the moment he _felt with_ these things. -He _was_ them. He took their qualities literally into himself. He lost -his ordinary personality by changing its centre, merging it into those -remoter phases of consciousness which extended from himself mysteriously -to include the landscape, the sky, the tree, the flower. - -For him everywhere in Nature there was psychic energy. And it was -difficult to say which was with him the master passion: to find -Reality—God—through Nature, or to explain Nature through God. - - -Then the busy faces of America, now left behind after twenty years, -gradually receded, and others, dimly seen through mist, rose above the -horizon of his thoughts. And among them he saw that two stood forth with -more clearness than the rest. One of these was Dick Messenger, the -friend of his boyhood, now dead but a few years; and the other, the face -of his sister, Margaret, whom Dick had left a widow, and whose children -he would now see for the first time at their country home in the South -of England. - -The ‘Old Country!’ He repeated the words softly to himself, weaving it -like a coloured thread through all his reverie. He had lived away long -enough to understand the poignant magic that lies in the little phrase, -and to appreciate the seizing and pathetic beauty lying along that faint -blue line of sea and sky. - -And presently he took his field-glasses again and went up on deck and -hid himself in the bows alone. Leaning over the bulwarks he took the -scented wind of spring full in the face, and watched with a curious -exhilaration the huge rollers, charging and bellowing like wild bulls of -the sea as the ship drew nearer and nearer to the coast, plunging, -leaping, and thundering as she moved. - - - - - CHAPTER II - - Justice is not done to the versatility and the unplumbed childishness - of man’s imagination. His life from without may seem but a rude mound - of mud, there will be some golden chamber at the heart of it, in which - he dwells delighted; and for as dark as his pathway seems to the - observer, he will have some kind of a bull’s-eye at his belt.—R. L. S. - - -The case of Paul Rivers after all was very simple, though perhaps in -some respects uncommon. Circumstances—to sum it up roughly—had so -conspired that the most impressionable portion of his character—half of -his mind and most of his soul, that is—had never found utterance. He had -never discovered the medium that could carry forth into the relief of -expression all the inner turmoil and delight of a soul that was very -much alive and singularly in touch with the simple and primitive forces -of the world. - -It was not, as with the returned emigrant, grief that he felt, but -something far more troublesome: Joy. For the beauty of the world, of -character as of nature, laid a spell upon him that set his heart in the -glow and fever of an inner furnace, while the play of his imagination -among the ‘common’ things of life which the rest of the world apparently -thought dull set him often upon the borders of an ecstasy whereof he -found himself unable to communicate one single letter to his -fellow-beings. Thus, in later years, and out of due season, he was -afflicted and perplexed by a luxuriant growth that by rights should have -been harvested before he was twenty-five; and a great part of him had -neglected to grow up at all. - -This result was due to no fault—no neglect, that is—of his own, but to -circumstances and temperament combined. It explains, however, why, after -twenty years in the backwoods of America, he saw the coast of the Old -Country with a deep emotion that was not all delight, but held something -also of dismay. - -Left an orphan, with his younger sister, at an early age, the blundering -of trustees had forced him out into the world before his first term at -Cambridge was over, and after various vicissitudes he had found his way -to America and had been drawn into the lumber trade. Here his knowledge -and love of trees—it was a veritable passion with him—soon resulted in a -transfer from the Minneapolis office to the woods, and after an -interesting apprenticeship, he came to hold an important post in which -he was strangely at home. He was appointed to the post of ‘Wood -Cruiser’—forest-traveller, _commis voyageur_ of the primeval woods. His -duties, well paid too, were to survey, judge, mark, and report upon the -qualities and values of the immense timber limits owned by his Company. -And he loved the work. It was a life of solitude, but a life close to -Nature; borne in his canoe down swift wilderness streams; meeting the -wild animals in their secret haunts; becoming intimate with dawns and -sunsets, great winds, the magic of storms and stars, and being initiated -into the profound mysteries of the clean and haunted regions of the -world. - -And the effect of this kind of life upon him—especially at an age when -most men are busy learning more common values in the strife of -cities—was of course significant. For here, in this solitary existence, -the beauty of the world, virgin and glorious, struck the eyes of his -soul and nearly blinded them. - -His whole being threw itself inwards upon his thoughts, and outwards -upon what fed his thoughts—the wonder of Nature. Even as a boy he had -been mystically minded, a poet if ever there was one, though a poet -without a lyre; but at school he had chanced to come under the influence -of masters who had sought to curb the exuberance of his imagination, so -that he started into life with the rooted idea that it was something of -a disgrace for a man to be too sensitive to beauty, and to possess a -vivid and coloured imagination was almost a thing to be ashamed of. - -This view of his only ‘silver talent,’ moreover, was never permitted by -the nature of his life to alter. His early American experiences -stiffened it into a conviction which he yet despised. The fires ran -hidden, if unchecked. Had he dwelt in cities, they might have suffered -total extinction perhaps, but here, in the heart of the free woods, they -speedily rose to the surface again and flamed. He grew up singularly -unspoilt, the shyness of the original nature utterly uncorrected, the -stores of a poetic imagination accumulating steadily, but always -unuttered. - -For his sole companions all these years when he had any at all were the -‘Bosses’ of the lumber camps he inspected, the ‘Cookee’ who looked after -his stew-pot in the ‘home-shack,’ and the half-breed Indian who -accompanied him in the stern-seat of the bark canoe during the -month-long trips about the wilderness: these—with the animals, winds, -stars, and the forms of beauty his imagination for ever conjured out of -them. - -For twenty years he lived thus, knowing all the secrets of the woods and -streams. In the summer he never slept under cover at all, so that even -in sleep he understood, through closed eyelids, the motions of the stars -behind the tangled network of branches overhead. In winter his -snow-shoes carried him into the heart of the most dazzling scenes -imaginable—the forest lying under many feet of snow with a cloudless sun -lifting it all into an appearance of magic that took the breath away. -Moreover, the fierce spring, when the streams became impassable floods, -and the autumn, with a flaming glory of gold and scarlet unknown -anywhere else in the world, he knew as intimately as the dryads -themselves. - -And all these moods became the intimate companions of his life, taking -the place of men and women. He came to personify Nature as a matter of -course. - -Without knowing it, too, the place of children was taken somehow by the -wild animals. He knew them all. He surprised them in their haunts in the -course of his silent journeys into the heart of their playgrounds; and -his headquarters—a one-story shanty on the height of land between his -two chief ‘limits’—was never without a tamed baby bear, a young moose to -draw him on his snow-shoes with the manners of a well-bred pony, and a -dozen other animals reclaimed from savagery and turned by some -mysterious system of his own into real companions and confidants. - -And the only books he read in the long winter nights, besides a few -modern American novels that puzzled and vaguely distressed him, were -Blake, his loved Greek plays, and the Bible. - -He rarely saw a woman. Sides of his nature that ought to have developed -under the influences of normal life at home lay dormant altogether, or -were filled as best might be by his intercourse with Nature. He wrote -few letters. After Dick Messenger died, the formal correspondence he -kept up at long intervals with his sister—Dick’s widow—hardly deserved -the name of letters. Great slabs of him, so to speak, stopped growing -up, sinking down into the subconscious region to await conditions -favourable for calling them to the surface again, and eventually coming -to life—this was his tragic little secret—at a time when they were long -overdue. - -To the end of life he remained shy, shy in the sense that most of his -thoughts and emotions he was afraid to reveal to others; with the -shyness, too, of the utterly modest soul that cannot believe the world -will give it the very things it has most right to claim, yet never dares -to claim. And to the end Nature never lifted the spell laid upon him -during those twenty years of initiation in her solitudes. To see the new -moon tilting her silver horns in the west; to hear the wind rustling in -high trees, like old Indians telling one another secrets of the early -world; and to see the first stars looking down from the height of sky -through spaces of watery blue—these, and a hundred other things that the -majority seemed to ignore, were to him a more moving and terrible -delight than anything he could imagine. For him such things could never -be explained away, but remained living and uncorrected to the end. - -Thus when, at forty-five, he inherited the fortune of his aunt (which he -had always known must one day come to him), he returned to England with -the shy, bursting, dream-laden heart of a boy, young as only those are -young whom life has kept clean and sweet in the wilderness; and the -question that sprang to life in his heart when he saw the blue line of -coast was a vague wonder as to what would become of his full-blooded -dreams when tested by the conventional English life that he remembered -as a boy. To whom could he speak of his childlike yearning after God; of -his swift divinations, his passionate intuitions into the very things -that the majority put away with childhood? What modern priest—so he -felt, at least—what befuddled mystic, could possibly enter into the -essential nature of these cravings as he did, or understand, without a -sneer, the unspoilt passions of a man who had never ‘grown up’? - -‘I shall be out of touch with it all,’ he thought as he stood there in -the bows and watched the blue line grow nearer, ‘utterly out of touch. -What shall I find to say to the men of my own age—I, who stopped growing -up twenty years ago? How shall I ever link on with them? Children are -the only things I can talk to, and children!’—he shrugged his shoulders -and laughed—‘children will find me out at once and give me away to the -others.’ - -‘Dick’s children, though, may be different!’ came the sudden reflection. -‘Only—I’ve had nothing to do with children for such ages. Dick had real -imagination. By George,’—and his eyes glowed a moment—‘what if they took -after him!’ - -And for the fiftieth time, as he pictured the meeting with his stranger -sister, his heart sank, and he found refuge in the knowledge that he had -not altogether burned his boats behind him. For he had been wise in his -generation. He had arranged with his Company, who were only too glad of -the chance of keeping his services, that he should go to England on a -year’s leave, and that if in the end he decided to return he should have -a share in the business, while still continuing the work of -forest-inspection that he loved. - -‘I’m nothing but a wood cruiser. I shall go back. In the big world I -might lose all my vision!’ - -And, having lived so long out of the world, he now came back to it with -this simple, innocent, imaginative heart of a great boy, a boy still -dreaming, for all his five-and-forty years. Fully realising that -something was wrong with him, that he ought to be more sedate, more -cynical, more prosaic and sober, he yet could not quite explain to -himself wherein lay the source of his disability. His thoughts stumbled -and blundered when he tried to lay his finger on it, with the only -result that he felt he would be ‘out of touch’ with his new world, not -knowing exactly how or why. - -‘It’s a regular log-jam,’ he said, using the phraseology he was -accustomed to, ‘and I’m sorry for the chap that breaks it.’ - -It never occurred to him that in this simple thrill that Nature still -gave him he possessed one of the greatest secrets for the preservation -of genuine youth; indeed, had he understood this, it would have meant -that he was already old. For with the majority such dreams die young, -brushed rudely from the soul by the iron hand of experience, whereas in -his case it was their persistent survival that lent such a childlike -quality to his shyness, and made him secretly ashamed of not feeling as -grown up as he realised he ought to feel. - -Paul Rivers, in a word, belonged to a comprehensible though perhaps not -over common type, and one not often recognised owing to the elaborate -care with which its ‘specimens’ conceal themselves from the world under -all manner of brave disguises. He was destitute of that nameless quality -that constitutes a human being, not mature necessarily, but grown up. -Sources of inner enthusiasm that most men lose when life brings to them -the fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil, had kept alive; and though on -the one hand he was secretly ashamed of the very simplicity of his great -delights, on the other hand he longed intensely for some means by which -he could express them and relieve his burdened soul. - -He envied the emigrant who could let fall hot tears on the deck without -further ado, while at the same time he dreaded the laughter of the world -into which he was about to move when they learned the cause of the -emotions that produced them. A boy at forty-five! A dreamer of -children’s dreams with fifty in sight—and no practical results! - -These were some of the thoughts still tumbling vaguely about his mind -when the tug brought letters aboard at Queenstown, and on the -dining-room table where they were spread out he found one for himself in -a handwriting that he both welcomed and dreaded. - - - - - CHAPTER III - - -He welcomed it, because for years it had been the one remaining link -with the life of his old home—these formal epistles that reached him at -long intervals; and he dreaded it, because he knew it would contain a -definite invitation of an embarrassing description. - -‘She’s bound to ask me,’ he reflected as he opened it in his cabin; ‘she -can’t help herself. And I am bound to accept, for I can’t help myself -either.’ He was far too honest to think of inventing elaborate excuses. -‘I’ve got to go and spend a month with her right away whether I like it -or not.’ - -It was not by any means that he disliked his sister, for indeed he -hardly knew her; after all these years he barely remembered what she -looked like, the slim girl of eighteen he had left behind. It was simply -that in his mind she stood for the conventional life, so alien to his -vision, to which he had returned. - -He would try to like her, certainly. Very warm impulses stirred in his -heart as he thought of her—his only near relative in the world, and the -widow of his old school and Cambridge friend, Dick Messenger. It was in -her handwriting that he first learned of Dick’s love for her, as it was -in hers that the news of his friend’s death reached him—after his long -tour—two months old. The handwriting was a symbol of the deepest human -emotions he had known. And for that reason, too, he dreaded it. - -He never realised quite what kind of woman she had become; in his -thoughts she had always remained simply the girl of eighteen—grown -up—married. Her letters had been very kind and gentle, if in the nature -of the case more and more formal. She became shadowy and vague in his -mind as the years passed, and more and more he had come to think of her -as wholly out of his own world. Reading between the lines it was not -difficult to see that she attached importance to much in life that -seemed to him unreal and trivial, whereas the things that he thought -vital she never referred to at all. It might, of course, be merely -restraint concealing great depths. He could not tell. The letters, after -a few years, had become like formal government reports. He had written -fully, however, to announce his home-coming, and her reply had been full -of genuine pleasure. - -‘I don’t think she’ll make very much of me,’ was the thought in his mind -whenever he dwelt upon it. ‘I’m afraid my world must seem foreign—unreal -to her; the things I know rubbish.’ - -So, in the privacy of his cabin, his heart already strangely astir by -the emotion of that blue line on the horizon, he read his sister’s -invitation and found it charming. There was spontaneous affection in it. - -‘We shall fix things up between us so that no one would ever know.’ He -did not explain what it was ‘no one would ever know,’ but went on to -finish the letter. He was to make his home with her in the country, he -read, until he decided what to do with himself. The tone of the letter -made his heart bound. It was a real welcome, and he responded to it -instantly like a boy. Only one thing in it seriously disturbed his -equanimity. Absurd as it may seem, the fact that his sister’s welcome -included also that of the children, had a subtly disquieting effect upon -him. - - ... for they are dying to see you and to find out for themselves what - the big old uncle they have heard so much about is really like. All - their animals are being cleaned and swept so as to be ready for your - arrival, and, in anticipation of your stories of the backwoods, no - other tales find favour with them any more. - -An expression of perplexity puckered his face. ‘I declare, I’m afraid of -those children—Dick’s children!’ he thought, holding the open letter to -his mouth and squinting down the page, while his eyebrows rose and his -forehead broke into lines. ‘They’ll find out what I am. They’ll betray -me. I shall never be able to hold out against them.’ He knew only too -well how searching was the appeal that all growing and immature life -made to him. It touched the very centre of him that had refused to grow -up and that made him young with itself. ‘I can no more resist them than -I could resist the baby bears, or that little lynx that used to eat out -of my hand.’ He shrugged his big shoulders, looking genuinely -distressed. ‘And then every one will know what I am—an overgrown boy—a -dumb poet—a dreamer of dreams that bear no fruit!’ - -He was not morbidly introspective. He was merely trying to face the -little problem squarely. He got up and staggered across the cabin, -steadying himself against the rolling of the ship in front of the -looking-glass. - -‘Big Old Uncle!’ - -He stuffed the letter into his pocket and surveyed himself critically. -Big he certainly was, but that other adjective brought with it a -sensation of weariness that had never yet troubled him in his wilderness -existence. He was only a little, just a very little, on the shady side -of forty-five, but to the children he might seem really old, _aged_, and -to his sister, who was considerably his junior, as elderly, and perhaps -in need of the comforts of the elderly. - -He squared his shoulders and looked more closely into the glass. There, -opposite to him, stood a tall, dignified man in a blue suit, with a -spotless linen collar and a neat tie passing through a gold ring, -instead of the unkempt fellow he was accustomed to in a flannel shirt, -red handkerchief and big sombrero hat pulled over his eyes; a man -weighing the best part of fifteen stones, lean, well-knit, vigorous, and -nearly six feet three in his socks. A pair of brown eyes, kindly brown -eyes he thought, met his own questioningly, and a brown beard—yes, it -was still brown—covered the lower part of the face. He put up a hand to -stroke it, and noticed that it was a strong, muscular hand, sunburnt but -well kept, with neat finger-nails, and a heavy signet ring on one -finger. It brushed across the rather deep lines on the bronzed forehead, -without brushing them away, however, and then travelled higher to the -rough parting in the dark-brown hair, and the hair, he noticed, was -brushed in a particular way evidently, a way he thought no one would -notice but himself and the lumber-camp barber who first taught him, so -as to cover up a few places where the wind made little chilly feelings -in winter-time under his fur cap. - -Old? No, not old yet—but “getting on” was a gentler phrase he could not -deny, and there were certainly odd traces where the crows had walked on -his skin while he slept in the forest, and had hopped up even to the -corners of his eyes to see if he were really asleep. There were other -lines, too—lines of exposure, traced by wind and sun, and one or two -queer marks that are said only to come from prolonged hardship and -severest want. For he had known both sides of the wilderness life, and -on his long journeys Nature had not always been kind to him. - -He stared for a long time at his reflection in the glass, lost in -reverie. This coming back to England after so many years was like -looking at a picture of himself as he was when he had left; it furnished -him with a ready standard of comparison; the changes of the years stood -out very sharply, as though they had come about in a single night. - -Yes, his face and figure had aged a good deal. He admitted it. And when -he frowned he had distinctly an appearance of middle age. This, of -course, was the absurd part of it, for in spirit he had remained as -young as he was at twenty, as enthusiastic, hopeful, spontaneous as -ever, just as much in love with the world, and just as full of boyhood’s -dreams as when he went to Cambridge. And in his eyes still burned the -strange flames that sought to pierce behind the veil of appearances. - -‘And those children will find it out and make me look ridiculous before -I’ve been there a week!’ he exclaimed again, sitting down on his bunk -with a crash as the steamer gave a sudden lurch; ‘and then where shall I -be, I’d like to know?’ - -He lay on his back for an hour thinking out a plan of action. For, of -course, he decided that he must go; only—he must go _disguised_. And he -spent hours inventing the disguise, and more hours perfecting it. For -the first time in his life he would adopt a distinct attitude, and, -having carefully thought out the attitude he intended to adopt by way of -disguise, he buckled it on like armour and fastened it very securely -indeed to his large person. - -He would be kind; he would even meet the children half-way, kiss them if -necessary at stated times, in a stated way, and perhaps occasionally -unbend a little as opportunity served and circumstances permitted. But -never must he forget, or allow them to forget, that he was a stiff and -elderly man, a little grim and gruff, sometimes even severe and -short-tempered, and never to be trifled with at any time, or under any -conditions. - -Over the tenderer emotions he must keep especial watch; these were a -direct channel to his secrets, and once the old unsatisfied enthusiasms -escaped, there was no saying what might happen. The thought frightened -him, for the pain involved might be very great indeed. - -With people of his own age, he realised, the danger would be less. -Silence and reserve cover a multitude of shortcomings. But children, he -knew, had a simple audacity, a merciless penetration, that no mere pose -could ever withstand. And this he felt intuitively, knowing nothing of -children, but being taught by these very qualities in himself. Like -little animals they would soon find the direct channel to his heart -unless well guarded, and come tumbling along it without delay. And -then——! - -So Paul Rivers left London the very next day, glad in many ways to think -that he had this haven of refuge to go to from the noisy horror of the -huge strange city; yet with a sinking of his heart lest his true self -should be discovered, and held up to scorn. - -Moreover, the strange part of it was that as he sped down through the -smiling green country that spring afternoon, armed from head to foot in -the rigid steel casings of his disguise, he seemed to hear a faint -singing deep within him, a singing that belonged to the youngest part of -him and yet sprang from that which was vastly ancient, but as to the -cause of which he was so puzzled that, in his efforts to analyse it, he -forgot about his journey altogether, and was nearly carried past the -station where he had to get out. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - No man worth his spiritual salt can ever become really entangled in - locality.—A. H. L. - - -The house, like the description of himself in the letter, was big and -old. It consisted of three rambling wings, each added at a different -period to an original farmhouse, and was thus full of unexpected -staircases, sudden rising passages, and rooms of queer shapes. It -resembled, indeed, the structure of a mind that has grown by chance and -not by system, and was just as difficult for a stranger to find his way -in. - -It stood among pine-woods, at the foot of hills that ran on another five -miles to drop their chalk cliffs abruptly into the sea. Where the lawns -stopped on one side and the kitchen-garden on the other began an expanse -of undulating heather-land, dotted with pools of brown water and yellow -with patches of gorse and broom. Here rabbits increased and multiplied; -sea-gulls screamed and flew, using some of the more secluded ponds for -their annual breeding places; foxes lived happily, unhunted and very -bold; and the dainty hoof-marks of deer were sometimes found in the -sandy margins of the freshwater springs. - -It was beautiful country, a bit of wild England, out of the world as -very few parts of it now are, and haunted by a loveliness that laid its -spell on the heart of the returned exile the moment he topped the hill -in the dog-cart and saw it spread out before him like a softly coloured -map. The scenery from the train window had somehow disheartened him a -little, producing a curious sense of confinement, almost of -imprisonment, in his mind: the neat meadows holding wooden cattle; the -careful boundaries of ditch and hedge; the five-barred gates, strong to -enclose, the countless notices to warn trespassers, and the universal -network of barbed wire. Accustomed as he was to the vast, unhedged -landscapes of a primitive country, it all looked to him, with its -precise divisions, like a toy garden, combed, washed, swept—exquisitely -cared for, but a little too sweet and perfumed to be quite wholesome. -Only tame things, he felt, could enjoy so gentle a playground, and the -call of his own forests—for this really was what worked in him—sang out -to him with a sterner cry. - -But this view from the ridge pleased him more: there were but few hedges -visible; the eye was led to an open horizon and the sea; an impression -of space and freedom rose from the hills and moorlands. Here his -thoughts, accustomed to deal with leagues rather than acres, could at -least find room to turn about in. And although the perfume that rose to -his nostrils was like the perfume of flowers preserved by some -artificial process rather than the great clean smells of a virgin world -such as he was used to, it was nevertheless the smell of his boyhood, -and it moved him powerfully. Odour is the one thing that is impossible -to recall in exile. Sights and sounds the imagination can always -reconstruct after a fashion, but odour is too elusive. It rose now to -his nostrils as something long forgotten, and swept him with a wave of -memory that was extraordinarily keen. - -‘That’s a smell to take me back twenty-five years,’ he thought, inhaling -the scent of the heather. He caught his breath sharply, uncertain -whether it was pain or pleasure that predominated. A profound yearning, -too fugitive to be seized, too vague to be definitely labelled, stirred -in the depths of him as his eye roamed over the miles of sunlight and -blue shadow at his feet; again something sang within him as he gazed -over the long ridges of heathland, sprinkled with silvery pools, and -bearing soft purple masses of pine-woods on their sides as they melted -away through haze to the summer sea beyond. - -Only when his gaze fell upon the smoke rising from the grey stone roof -of the house nestling far below did the joy of his emotion chill a -little. A vague sense of alarm and nervousness touched him as he -wondered what that grey old building might hold in store for him. - -‘It’s silly, I know,’ his thought ran, ‘but I feel like a lost sheep -here. It’s Nature that calls me, not people. I don’t know how I shall -get on in this chess-board sort of a country. They’ll never care for the -things that I care for.’ - -For a moment a sort of panic came over him. He could almost have turned -and run. Vaguely he felt that he was an unfinished, uncouth article in a -shop of dainty china. He sent the dog-cart on ahead, and walked down the -hillside towards the house, thinking, thinking—wondering almost why he -had ever consented to come, and already conscious of a sense of -imprisonment. He was still impressionable as a boy, with sharp, fleeting -moods like a boy’s. - -Then, quite suddenly it seemed, he had walked up the drive and passed -through the house, and a figure moved across a lawn to meet him. The -first sight of his sister he had known for twenty years was a tall woman -in white serge, with a prim, still girlish figure and a quiet, smiling -face, moving graciously through patches of sunshine between flower-beds -of formal outline. There was no spontaneous rush of welcome, no gush, or -flood of questions. He felt relieved. With a flash, too, he realised -that her dominant note was still grief for her lost husband. It was -written all over her. - -Instantly, however, shyness descended upon him like a cloud. The scene -he had rehearsed so often in imagination vanished before the reality. He -slipped down inside himself, as his habit sometimes was, and watched the -performance curiously, as though he were a spectator of it instead of an -actor. - -He saw himself, hot and rather red in the face, walking awkwardly across -the lawn with both hands out, offering his bearded face clumsily to be -kissed. And it was kissed, first on one cheek, then on the other, -calmly, soberly, delicately. He felt the tingling of it for a long time -afterwards. That kiss confused him ridiculously. - -At first he could think of nothing to say except the form of address he -always used to the Bosses of the lumber camps—‘How’s everything up your -way?’—which he felt was not quite the most suitable phrase for the -occasion. Then his sister spoke, and quickly set him more at his ease. - -‘But you don’t look one little bit like an American, Paul!’ - -He gazed at her in admiration, just as he might have gazed at a complete -stranger. The soft intonation of her voice was a keen delight to him. -And her matter-of-fact speech put his shyness to flight. - -‘Of course not,’ he replied, leaving out her name after a second’s -hesitation, ‘but my voice, I guess——’ - -‘Not a bit either,’ she repeated, surveying him very critically. ‘You -look like a sailor home from the sea more than anything else.’ - -She wore a wide garden hat of Panama straw, charmingly trimmed with -flowers. Her face beneath it, Paul thought, was the most refined and -exquisitely delicate he had ever seen. It was like chiselled porcelain. -He thought of Hank Davis’s woman at Deep Bay Camp—whose face he used to -think wonderful rather—and it suddenly seemed by comparison to have been -chopped with a blunt axe out of wood. - -They moved to the long chairs upon the lawn, and her brother realised -for the first time that his boots were enormous, and that his -Minneapolis clothes did not sit upon him quite as they might have done. -He trod on a corner of a geranium bed as they went, crushing an entire -plant with one foot. But his sister appeared not to notice it. - -‘It’s an awful long time, M—Margaret,’ he stammered as they went. - -They both sat down and turned to stare at each other. It was, of course, -idle to pretend that after so long an absence they could feel any very -profound affection. Dick, he realised quickly with a flash of intuition, -was the truer link. And, on the whole, it was all much easier than he -had expected. His mind began to work very quickly in several directions -at once. The beauty of the English garden in its quiet way touched him -keenly, stirring in him little whirls of inner delight, fugitive but -wonderful. Only a portion of him, after all, went out to his sister. - -‘I believe you expected a Red Indian, or a bear,’ he said at length. - -She laughed gently, returning his stare of genuine admiration. ‘One -couldn’t help wondering a little, Paul dear,—after so many years—could -one?’ She always said ‘one’ instead of the obvious personal pronoun. -‘You had no beard, for instance, when you left?’ - -‘And more hair, perhaps!’ - -‘You look splendid. I _shall_ be proud of you!’ - -Paul blushed furiously. It was the first compliment ever paid to him by -a woman. - -‘Oh, I feel all right,’ he stammered. ‘The healthy life in the woods, -open air, and constant moving keep a fellow “fixed-up” to concert pitch -all the time. I’ve never once—consulted a doctor in my life.’ He was -careful to keep the slang out. He felt he managed it admirably. He said -‘consulted.’ - -‘And you wrote such nice letters, Paul. It _was_ dear of you.’ - -‘I was lonely,’ he said bluntly. And after a pause he added, ‘I got all -yours.’ - -‘I’m so glad.’ And then another pause. In which fashion they talked on -for half an hour, each secretly estimating the other—wondering a little -why they did not feel all kind of poignant emotions they had rather -expected to feel. - -It was a perfectly natural scene between a brother and sister who had -grown up entirely apart, who were quite honest, who were utterly -different types, and who yet wished to hold to one another as the -nearest blood ties they possessed. They skimmed pleasantly and, so far -as he was concerned, more and more easily, over the surface of things. -Her talk, like her letters, was sincere, simple, shallow; it concealed -no hidden depths, he felt at once. And by degrees, even in this first -conversation, crept a shadow of other things, so that he realised they -were in reality leagues apart, and could never have anything much in -common below the pleasant surface relations of life. - -Yet, even while he sheered off, as oil declines from its very nature to -mingle with water, he felt genuinely drawn to her in another way. She -was his own sister; she was his nearest tie; and she was Dick’s widow. -They would get along together all right; they would be good friends. - -‘Twenty years, Margaret.’ - -‘Twenty years, Paul.’ - -And then another pause of several minutes during which something that -was too vague to be a real thought passed like a shadow through his -mind. What could his friend Dick have seen in her that was necessary to -his life and happiness—Dick Messenger, who was scholar, poet, -thinker—who sought the everlasting things—God? He instantly suppressed -it as unworthy, something of which he was ashamed, but not before it had -left a definite little trace in his imagination. - -‘So at last, Paul, you’ve really come home,’ she resumed; ‘I can hardly -believe it,—and are going to settle down. You are a rich man.’ - -‘Aunt Alice did her duty,’ he laughed. He ignored the reference to -settling down. It vaguely displeased him. ‘It’s for you as well as me,’ -he added, meaning the money. ‘I want to share with you whatever you -need.’ - -‘Not a penny,’ she said quickly; ‘I have all I need. I live with my -memories, you know. I am only so glad for your sake,—after all your hard -life out there.’ - -‘The life wasn’t hard; it was rather wonderful,’ he said simply. ‘I -liked it.’ - -‘For a time perhaps; but you must have had curious experiences and lived -with very rough people in those—lumber camp places you wrote about.’ - -He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Simple kind of men, but very decent, very -genuine. Few signs of city polish, I admit, but then you know I never -cared for frills, Margaret.’ - -‘Frills!’ she exclaimed, without any expression on her face. ‘Of course -not. Still, I am very glad you have left it all. The life must often -have been unsuitable and lonely; one always felt that for you. You can’t -have had any of the society that one’s accustomed to.’ - -‘Not of that kind,’ he put in hurriedly with a short laugh, ‘but of -other kinds. I struck a pretty good crowd of men on the whole.’ - -She turned her face slightly away from him; her eyes, he divined, had -been fixed for a moment on his hands. For the first time in his life he -realised that they were large and rough and brown. Her own were so pale -and dainty—like china hands, glossy and smooth—and the gold bangle on -her thin wrist looked as though every second it must slip over her -fingers. His own hands disappeared swiftly into the pockets of his coat. - -She turned to him with a gentle smile. ‘Anyhow,’ she said, ‘it is simply -too delightful to know that you really are here at last. It must seem -strange to you at first, and there are so many things to talk over—such -a lot to tell. I want to hear all your plans. You’ll get used to us -after a bit, and there are lots of nice people in the neighbourhood who -are dying to meet you.’ - -Her brother felt inclined to explain that he had no wish to interfere -with their ‘dying’; but, instead, he returned her smile. ‘I’m a poor -hand at meeting people, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘I’m not as sociable as I -might be.’ - -‘But you’ll get over that. Of course, living so long in the backwoods -makes one unsociable. But we’ll try and make you happy and comfortable. -You have no idea how very, very glad I am that you’ve come home.’ - -Paul believed her. He leaned over and patted her hand, and she smiled -frankly and sweetly in his face. She was a very shadowy sort of -personality, he felt. If he blew hard she might blow away altogether, or -disappear like a soap-bubble. - -‘I’m glad too, of course,’ he replied. ‘Only at my age, you know, it’s -not easy to tackle new habits.’ - -‘No one could take you for a day more than thirty-five,’ she said with -truth; ‘so that shall be our own little private secret. You look quite -absurdly young.’ - -They laughed together easily and naturally. Paul felt more at home and -soothed than he had thought possible. It had not been in the least -formidable after all, and for the first time in his life he knew a -little of that enervating kind of happiness that comes from being made a -fuss of. As there was still a considerable interval before tea, they -left their chairs and strolled through the garden, and as they went, the -talk turned upon the past, and his sister spoke of Dick and of all he -had meant to do in the world, had he lived. Paul heard the details of -his sudden death for the first time. Her voice and manner were evidence -of the melancholy she still felt, but her brother’s heart was deeply -stirred; he asked for all the particulars he had so often wondered -about, and in her quiet, soothing tone, tinged now with tender sadness, -she supplied the information. Clearly she had never arisen from the -blow. She had worshipped Dick without understanding him. - -‘Death always frightens me, I think,’ she said with a faint smile. ‘I -try not to think about it.’ - -She passed on to speak of the children, and told him how difficult she -found it to cope with them—she suffered from frequent headaches and -could not endure noise—and how she hoped when they were a little older -to be more with them. Mademoiselle Fleury, meanwhile, was such an -excellent woman and was teaching them all they should know. - -‘Though, of course, I keep a close eye on them so far as I am able,’ she -explained, ‘and only wish I were stronger.’ - -They sauntered through the rose-garden and down the neat gravel paths -that led to the wilder parts of the grounds where the rhododendron -bushes stood in rounded domes and masses. It was very peaceful, very -beautiful. He trod softly and carefully. The hush of centuries of -cultivation lay over it all. Even the butterflies flew gently, as to the -measure of a leisurely dance that deprecated undue animation. Paul -caught his thoughts wandering to the open spaces of untamed moorland he -had seen from the hill-top. More and more, as his sister’s personality -revealed itself, he got the impression that she lived enclosed like the -wooden cows he had seen from the train, in a little green field, with -precise and neatly trimmed borders. Strong emotions, as all other -symptoms of plain and vigorous life, she shrank from. There were -notice-boards set about her to warn trespassers, stating clearly that -she did not wish to be let out. Yet in her way she was true, loving, and -sweet—only it was such a conventional way, he felt. - -Leaving the world of rhododendron bushes behind them, they came to the -beginning of a pine-wood leading to the heather-land beyond. There was a -touch of primitive wildness here. The trees grew straight and tall, -filling the glade, and a stream ran brawling among their roots. - -‘This is the Gwyle,’ she said, as they entered the shade, ‘it was Dick’s -favourite part of the whole grounds. I rarely come here; it’s dark even -in summer, and rather damp and draughty, I always think.’ - -Paul looked about him and drew a long breath. The air was strong with -open-air scents of earth and bark and branches. Far overhead the tufted -pines swayed, murmuring to the sky; the ground ran away downhill, -becoming broken up and uneven; nothing but dark, slender stems rose -everywhere about him, like giant seaweeds, he thought, rising from the -pools of a deep sea. And the soft wind, moving mysteriously between the -shadows and the sunlight, completed the spell. He passed -suddenly—willy-nilly, as his nature would have it—into that mood when -the simplest things about him turned their faces upwards so that he -caught their eyes and their meaning; when the well-known and common -things of the world shone out and revealed the infinite. Something in -this quiet pine-wood that was mighty, and utterly wonderful, entered his -soul, linking him on at a single stroke with the majesty of the great -spirit of the earth. What lay behind it? What was its informing spirit? -How and where could it link on so intimately with his soul? And could it -not be a channel, as he always felt it must be, to the God behind it? -Beauty seized him by the throat and made him tremble. - -This sudden rush came over him, sea-like. His moods were ever like the -sea, some strange touch of colour shifting the entire key. Something, -too, made him feel lonely and oppressed. He, who was accustomed to space -in bulk—the space the stars and winds live in—had come to this little, -parcelled-out place. He felt clipped already. He turned to the shadowy -personality beside him, the boyish impulse bursting its way out. After -all, she was his own sister; he could reveal himself to no one if not to -her. - -‘By Gosh, Margaret,’ he cried, ‘this is the real thing. This wood must -be alive and haunted just as the James Bay forests are. It’s simply full -of wonder.’ - -‘It’s the Gwyle wood,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s usually rather damp. But -Dick loved it.’ - -Her brother hardly heard what she said. ‘Listen,’ he said in a hushed -tone; ‘do you hear the wind up there aloft? The trees are talking. The -wood is full of whispers. There’s no sound in the world like that murmur -of a soft breeze in pine branches. It’s like the old gods sighing, which -only their true worshippers hear! Isn’t it fine and melancholy? -Margaret, d’you know, it goes through me like a fever.’ - -His sister stopped and stared at him. She wore a little frightened -expression. His sudden enthusiasm puzzled her evidently. - -‘It’s the Gwyle wood,’ she repeated mechanically. ‘It’s very pretty, I -think. Dick always thought so too.’ - -Her brother, surprised at his own rush of ready words, and already -ashamed of the impulse that had prompted him to reveal himself, fell -into silence. - -‘Nature excites me sometimes,’ he said presently. ‘I suppose it’s -because I’ve known nothing else.’ - -‘That’s quite natural, I’m sure, Paul dear,’ she rejoined, turning to -lead the way back to the sunshine of the open garden; ‘it’s very pretty; -I love it too. But it rather alarms me, I think, sometimes.’ - -‘Perhaps the natural tendency in solitude is to personify nature, and -make it take the place of men and women. It has become a profound need -of my being certainly.’ He spoke more quietly, chilled by her utter -absence of comprehension. - -‘In its place I think it is ever so nice. But, Paul, you surprise me. I -had no idea you were clever like that.’ She was perfectly sincere in -what she said. - -Her brother blushed like a boy. ‘It’s my foolishness, I suppose, -Margaret,’ he said with a shy laugh. ‘I am certainly not clever.’ - -‘Anyhow, you can be foolish or clever here to your heart’s content. You -must use the place as though it were your own exactly.’ - -‘Thank you, Margaret.’ - -‘Only I don’t think I quite understand all those things,’ she added -vaguely after a pause. ‘Nixie talks rather like that. She has all poor -Dick’s ideas and strange fancies. I really can’t keep up with her at -all.’ - -Paul stiffened at the reference to the children; he remembered his -attitude. Already he had been guilty of a serious lapse from his good -intentions. - -‘She comes down to this wood far too much, and I’m sure it’s not quite -healthy for her. I always forget to speak to Mlle. Fleury.’ Then she -turned to him and smiled. ‘But they are all so excited about your -coming. They will simply devour you.’ - -‘I’m a poor hand at children, I’m afraid,’ he said, falling back upon -his usual formula, ‘but, of course, I shall be delighted to see them.’ - -She gathered up her white skirts about her trim ankles and led the way -out of the wood, her brother following and thinking how slim and -graceful she was, and what a charming figure she made among the -rose-trees. He got the impression of her as something unreal and -shadowy, a creature but half alive. It would hardly have surprised him -to see her suddenly flit off into mist and sunshine and disappear from -view, leaving him with the certainty that he had been talking with a -phantasm of a dream. Between himself and her, however, he realised now, -there was a gulf fixed. They looked at one another as it were down the -large end of a telescope, and talked down a long-distance telephone that -changed all their words and made the sense unintelligible and -meaningless. The scale of values between them had no common denominator. -Yet he could love her, and he meant to. - -They crossed the lawns and went through the French window into the cool -of the drawing-room, and while he was sipping his first cup of afternoon -English tea, struggling with a dozen complex emotions that stirred -within him, there suddenly darted across the lawn a vision of flying -children, with a string of animals at their heels. They swept out of -some laurel shrubberies into the slanting evening sunlight, and came to -a dead stop on the gravel path in front of the window. - -Their eyes met. They had seen him. - -There they stood, figures of suddenly arrested motion, staring at him -through the glass. ‘So that’s Uncle Paul!’ was the thought in the mind -of each. He was being inspected, weighed, labelled. The meeting with his -sister was nothing compared to this critical examination, conducted -though it was from a distance. - -But it lasted only a moment. With a sudden quietness the children passed -away from the window towards another door round the corner, and so out -of sight. - -‘They’ve gone up to get tidy before coming to see you,’ explained his -sister; and Paul used the short respite to the best possible advantage -by collecting his thoughts, remembering his ‘attitude and disguise,’ and -seeing to it that his armour was properly fastened on, leaving no -loopholes for sudden attack. He retired cautiously to the only place in -a room where a shy man feels really safe—the mat before the fireplace. -He almost wished for his gun and hunting-knife. The idea made him laugh. - -‘They already love you,’ he heard his sister’s gentle whispering voice, -‘and I know you’ll love them too. You must never let them annoy you, of -course.’ - -‘They’re your children—and Dick’s,’ he answered quietly. ‘I shall get on -with them famously, I’m sure.’ - - - - - CHAPTER V - - I kiss you and the world begins to fade. - _Land of Heart’s Desire._—YEATS. - - -A few minutes later the door opened softly, and a procession, solemn of -face and silent of foot, marched slowly into the room. The moment had -come at last for his introduction, and, by a single stroke of -unintentional diplomacy, his sister did more to winning her brother’s -shy heart than by anything else she could possibly have devised. She -went out. - -‘They will prefer to make your acquaintance by themselves,’ she said in -her gentle way, ‘and without any assistance from me.’ - -The procession advanced to the middle of the room and then stopped -short. Evidently, for them, the departure of their mother somewhat -complicated matters. They had depended upon her to explain them to their -uncle. There they stood, overcome by shyness, moving from one foot to -another, with flushed and rosy faces, hair brushed, skin shining, and -eyes all prepared to laugh as soon as somebody gave the signal, but not -the least knowing how to begin. - -And their uncle faced them in similar plight, as, for the second time -that afternoon, shyness descended upon him like a cloud, and he could -think of nothing to say. His size overwhelmed him; he felt like an -elephant. With a sudden rush all his self-possession deserted him. He -almost wished that his sister might return so that they should be -brought up to him _seriatim_, named just as Adam named the beasts, and -dismissed—which Adam did not do—with a kiss. It was really, of -course—and he knew it to his secret mortification—a meeting on both -sides of children; they all felt the shyness and self-consciousness of -children, he as much as they, and at any moment might take the sudden -plunge into careless intimacy, as the way with children ever is. - -Meanwhile, however, he took rapid and careful note of them as they stood -in that silent, fidgety group before him, with solemn, wide-open eyes -fixed upon his face. - -The youngest, being in his view little more than a baby, needs no -description beyond the fact that it stared quite unintelligently without -winking an eye. Its eyes, in fact, looked as though they were not made -to close at all. And this is its one and only appearance. - -Standing next to the baby, holding its hand, was a boy in a striped suit -of knickerbockers, with a big brown curl like a breaking wave on the top -of his forehead; he was between eight and nine years old, and his -names—for, of course, he had two—were Richard Jonathan, shortened, as -Paul learned later, into Jonah. He balanced himself with the utmost care -in the centre of a particular square of carpet as though half an inch to -either side would send him tumbling into a bottomless abyss. The fingers -not claimed by the baby travelled slowly to and fro along the sticky -line of his lower lip. - -Close behind him, treating similarly another square of carpet, stood a -rotund little girl, slightly younger than himself, named Arabella Lucy. -There was a touch of audacity in her eyes, and an expression about the -mouth that indicated the imminent approach of laughter. She had been -distinctly washed and brushed-up for the occasion. Her face shone like a -polished onion skin. She had the same sort of brown hair that Jonah -considered fashionable, and her name for all common daily purposes was -Toby. - -The eldest and most formidable of his tormentors, standing a little in -advance of the rest, was Margaret Christina, shortened by her father -(who, indeed, had been responsible for all the nicknames) into Nixie. -And the name fitted her like a skin, for she was the true figure of a -sprite, and looked as if she had just stepped out of the water and her -hair had stolen the yellow of the sand. Her eyes ran about the room like -sunshine from the surface of a stream, and her movements instantly made -Paul think of water gliding over pebbles or ribbed sand with easy and -gentle undulations. Flashlike he saw her in a clearing of his lonely -woods, a creature of the elements. Her big blue eyes, too, were full of -wonder and pensive intelligence, and she stood there in a motherly and -protective manner as though she were quite equal to the occasion and -would presently know how to act with both courage and wisdom. - -And Nixie, indeed, it was, after this prolonged and critical pause, who -commenced operations. There was a sudden movement in the group, and the -next minute Paul was aware that she had left it and was walking slowly -towards him. He noticed her graceful, flowing way of moving, and saw a -sunburnt arm and hand extended in his direction. The next second she -kissed him. And that kiss acted like an electric shock. Something in her -that was magical met its kind in his own soul and, flamelike, leaped -towards it. A little tide of hot life poured into him, troubling the -deeps with a momentary sense of delicious bewilderment. - -‘How do you do, Uncle Paul,’ she said; ‘we are _very_ glad you have -come—at last.’ - -The blood ran ridiculously to his head. He found his tongue, and pulled -himself sharply together. - -‘So am I, dear. Of course, it’s a long way to come—America.’ He stooped -and bestowed the necessary kisses upon the others, who had followed -their leader and now stood close beside him, staring like little owls in -a row. - -‘I know,’ she replied gravely. ‘It takes weeks, doesn’t it? And mother -has told us such a lot about you. We’ve been waiting a very long time, I -think,’ she added as though stating a grievance. - -‘I suppose it is rather a long time to wait,’ he said sheepishly. He -stroked his beard and waited. - -‘All of us,’ she went on. She included the others in this last -observation by bending her head at them, and into her uncle’s memory -leaped the vision of a slender silver birch tree that grew on the edge -of the Big Beaver Pond near the Canadian border. She moved just as that -silver birch moved when the breeze caught it. - -Her manner was very demure, but she looked so piercingly into the very -middle of his eyes that Paul felt as though she had already discovered -everything about him. They all stood quite close to him now, touching -his knees; ready, there and then, to take him wholly into their -confidence. - -An impulse that he only just managed to control stirred in him and a -curious pang accompanied it. He remembered his ‘attitude,’ however, and -stiffened slightly. - -‘No, it only takes ten days roughly from where I’ve come,’ he said, -leaving the mat and dropping into a deep arm-chair a little farther off. -‘The big steamers go very fast, you know, nowadays.’ - -Their eyes remained simply glued to his face. They switched round a few -points to follow his movement, but did not leave their squares of -carpet. - -‘Madmerzelle said’—it was Toby, _née_ Arabella Lucy, speaking for the -first time—‘you knew lots of stories about deers and wolves and things, -and would look like a Polar bear for us sometimes.’ - -‘Oh yes, and beavers and Indians in snowstorms, and the roarer -boryalis,’ chimed in Jonah, giving a little hop of excitement that -brought him still closer. ‘And the songs they sing in canoes when there -are rapids,’ he added with intense excitement. ‘Madmizelle sings them -sometimes, but they’re not a bit the real thing, because she hasn’t -enough bass in her voice.’ - -Paul bit his lip and looked at the carpet. Something in the atmosphere -of the room seemed to have changed in the last few minutes. Jolly -thrills ran through him such as he knew in the woods with his animals -sometimes. - -‘I’m afraid I can’t sing much,’ he said, ‘but I can tell you a bear -story sometimes—if you’re good.’ He added the condition as an -afterthought. - -‘We _are_ good,’ Jonah said disappointedly, ‘almost always.’ - -Again that curious pang shot through him. He did not wish to be unkind -to them. He pulled back his coat-sleeve suddenly and showed them a scar -on his arm. - -‘That was made by a bear,’ he said, ‘years ago.’ - -‘Oh, look at the fur!’ cried Toby. - -‘Don’t be silly! All proper men have hair on their arms,’ put in Jonah. -‘Does it still hurt, Uncle Paul?’ he asked, examining the place with -intense interest. - -‘Not now. We rolled down a hill together head over heels. Such a big -brute, too, he was, and growled like a thunderstorm; it’s a wonder he -didn’t squash me. I’ve got his claws upstairs. I think, really, he was -more frightened than I was.’ - -They clapped their hands. ‘Tell us, oh, do tell us!’ - -But Nixie intervened in her stately fashion, leaning over a little and -stroking the scar with fingers that were like the touch of leaves. - -‘Uncle Paul’s tired after coming such a long way,’ she said gravely with -sympathy. ‘He hasn’t even unpacked his luggage yet, have you, Uncle?’ - -Paul admitted that this was the case. He made the least possible motion -to push them off and clear a space round his chair. - -‘Are you tired? Oh, I’m _so_ sorry,’ said Jonah. - -‘Then he ought to see the animals at once,’ decided Toby, ‘before they -go to bed,’—she seemed to have a vague idea that the whole world must go -to bed earlier than usual if Uncle Paul was tired—‘or they’ll be awfully -disappointed.’ Her face expressed the disappointment of the animals as -well as her own; her uncle’s fatigue had already taken a second place. -‘Oughtn’t he?’ she added, turning to the others. - -Paul remembered his intention to remain stiffly grown up. - -He made a great effort. Oh, but why did they tug and tear at his heart -so, these little fatherless children? And why did he feel at once that -he was in their own world, comfortably ‘at home’ in it? Did this world -of children, then, link on so easily and naturally with the poet’s -region of imagination and wonder in which he himself still dwelt for all -his many years, bringing him close to his main passion—to know Reality? - -‘Of course, I’ll come and say good-night to them before they turn in,’ -he decided kindly, letting Nixie and Toby take his hands, while Jonah -followed in the rear to show that he considered this a girl’s affair yet -did not wholly disapprove. - -‘Hadn’t we better tell your mother where we’re going?’ he asked as they -started. - -‘Oh, mother won’t mind,’ came the answer in chorus. ‘She hardly ever -comes up to the nursery, and, besides, she doesn’t care for the animals, -you see.’ - -‘They’re rather ’noying for mother,’ Nixie added by way of explanation. -She decapitated many of her long words in this way, and invariably -omitted difficult consonants. - -It was a long journey, and the explanations about the animals, their -characteristics, names, and habits, occupied every minute of the way. He -gathered that they were chiefly cats and kittens, to what number he -dared not calculate, and that puppies, at least one parrot, a squirrel, -a multitude of white mice, and various larger beasts of a parental and -aged description, were indiscriminately all mixed up together. Evidently -it was a private menagerie that he was invited to say good-night to, and -the torrent of outlandish names that poured into his ears produced a -feeling of confusion in his mind that made him wonder if he was not -turning into some sort of animal himself, and thus becoming free of -their language. - -It was the beginning of a very trying ordeal for him, this being half -pulled, half shoved along the intricate passages of the old house; now -down a couple of unexpected steps that made him stumble; now up another -which made him trip; through narrow doorways, where Jonah had the -audacity to push him from behind lest he should stick half-way; and, -finally, at full speed, the girls tugging at his arms in front, down a -long corridor which proved to be the home-stretch to the nursery. - -‘I was afraid we’d lost the trail,’ he gasped. ‘It’s poorly blazed.’ - -‘Oh, but we haven’t got any tails to lose,’ laughed Toby, -misunderstanding him. ‘And they wouldn’t blaze if we had.’ - -‘Look out, Nixie! Not so fast! Uncle Paul’s losing his wind as well as -his trail,’ shouted Jonah from the rear. And at that moment they reached -the door of the nursery and came to an abrupt halt, Paul puffing like a -lumberman. - -It was impossible for him to remain sedate, but he did the next best -thing—he remained silent. - -Then Jonah, pushing past him, turned the handle, and he was ushered, -still panting, into so typical a nursery-schoolroom that the scenes of -his forgotten boyhood rushed back to him with a vividness that seemed to -destroy the passage of time at a single stroke. The past stood -reconstructed. The actual, living mood of his own childhood rose out of -the depths of blurred memories and caused a mist to rise before his -eyes. An emotion he was utterly unable to define shook his heart. - -The room was filled with the slanting rays of the setting sun, and the -air from the open windows smelt of garden trees, lawns, and flower-beds. -Sea and heather, too, added their own sharper perfumes. It caught him -away for a moment—oh, that strange power of old perfumes—to the earliest -scenes of his own life, the boyhood in the gardens of Kent before -America had claimed him. And then the details of the room itself became -so insistent that he almost lost his head and turned back without more -ado into a boy of fifteen. - -He looked swiftly about him. There was the old-fashioned upright piano -against the wall, the highly coloured pictures hanging crooked on the -wall, the cane chairs, the crowded mantelpiece, the high wire fender -before the empty grate, the general atmosphere of toys, untidiness and -broken articles of every sort and kind—and, above all, the figures of -these excited children all bustling recklessly about him with their -glowing and expectant faces. - -There was Toby, her blue sash all awry, running busily about the room; -and Nixie, now in sunshine, now in shadow, with her hair of yellow sand -and her blue dreaming eyes that saw into the Beyond; and little Jonah, -moving about somewhat pompously to prepare the performance that was to -follow. It all combined to produce a sudden shock that swept down upon -him so savagely, that he was within an ace of bolting through the door -and making his escape into safer quarters. - -The False Paul, that is, was within an ace of running away with all his -elaborate armour, and leaving the True Paul dancing on the floor, a -child among children, a spirit of impulse, enthusiasm and imagination, -laughing with the sheer happiness of his perpetual youth. - -It was a dangerous moment; he was within measurable distance of -revealing himself. For a moment his clothes felt far too large for him; -and only just in time did he remember his ‘attitude,’ and the danger of -being young when he really was old, and the absurdity of being anything -else than a large, sedate man of forty-five. Only he wished that Nixie -would not watch him so appealingly with those starry eyes of hers ... -and look so strangely like the forms that haunted his own wild forests -and streams on the other side of the Atlantic. - -He stiffened quickly, drew himself up, and turned to give his elderly -attention to the chorus of explanation and introduction that was already -rising about him with the sound and murmur of the sea. - -Something was happening. - -For the floor of the room, he now perceived, had become suddenly full of -movement, as though the carpet had turned alive. He felt a rubbing -against his legs and ankles; with a soft thud something leaped upon the -table and covered his hand with smooth, warm fur, uttering little sounds -of pleasure at the same time. On the top of the piano, a thing he had -taken for a heap of toys rose and stretched itself into an odd shape of -straight lines and arching curves. From the window-sill, where the sun -poured in, a round grey substance dropped noiselessly down upon the -carpet and advanced with measured and calculated step towards him; -while, from holes and hiding-places undivined, three or four little -fluffy things, with padded feet and stiff pointing tails, shot out like -shadows and headed straight for a row of saucers that he now noticed for -the first time against the farther wall. The whole room seemed to fill -with soft and graceful movement; and, mingled with the voices of the -children, he caught a fine composite murmur that was soothing as the -sound of flowing wind and water. - -It was the sound and the movement of many animals. - -‘Here they are,’ said a voice—‘some of them. The others are lost, or out -hunting.’ - -For the moment Paul did not stop to ask how many ‘others’ there were. He -stood rigidly still for fear that if he moved he might tread on -something living. - -There came a scratching sound at the door, and Toby dashed forward to -open it. - -‘Silly, naughty babies!’ she cried, nearly tumbling over the fender in -her attempt to seize two round bouncing things that came tearing into -the room like a couple of yellow puddings. ‘Uncle Paul has come to see -you all the way from America! And then you’re late like this! For -shame!’ - -With a series of thuds and bangs that must have bruised anything not -unusually well padded, the new arrivals, who looked for all the world -like small fat bears, or sable muffs on short brown legs with feet of -black velvet, dashed round the room in a mad chase after nothing at all. -A hissing and spitting issued from dark corners and from beneath various -pieces of furniture, but the two balls confined their attentions almost -at once to the honoured guest. They charged up against his legs as -though determined to upset his balance—this mountain of a man—and then -careered clumsily round the room, knocking over anything small enough -that came in their way, and behaving generally as though they wanted to -clear the whole place in the shortest possible time for their own -particular and immediate benefit. - -Next, lifting his eyes for a moment from this impetuous attack, he saw a -brilliantly coloured thing behind bars, standing apparently on its head -and looking upside-down at him with an expression of undisguised and -scornful amusement; while not far from it, in a cage hanging by the -cuckoo clock, some one with a tail as large as his body, shot round and -round on a swinging trapeze that made Paul think of a midget practising -in a miniature gymnasium. - -‘These are our animals, you see, Uncle Paul,’ Jonah announced proudly -from his position by the door. There was a trace of condescension in his -tone. - -‘We have lots of out-of-door animals as well, though,’ Toby hastened to -explain, lest her uncle should be disappointed. - -‘I suppose they’re out of doors?’ said Paul lamely. - -‘Of course they are,’ replied Jonah; ‘in the stables and all about.’ He -turned to Nixie, who stood quietly by her uncle’s side in a protective -way, superintending. Nixie nodded corroboration. - -‘Now, we’ll introduce you—gradgilly,’ announced Toby, stooping down and -lifting with immense effort the large grey Persian that had been -sleeping on the window-sill when they came in. She held it with great -difficulty in her arms and hands, but in spite of her best efforts only -a portion of it found actual support, the rest straggling away like a -loosely stuffed bolster she could not encompass. - -It was evidently accustomed to being dealt with thus in sections, for it -continued to purr sleepily, blinking its large eyes with the usual -cat-smile, and letting its head fall backwards as though it suddenly -desired to examine the ceiling from an entirely fresh point of view. -None of its real attention, of course, was given to the actual -proceeding. It merely suffered the absurd affair—absent-mindedly and -with condescension. Its whiskers moved gently. - -‘What’s its name?’ he asked kindly. - -‘_Her_ name,’ whispered Nixie. - -‘We call her Mrs. Tompkyns, because it’s old now,’ Toby explained, -ignoring genders. - -‘After the head-gardener’s gra’mother,’ Nixie explained hastily in his -ear; ‘but we might change it to Uncle Paul in honour of you now, -mightn’t we?’ - -‘Mrs. Uncle Paul,’ corrected Jonah, looking on with slight disapproval, -and anxious to get to the white mice and the squirrel. - -‘It would be a pity to change the name, I think,’ Paul said, -straightening himself up dizzily from the introduction, and watching the -splendid creature fall upon its head from Toby’s weakening grasp, and -then march away with unperturbed dignity to its former throne upon the -window-sill. ‘I feel rather afraid of Mrs. Tompkyns,’ he added; ‘she’s -so very majestic.’ - -‘Oh, you needn’t be,’ they cried in chorus. ‘It’s all put on, you know, -that sort of grand manner. _We_ knew her when she was a kitten.’ - -The object-lesson was not lost upon him. Of all creatures in the world, -he reflected as he watched her, cats have the truest dignity. They -absolutely refuse to be laughed at. No cat would ever betray its real -self, yet here was he, a grown-up, intelligent man, vacillating, and on -the verge already of hopeless capitulation. - -‘And what’s the name of _these_ persons?’ he asked quickly, turning for -safety to Nixie, who had her arms full of a writhing heap she had been -diligently collecting from the corners of the room. - -‘Oh, that’s only Mrs. Tompkyns’ family,’ exclaimed Jonah impatiently; -‘the last family, I mean. She’s had lots of others.’ - -‘The last family before this was only two,’ Nixie told him. ‘We called -them Ping and Pong. They live in the stables now. But these we call -Pouf, Sambo, Spritey, Zezette, and Dumps——’ - -‘And the next ones,’ Toby broke in excitedly, ‘we’re going to call with -the names on the engines when we go up to London to see the dentist.’ - -‘Or the names of the Atlantic steamers wouldn’t be bad,’ said Paul. - -‘Not bad,’ Jonah said, with lukewarm approval; ‘only the engines would -be much better.’ - -‘There may not be any next ones,’ opined Toby, emerging from beneath a -sofa after a frantic, but vain, attempt to catch something alive. - -Jonah snorted with contempt. ‘Of course there will. They come in bunches -all the time, just like grapes and chestnuts and things. Madmizelle told -me so. There’s no end to them. Don’t they, Uncle Paul?’ - -‘I believe so,’ said the authority appealed to, extracting his finger -with difficulty from the teeth and claws of several kittens. - -There came a lull in the proceedings, the majority of the animals having -escaped, and successfully concealed themselves among what Toby called -‘the furchinur.’ Paul was still following a prior train of reflection. - -‘Yes, cats are really rather wonderful creatures,’ he mused aloud in -spite of himself, turning instinctively in the direction of Nixie. ‘They -possess a mysterious and superior kind of intelligence.’ - -For a moment it was exactly as if he had tapped his armour and said, -‘Look! It’s all sham!’ - -The child peered sharply up in his face. There was a sudden light in her -eyes, and her lips were parted. He had not exactly expected her to -answer, but somehow or other he was not surprised when she did. And the -answer she made was just the kind of thing he knew she would say. He was -annoyed with himself for having said so much. - -‘And they lead secret little lives somewhere else, and only let us see -what they want us to see. I knew you understood _really_.’ She said it -with an elfin smile that was certainly borrowed from moonlight on a -mountain stream. With one fell swoop it caught him away into a world -where age simply did not exist. His mind wavered deliciously. The -singing in his heart was almost loud enough to be audible. - -But he just saved himself. With a sudden movement he leaned forward and -buried his face in the pie of kittens that nestled in her arms, letting -them lose their paws for a moment in his beard. The kittens might -understand, but at least they could not betray him by putting it into -words. It was a narrower escape than he cared for. - -‘And these are the Chow puppies,’ cried Jonah, breathless from a long -chase after the sable muffs. - -‘We call them China and Japan.’ - -Paul welcomed the diversion. Their teeth were not nearly so sharp as the -kittens’, and they burrowed with their black noses into his sleeves. So -thick was their fur that they seemed to have no bones at all; their dark -eyes literally dripped laughter. - -With an effort he put on a more sedate manner. - -‘You _have_ got a lot of beasts,’ he said. - -‘Animals,’ Nixie corrected him. ‘Only toads, rats, and hedgehogs are -beasts. And, remember, if you’re rude to an animal, as Mademoiselle -Fleury was once, it only ’spises you—and then——’ - -‘I beg their pardon,’ he put in hurriedly; ‘I quite understand, of -course.’ - -‘You see it’s rather important, as they want to like you, and unless you -respect them they can’t, can they?’ she finished earnestly. - -‘I do respect them, believe me, Nixie, and I appreciate their affection. -Affection and respect must always go together.’ - -The children were wholly delighted. Paul had completely won their hearts -from the very beginning. The parrot, the squirrel, and the white mice -were all introduced in turn to him, and he heard sundry mysterious -allusions to ‘the owl in the stables,’ ‘Juliet and her two kids,’ to say -nothing of dogs, ponies, pigeons, and peacocks, that apparently dwelt in -the regions of outer space, and were to be reserved for the morrow. - -The performance was coming to an end. Paul was already congratulating -himself upon having passed safely, if not with full credit, through a -severe ordeal, when the door opened and a woman of about twenty-five, -with a pleasant face full of character and intelligence, stood in the -doorway. A torrent of French instantly broke loose on all sides. The -woman started a little when she perceived that the children were not -alone. - -‘Oh, Mademoiselle, this is Uncle Paul,’ they cried, each in a different -fashion. ‘This is _our_ Uncle Paul! He’s just been introduced to the -animals, and now he must be introduced to you.’ - -Paul shook hands with her, and the introduction passed off easily -enough; the woman was charming, he saw at the first glimpse, and -possessed of tact. She at once took his side and pretended to scold her -charges for having plagued and bothered him so long. Evidently she was -something more to them than a mere governess. The lassitude of his -sister, no doubt, gave her rights and responsibilities. - -But what impressed Paul when he was alone—for her simple remark that it -was past bedtime was followed by sudden kisses and disappearance—was the -remarkable change that her arrival had brought about in the room. It -came to him with a definite little shock. It was more than significant, -he felt. - -And it was this: that the children, though obviously they loved her, -treated her as some one grown up and to be obeyed, whereas himself, he -now realised, they had all along treated as one of themselves to whom -they could be quite open and natural. His ‘attitude’ they had treated -with respect, just as he had treated the attitude of the animals with -respect, but at the same time he had been made to feel one of -themselves, in their world, part and parcel of their own peculiar -region. There had been nothing forced about it whatever. Whether he -liked it or not they accepted him. His ‘attitude’ was not regarded -seriously. It was not regarded at all. And this was grave. - -He was so simple that he would never have thought of this but for the -entrance of the governess. Her arrival threw it all into sharp relief. -Clearly the children recognised no barrier between themselves and him; -he had been taken without parley straight into their holy of holies. -Nixie, as leader and judge, had carried him off at once. - -And this was a very subtle and powerful compliment that made him think a -great deal. He would either have to drop his armour altogether or make -it very much more effective. - -Indeed, it was the immediate problem in his mind as he slowly made his -way downstairs to find his sister on the lawn, and satisfy her rather -vague curiosity by telling her that the children had introduced him to -the animals, and that he had got on famously with them all. - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - Oh! Fairies, take me out of this dull world - For I would ride with you upon the wind, - Run on the top of the dishevelled tide, - And dance upon the mountains like a flame! - _Land of Heart’s Desire._—YEATS. - - -Paul went early to bed that night. It was his first night in an English -country home for many years; strange forces were at work in him. His -introduction to the children, his meeting with Nixie especially, had let -loose powers in his soul that called for sober reflection; and he felt -the need of being alone. - -Another thing, too, urged him to seek the solitude of his chamber, for -after dinner he had sat for a couple of hours with his sister, talking -over the events and changes of the long interval since they had met,—the -details that cannot be told in letters, the feelings that no one writes. -And he came upstairs with his first impression of her character slightly -modified. She had more in her than he first divined. Beneath that -shadowy and silken manner he had caught traces of distinct purpose. For -one thing she was determined to keep him in England. - -He had told her frankly about his arrangement with the lumber Company, -explaining that he regarded his present visit in the light of a holiday. -‘I suppose that is—er—wise of you,’ she said, but she had not been able -to conceal her disappointment. She asked him presently if he really -wanted to live all his life in such a place, and what it was in English -life, or civilised, conventional life, that he so disliked, and Paul, -feeling distinctly uncomfortable—for he loathed giving pain—had answered -evasively, with more skill than he knew, ‘“Where your treasure is, there -shall your heart be also.” I suppose my treasure—the only kind I know—is -out there in the great woods, Margaret.’ - -‘Paul, are you married, then?’ she asked with a start; and when he -laughed and assured her most emphatically that he was not, she looked -exceedingly puzzled and a little shocked too. ‘Are you so very fond of -this—er—treasure, then?’ she asked point blank in her softest manner, -‘and is she so—I mean, can’t you bring her home and acknowledge her?’ -And after his first surprise when he had gathered her meaning, it took -him a long time to explain that there was no woman concerned at all, and -that it was entirely a matter of his temperament. - -‘Everybody makes his own world, remember,’ he laughed, ‘and its size -depends, I suppose, upon the power of the imagination.’ - -‘Then I fear one’s imagination is a very poor one,’ she said solemnly, -‘or else I have none at all. I cannot pretend to understand your tastes -for trees and woods and things; but you’re exactly like poor Dick in -that way, and I suppose one must be really clever to be like that.’ - -‘A year is a long time, Margaret,’ he said after a pause, to comfort -her. ‘Much may happen before it’s over.’ - -‘I hope so,’ she had answered, standing behind his chair and stroking -his head. ‘By that time you may have met some one who will reconcile you -to—to staying here—a little longer.’ She patted his head as though he -were a Newfoundland dog, he thought. It made him laugh. - -‘Perhaps,’ he said. - -And, now in his room, before the candles were lighted, he was standing -by the open window, thinking it all over. Of women, of course, he knew -little or nothing; to him they were all charming, some of them -wonderful; and he was not conscious that his point of view might be -considered by a man of the world—of the world that is little, sordid, -matter-of-fact—distinctly humorous. At forty-five he believed in women -just as he had believed in them at twenty, only more so, for nothing had -ever entered his experience to trouble an exquisite picture in his mind. -They stood nearer to God than men did, he felt, and the depravity of -really bad women he explained by the fact that when they did fall they -fell farther. The sex-fever, so far as he was concerned, had never -mounted to his brain to obscure his vision. - -He only knew—and knew it with a sacred wonder that was akin to -worship—that women, like the angels, were beyond his reach and beyond -his understanding. Comely they all were to him. He looked up to them in -his thoughts, not for their reason or strength, but for the subtlety of -their intuition, their power of sacrifice, and last but not least, for -the beauty and grace of their mere presence in a world that was so often -ugly and unclean. - -‘The flame—the lamp—the glory—whatever it may be called—keeps alight in -their faces,’ he loved to say to himself, ‘almost to the end. With men -it is gone at thirty—often at twenty.’ - -And his sister, for all her light hold on life, and the strain in her -that in his simplicity he regarded as rather ‘worldly,’ was no exception -to the rule. He thought her entirely good and wonderful, and, perhaps, -so far as she went, he was not too egregiously mistaken. He looked for -the best in everybody, and so, of course, found it. - -‘Only she will never make much of me, or I of her, I’m afraid,’ he -thought as he leaned out of the window, watching the scented darkness. -‘We shall get along best by leaving each other alone and being -affectionate, so to speak, from a distance.’ - -And, indeed, so far he had escaped the manifold seductions by which -Nature seeks to attain her great object of perpetuating the race. As a -potential father of many sons he was of course an object of legitimate -prey; but his forest life had obviated all that; his whole forces had -turned inwards for the creation of the poet’s visions, and Nature in -this respect, he believed, had passed him by. So far as he was aware -there was no desire in him to come forth and perform a belated duty to -the world by increasing its population. It was the first time any one -had even suggested to him that he should consider such a matter, and the -mere idea made him smile. - -Gradually, however, these thoughts cleared away, and he turned to other -things he deemed more important. - -The night was still as imaginable; odours of earth and woods were wafted -into the room with the scent of roses. Overhead, as he leaned on his -elbow and gazed, the stars shone thickly, like points of gold pricked in -a velvet curtain. A lost wind stirred the branches; he could distinguish -their solemn dance against the constellations. Orion, slanting and -immense, tilted across the sky, the two stars at the base resting upon -the shoulder of the hill, and far off, in the deeps of the night, the -murmur of the pines sounded like the breaking of invisible surf. - -Something indescribably fresh and wild in the taste of the air carried -him back again across the ocean. The ancient woods he knew so well rose -before the horizon’s rim, swimming with purple shadows and alive with a -continuous great murmur that stretched for a hundred leagues. The -picture of those desolate places, lying in lonely grandeur beneath the -glitter of the Northern Lights, with a thousand lakes echoing the -laughter of the loons, came seductively before his inner eye. The -thought of it all stirred emotions profound and primitive, emotions too -closely married to instincts, perhaps, to be analysed; something in him -that was ancestral, possibly pre-natal. There was nothing in this little -England that could move him so in the same fashion. His thoughts carried -him far, far away.... - -The faint sound of a church clock striking the hour—a sound utterly -alien to the trend of his thoughts—brought him back again to the -present. He heard it across many fields, fields that had been tilled for -centuries, and there could have been no more vivid or eloquent reminder -that he was no longer in a land where hedges, church bells, -notice-boards, and so forth were not. He came back with a start, and a -sensation almost akin to pain. He felt cramped, caught, caged. The -tinkling church bells annoyed him. - -His thoughts turned, with a sudden jerk, as it were, to the undeniable -fact that he had been trying to go about in a disguise, with a clumsy -mask over his face, so that he might appear decently grown up in his new -surroundings. - -A pair of owls began to hoot softly in the woods, answering one another -like voices in a dream, and just then the lost wind left the pine -branches and died away into the sky with a swift rush as of many small -wings. In the sudden pool of silence that followed, he fancied he could -hear across the dark miles of heathland the continuous low murmur of the -sea. - -The beauty of night, as ever, entered his soul, but with a joy that was -too solemn, too moving, to be felt as pleasure. It touched something in -him beyond the tears of either pain or delight: something that held in -it a mysterious wonder so searching, so poignant, as to be almost -terrible. - -He caught his breath and waited.... The great woods of the world, -mountains, the sea, stars, and the crying winds were always for him -symbols of the gateways into a mightier and ideal region, a Beyond-world -where he found rest for his yearnings and a strange peace. They were his -means of losing himself in a temporary heaven. - -And to-night it was the beauty of an English scene that carried him -away; and this in spite of his having summoned the wilder vision from -across the seas. Already the forces of his own country were insensibly -at work upon an impressionable mind and temperament. The very air, so -sweetly scented as he drew it in between his lips, was charged with the -subtly-working influences of the ‘Old Country.’ A new web, soft but -mighty, was being woven about his spirit. Even now his heart was -conscious of its gossamer touch, as his dreams yielded imperceptibly to -a new colour. - -He followed vaguely, curiously, the leadings of delicate emotions that -had been stirred in him by the events of the day. Symbols, -fast-shifting, protean, passed in suggestive procession before his -mind’s eye, in the way that symbols ever will—in a poet’s heart. He -thought of children, of _the_ children, and of the extraordinarily fresh -appeal they had made to him. Children: how near they, too, stood to the -great things of life, and all the nearer, perhaps, for not being aware -of it. How their farseeing eyes and their simple, unlined souls pointed -the way, like Nature, to the ideal region of which he was always -dreaming: to Reality, to God. - -All real children knew and understood; were ready to offer their timid -yet unhesitating guidance, and without question or explanation. - -Had, then, Nixie and her troupe already taken him prisoner? And were the -soft chains already twined about his neck?... - -Paul hardly acknowledged the question definitely to himself. He was -merely dreaming, and his dreams, rising and falling like the tides of a -sea, bore him to and fro among the shoals and inlands of the day’s -events. The spell of the English June night was very strong upon him, no -doubt, for presently a door opened somewhere behind him, and the very -children he was thinking about danced softly into the room. Nixie came -up close and gazed into his very eyes, and again there began that odd -singing in his heart that he had twice noticed during the day. An -atmosphere of magic, shot with gold and silver, came with the child into -the room. - -For the fact was—though he realised it only dimly—the Fates were now -making him a deliberate offer. Had he not been so absorbed, he would -have perceived and appreciated the delicacy of their action. As a rule -they command, whereas now they were only suggesting. - -It was really his own heart asking. Here, in this rambling country house -under the hills, was an opportunity of entering the region to which all -that was best and truest in him naturally belonged. The experience might -prove a stepping-stone to a final readjustment of his peculiar being -with the normal busy world of common things. Here was a safety-valve, as -he called it, a channel through which he might express much, if not all, -of his accumulated stores. The guides, now fast asleep in their beds, -had sent out their little dream-bodies to bring the invitation; they -were ready and waiting. - -And he, thinking there under the stars his queer, long thoughts, bred in -years of solitude, dallied with the invitation, and—hesitated. The -inevitable pain frightened him—the pain of being young when the world -cries that you are old; the pang of the eternal contrast when the world -would laugh at what seemed to it a foolish fantasy of youth—a pose, a -dream that must bring a bitter awakening! He heard the voices but too -plainly, and shrank quickly from the sound. - -But Nixie, standing there beside him with such gentle persistence, -certainly made him waver.... The temptation to yield was strong and -seductive.... Yet, when the faint splendour of the summer moonrise -dimmed the stars near the horizon, and the pines shone tipped with -silver, he found himself borne down by the sense of caution that urged -no revolutionary change, and advised him to keep his armour tightly -buckled on in the disguise he had adopted. - -He would wait and see—a little longer, at any rate; and meanwhile he -must be firm and stern and dull; master of himself, and apparently -normal. - -He walked to the dressing-table and lit his candles, and, as he did so, -caught a picture of himself in the glass. There was a gleam of subdued -fire in his eyes, he thought, that was not naturally there. Something -about him looked a little wild; it made him laugh. - -He laughed to think how utterly absurd it was that a man of his size and -age, and—But the idea refused to frame himself in language—He did not -know exactly why he laughed, for at the same time he felt sad. With him, -as with all other children, tears and laughter are never far apart. It -would have been just as intelligible if he had cried. - -But when the candles were out and he was in bed, and the stars were -peeping into the darkened room, the memory of his laughter seemed -unreal, and the sound of it oddly remote. - -For, after all, that laughter was rather mysterious. It was not the -Outer Paul laughing at the Inner Paul. It was the Inner Paul laughing -with himself. - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - The imaginative process may be likened to the state of reverie. - —ALISON. - - -The psychology of sleep being apparently beyond all intelligible -explanation, it was not surprising that he woke up next morning as -though he had gone to bed without a single perplexity. He remembered -none of the thoughts that had thronged his brain a few short hours -before; perhaps they had all slipped down into the region of submerged -consciousness, to crop out later in natural, and apparently spontaneous, -action. - -At any rate he remembered little enough of his troubles when he woke and -saw the fair English sun streaming in through the open windows. Odours -of woods and dew-drenched lawns came into the room, and the birds were -singing with noise enough to waken all the country-side. It was -impossible to lie in bed. He was up and dressed long before any servant -came to call him. - -Downstairs he found the house in darkness; doors barred and windows -heavily shuttered as though the house had expected an attack. Not a soul -was stirring. The air was close and musty. The idea of having to strike -a match in a ‘country’ house at 6 A.M. somehow oppressed him. Not -knowing his way about very well yet, he stumbled across the hall to find -a door, and as he did so something soft came rubbing against his legs. -He put his hand down in the darkness and felt a furry, warm body and a -stiff upright tail that reached almost to his knees. The thing began to -purr. - -‘I declare!’ he exclaimed; ‘Mrs. Tompkyns!’ and he struck a match and -followed her to the drawing-room door. A moment later they had -unfastened the shutters of the French window—Mrs. Tompkyns assisting by -standing on her hind legs and tapping the swinging bell—and made their -way out on to the lawn. - -The sunshine came slanting between the cedars and lay in shining strips -on the grass. Everything glistened with dew. The air was sweet and fresh -as it only is in the early hours after the dawn. Very faintly, as though -its mind was not yet made up, the air stirred among the bushes. - -Paul’s first impulse was to waken the entire household so that they -might share with him this first glory of the morning. ‘Probably they -don’t know how splendid it is!’ The thought of the sleeping family, many -of them perhaps with closed windows, missing all the wonder, was a -positive pain to him. But, fortunately for himself, he decided it might -be better not to begin his visit in this way. - -‘I guess you and I, Mrs. Tompkyns, are the only people about,’ he said, -looking down at the beautiful grey creature that sniffed the air calmly -at his feet. ‘Come on, then. Let’s make a raid together on the woods!’ - -He threw a disdainful glance at the sleeping house; no smoke came from -the chimneys; most of the upper windows were closed. A delicious -fragrance stole out of the woods to meet him as he strolled across the -wet lawn. He felt like a schoolboy doing something out of bounds. - -‘You lead and I follow,’ he said, addressing his companion in mischief. - -And at once his attention became absorbed in the animal’s characteristic -behaviour. Obviously it was delighted to be with him; yet it did not -wish him to think so, or, if he did think so, to give any sign of the -fact. Nothing could have been plainer. First it crept along by the stone -wall delicately, with its body very close to the ground as though the -weight of the atmosphere oppressed it; and when he spoke, it turned its -head with an affectation of genuine surprise as though it would say, -‘You here! I thought I was alone.’ Then it sat down on the gravel path -and began to wash its face and paws till he had passed, after which—when -he was not looking, of course—it followed him condescendingly, sniffing -at blades of grass _en route_ without actually touching them, and -flicking its tail upwards with sudden, electric jerks. - -Paul understood in a general way what was expected of him. He watched it -surreptitiously, pretending to examine the flowers. For this, he knew, -was the great Cat Game of elaborate pretence. And Mrs. Tompkyns, true -adept in the art, played up wonderfully, and incidentally taught him -much about the ways and methods of simple disguise; it advanced -stealthily when he wasn’t looking; it stopped to wash, or gaze into the -air, the moment he turned. It was very shy, and very affected, and very -self-conscious. Inimitable was the way it kept to all the little rules -of the game. It walked daintily down the path after him, shaking the dew -from its paws with a rapid, quivering motion. Then, suddenly arching its -back as though momentarily offended—at nothing—it stared up at him with -an expression that seemed to question his very existence. ‘I guess I -ought to fade away when you look at me like that!’ was his thought. - -‘I’m here. I’m coming, Mrs. Tompkyns,’ he felt constrained to remark -aloud before going forward again. ‘The grand morning excites my blood -just as much as it excites your own.’ - -It seemed necessary to assert his presence. No intelligent person can be -conceited long in the presence of a cat. No living creature can so -sublimely ‘ignore.’ But Paul was not conceited. He continued to watch it -with delight. - -One very important rule of the game appeared to be that plenty of bushes -were necessary by way of cover, so that it could pretend it was not -really coming farther than the particular bush where it was hiding at -the moment. Instinctively, he never made the grave mistake of calling it -to follow; and though it never trotted alongside, being always either -behind or in front of him, the presence of the cat in his immediate -neighbourhood provided all sorts of company imaginable. It had also -provided him with an opportunity to play the hero. - -Then, suddenly, the calm and peace of the morning was disturbed by a -scene of strange violence. Mrs. Tompkyns, with spread legs, dashed past -him at a surprising speed and flew up the trunk of a big tree as though -all the dogs in the county were at her heels. From this position of -vantage she looked back over her shoulder with hysterical and frightened -eyes. There was a great show of terror, a vast noise of claws upon the -bark. No actress could have created better the atmosphere of immediate -danger and alarm. - -Paul had an instinctive _flair_ for this move of the game. He made a -great pretence of running up to save the cat from its awful position, -but of course long before he got there she had dropped laughingly to -earth again, having thus impressed upon him the value of her life. - -‘A question of life or death that time, I think, Mrs. Tompkyns,’ he said -soothingly, trying to stroke her back. ‘I wonder if the head-gardener’s -grandmother after whom you were named ever did this sort of thing. I -doubt it!’ - -But the creature escaped from him easily. For no one is ever caught in -the true Cat Game. It scuttled down the path at full speed in a sort of -canter, but sideways, as though a violent wind blew it and desperate -resistance was necessary to keep on its feet at all. After that its -self-consciousness seemed to disappear a little. It behaved normally. It -stalked birds that showed, however, no fear of its approach. It sniffed -the tips of leaves. It played baby-fashion with various invisible -companions; and finally it vanished in a thick jungle of laurels to hunt -in savage earnest, and left Paul to his own devices. Like all its kind, -it only wished to prove how charming it could be, in order to emphasise -later its utter independence of human sympathy and companionship. - - -‘If you _must_ go, I suppose you must,’ he laughed, ‘and I shall try to -enjoy myself without you.’ - -He strolled on alone and lost himself in the pine-wood that flanked the -back lawn, stopping finally by a gate that led to the world of gorse and -heather beyond. The brilliant patches of yellow wafted perfumes to his -nostrils. Far in the distance a blue line hinted where the sea lay; and -over all lay the radiance of the early morning. The old spell was there -that never failed to make his heart leap. And, as he stood still, the -cuckoo flitted, invisible and mischievous, from tree to tree, calling -with its flutelike notes,— - - Sung beyond memory, - When golden to the winds this world of ours - Waved wild with boundless flowers; - Sung in some past where wildernesses were,— - -and his thoughts went roaming back to the great woods he had left -behind, woods where the naked streams ran shouting and lawless, where -the trees had not learned self-consciousness, and where no little tame -folk trotted on velvet feet through trim and scented gardens. - -And the virgin glory of the morning entered into him with that searching -sweetness which is almost suffering, just as a few hours before the -Night had bewitched him with the mystery of her haunted caverns. For the -beauty of Nature that comes to most softly, with hints, came to him with -an exquisite fierce fever that was pain,—with something of the -full-fledged glory that burst upon Shelley—and to bear it, unrelieved by -expression, was a perpetual torment to him. - -But, after long musing that led he scarcely knew where, Paul came back -to himself—and laughed. Laughter was better than sighing, and he was too -much of a child to go long without the sense of happiness coming -uppermost. He lit his pipe—that most delicious of all, the pipe before -breakfast—and wandered out into the sea of yellow gorse, thinking aloud, -laughing, talking to himself. - -Something in the performance of Mrs. Tompkyns awakened the train of -thought of the night before. The sublime acting of the animal—he dared -not call it ‘beast’—linked him on to the children’s world. They, too, -had a magnificent condescension for the mere grown-up person. But he—he -was _not_ grown up. It made him sigh and laugh to think of it. He was a -great, overgrown child, playing with gorgeously coloured dreams while -the world of ordinary life passed him by. - -The animals and the children linked on again, of course, with the region -of fantasy and make-believe, the world of creation, the world of -eternity, the world where thoughts were alive, and strong belief was a -creative act. - -‘That’s where I still belong,’ he said aloud, picking his way among the -waves of yellow sea, ‘and I shall never get out till I die, my visions -unexpressed, my singing dumb.’ He laughed and threw a stone at a bush -that had no blossoms. ‘Oh, if only I knew how to link on with the normal -world of fact _without losing the other_! To turn all these seething -dreams within me to some account. To show them to others!’ - -He ran and cleared a low gorse-bush with a flying jump. - -‘That would be worth living for,’ he continued, panting; ‘to make these -things real to all the people who live in little cages. By Jove, it -would open doors and windows in thousands of cages all over the world, -besides providing me with the outlet I must find some day or—’ he sprang -over a ditch, slipped, and landed head first into prickles—‘or explode!’ -he concluded with a shout of laughter that no one heard but the cuckoos -and the yellow-hammers. Then he fell into a reverie, and his thoughts -travelled farther still—into the Beyond. - -Quickly recovering himself, and picking up his pipe, he went on towards -the house; and, as he emerged from the pine copse again, the sound of a -gong, ringing faintly in the distance, brought him back to earth with a -shock almost as abrupt as the ditch. Mrs. Tompkyns appeared -simultaneously, wearing an aspect of pristine innocence, admirably -assumed the instant she caught sight of him. - -‘Fancy your being out here!’ was the expression of her whole person, -‘and coming, too, in just as the gong sounds!’ - -‘Breakfast, I suppose!’ he observed. And she trotted behind him like a -dog. For all her affectations of superiority she wanted her milk just as -much as he wanted his coffee. - -He walked into the dining-room, through the window, stiffening as he did -so with the resolution of the night before. His armour fitted him -tightly. Little animals, children, the too searching calls of Nature, -occult, symbolic, magical—all these must be sternly resisted and -suppressed in the company of others. The danger of letting his -imagination loose was too alarming. The ridicule would overwhelm him. In -the eyes of the world he now lived in he would seem simply mad. The risk -was impossible. - -Like the Christian Scientists, he felt the need of vigorous affirmation: -‘I am Paul Rivers. I am a grown-up man. I am an official in a lumber -Company. I am forty-five. I have a beard. I am important and sedate.’ - -Thus he fortified himself; and thus, like the persuasive Mrs. Tompkyns -on the lawn, he imagined that he was deceiving both himself—and those -who were _on the watch_! - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - _And a little child shall lead them._ - - -A week passed quickly away and found Paul still in his sister’s house. -The country air agreed with him, and he went for long walks over the -heathery hills and down to the sea. The little private study provided -for him,—remembering Mrs. Tompkyns’ example, he made a brave pretence of -having reports to write to his lumber Company—was admirable for his -work. As a place of retreat when he felt temptation too strong upon him, -or danger was near at hand, he used it constantly. He scented conditions -in advance very often, though no one probably would have suspected it of -him. - -Once or twice he lunched out with neighbours, and sometimes people -motored over to tea; companionship and society were at hand if he wanted -them. And books of the kind he loved stood in precious rows upon the -shelves of Dick’s well-stored library. Here he browsed voraciously. - -His sister, meanwhile, showed tact hardly to be expected of her. She -tried him tentatively with many things to see if he liked them, but she -made no conspicuous plans for him, and took good care that he was left -entirely to his own devices. A kind of intelligent truce had established -itself between them—these two persons who lived in different worlds and -stared at one another with something like astonishment over the top of a -high wall. Moreover, her languid interest in life made no claims upon -him; there was pleasant companionship, gentle talks, and genuine, if -thinly coloured, affection. He felt absolutely free, yet was conscious -of being looked after with kindness and discretion. She managed him so -well, in fact, that he hardly realised he was being managed at all. - -He fell more easily than he had thought possible into the routine of the -uneventful country life. From feeling ‘caged’ he came to feel -‘comfortable.’ June, and the soft forces of the summer, purred about -him, and almost without knowing it he began to purr with them. - -For his superabundant energy he found relief in huge walks, early and -late, and in all manner of unnecessary and invented labours of Hercules -about the place. Thus, he dammed up the little stream that trickled -harmlessly through the Gwyle pine-wood, making a series of deep pools in -which he bathed when the spirit moved him; he erected a gigantic and -very dangerous see-saw for the children (and himself) across a fallen -trunk; and, by means of canvas, boards, and steps, he constructed a -series of rooms and staircases in a spreading ilex tree, with rope -railings and bells at each ‘floor’ for visitors, so that even the -gardeners admitted it was the most wonderful thing they had ever set -eyes upon in a tree. - -With the children he was, however, careful to play the part he had -decided to play. He was kind and good-natured; he spent a good deal of -time with them daily; he even submitted periodically to be introduced -all over again to the out-of-door animals, but he went through it all -soberly and deliberately, and flattered himself that he was quite -successful in presenting to them the ‘Uncle Paul’ whom it was best for -his safety they should know. - -Heart-searchings and temptations he had in plenty, but came through the -ordeal with flying colours, and by the end of the first week he was -satisfied that they accepted him as he wished—sedate, stolid, dull, and -‘grown up.’ - -Yet, all the time, there was something that puzzled him. Under the -leadership of Nixie the children played up almost too admirably. It was -almost as though he had called them and explained everything in detail. -In spite of himself, they seemed somehow or other to have got into his -confidence, so that he felt his pretence was after all not so effective -as he meant it to be. - -Even—nay, especially—the way he was ‘accepted’ by the animals was -suspicious—for nothing can be more eloquent of the true relations -between children and a grown-up than the terms they permit their animals -to have towards him—and this easy acceptance of himself as he pretended -to be constituted the most wearing and subtle kind of attack he could -possibly conceive. He felt as if the steel casings of his armour were -changing into cardboard; soon they would become mere tissue-paper, and -then turn transparent and melt away altogether. - -‘They seem to think it’s all put on, this stiffness of mine,’ he thought -more than once. ‘Perhaps they’re playing a sort of game with me. If once -they find out I’m only acting—whew!’ he whistled low—‘the game is up at -once! I must keep an eye peeled!’ - -Consequently he kept that eye peeled; he made more use of his private -study, and so often gave the excuse of having reports to write that, had -it been true, his lumber Company would have been obliged to double its -staff in order to read them. - -Yet, even in the study, he was not absolutely safe. - -The children penetrated there too. They knocked elaborately—always; but -with the knock he invariably realised a roguish pair of eyes and a sly -laugh on the other side of the door. It was like knocking on his heart -direct. He always said—in a bored, unnatural tone: - -‘Oh, come in, whoever it is!’ knowing quite well who it was. And, then, -in they would come—one or the other of them. - -They slipped in softly as shadows, like the coming of dusk, like stray -puffs of wind, fragrant and summery, or like unexpected rays of light as -the sun walked round the house in the afternoon. And when they were -gone—swiftly, like the sun dipping behind a cloud—lo, the room seemed -cold and empty again. - -‘Oh, they’re up to something, they’re up to something,’ he said wisely -to himself with a sigh. ‘They’re laying traps for me, bless their little -insolences!’ - -And the more he thought about it, the more certain he felt that Nixie, -Jonah, and Toby were simply playing the Cat Game—pretending to accept -his attitude because they saw he wished it. Only, less occult and -intelligent than the cat, they sometimes made odd little slips that -betrayed them. - -For instance, one evening Jonah penetrated into the study to say -good-night, and brought the Chow puppies, China and Japan, with him. -Their tails curled over their backs like wire brushes; their vigorous -round bodies, for ever on the move, were all he could manage. Having -been duly kissed, the child waited, however, for something else, and at -length, receiving no assistance from his uncle, he lifted each puppy in -turn on to the table. - -‘You, Uncle, please hold them; I can’t,’ he explained. - -And, rather grimly, Paul tried to keep the two wriggling bodies still, -while Jonah then came up a little closer to his chair. - -‘_They_ have reports to write too, to their lumber-kings,’ he said, his -face solemn as a gong—using a phrase culled heaven knows where. ‘So will -you please see that they don’t make blots either.’ - -‘But how did you know there were such things as lumber-kings?’ Paul -asked, surprised. - -‘I didn’t know. They knew,’ with a jerk of his head toward the -struggling puppies, who hated the elevation of the table and the -proximity of Paul’s bearded face. ‘They said you told them.’ - -There was no trace of a smile in his eyes; nothing but the earnest -expression of the child taking part in the ponderous make-believe of the -grown-up. Paul felt that by this simple expedient his reports and the -safety they represented had been reduced in a single moment to the level -of a paltry pretence. - -He blushed. ‘Well, tell them to run after their tails more, and think -less,’ he said. - -‘All right, Uncle Paul,’ and the boy was gone, grave as any judge. - -And Toby, her small round face still shining like an onion skin, had a -different but equally effective method of showing him that he belonged -to their world in spite of his clumsy pretence. She gave him lessons in -Natural History. One afternoon when a brightly-coloured creature darted -across the page of his book, and he referred to it as a ‘beetle,’ she -very smartly rebuked him. - -‘Not beetle, but beetie, _that_ one,’ she corrected him. - -He thought at first this was merely a child’s abbreviation, but she went -on to instruct him fully, and he discovered that the ordinary -coleopterist has a great deal yet to learn in the proper classification -of his species. - -‘There are beetles, and beedles, and beeties,’ she explained standing by -his chair on the lawn, and twiddling with his watch-chain. ‘Beeties are -all bright-coloured and little and very pretty—like ladybirds.’ - -‘And beedles?’ - -‘Oh, b-e-e-e-d-d-dles,’ pronouncing the word heavily and slowly, ‘are -the stupid fat ones in the road that always get run over. They’re always -sleepy, you see, but quite nice, oh, quite nice;’ she hastened to add -lest Paul should dislike them from her description. - -‘And all the rest are beetles, I suppose, just ordinary beetles?’ he -asked. - -‘Beetles,’ she said, with the calmness of superior knowledge, ‘are fast, -black things that scuttle about kitchens. Horrid and crawly! _Now_ you -know them all!’ - -She ran off with a burst of laughter upon that face of polished onion -skin, and left her uncle to reflect deeply upon this new world of -beetles. - -The lesson was instructive and symbolic, though the choice of subject -was not as poetic as might have been. With this new classification as a -starting-point, the child, no doubt, had erected a vast superstructure -of wonder, fun, beauty, and—why not?—truth! For children, he mused, are -ever the true idealists. In their games of make-believe they create the -world anew—in six minutes. They scorn measurements, and deal directly -with the eternal principles behind things. With a little mud on the end -of a stick they trace the course of the angels, and with the -wooden-blocks of their building-boxes they erect the towering palaces of -a universe that shall never pass away. - -Yet what they did, surely he also did! His world of imagination was -identical with theirs of make-believe. Was, then, the difference between -them one of expression merely?... - -Toby came thundering up and fell upon him from nowhere. - -‘Uncle Paul,’ she said rather breathlessly. - -‘Yes, dear,’ he made answer, still thinking upon beedles and beeties. - -‘On the path down there by the rosydandrums there’s a beedle now—a big -one with horns—if you’d like to see it.’ - -‘Oh! By the rhododendrons, you mean?’ - -‘Yes, by the rosydandrums,’ she repeated. ‘Only we must be quick or -he’ll get home before we come.’ - -He was far more keen to see that “beedle” than she was. Yet for the -immediate safety of his soul he refused. - -Nixie it was, however, who penetrated furthest into the fortress. She -came with a fearless audacity that fairly made him tremble. She had only -to approach for him to become aware how poorly his suit of armour -fitted. - -But she was so gentle and polite about it that she was harder to -withstand than all the others put together. She was slim and insinuating -in body, mind and soul. Often, before he realised what she was talking -about, her slender little fingers were between the cracks of his -breast-plate. For instance, after leaving Toby and her “beedle,” he -strolled down to the pine-wood and stood upon the rustic bridge watching -the play of sunlight and shadow, when suddenly, out of the very water it -seemed, up rose a veritable water-sprite—hatless and stockingless—Nixie, -the ubiquitous. - -She scrambled lightly along the steep bank to his side, and leaned over -the railing with him, staring at their reflections in the stream. - -‘I declare you startled me, child!’ Paul exclaimed. - -Her eyes met his in the running reflection beneath them. Of course, it -may have been merely the trick of the glancing water, but to him it -seemed that her expression was elfin and mischievous. - -‘Did I—_really_, Uncle Paul?’ she said after a long silence, and without -looking up. But woven through the simple words, as sunlight is woven -through clearing mist, he divined all the other meanings of the child’s -subtle and curious personality. It amounted to this—she at once invited, -nay included, him in her own particular tree and water world: included -him because he belonged there with her, and she simply couldn’t help -herself. There was no favour about it one way or the other. - -The compliment—the temptation—was overwhelming. Paul shivered a little, -actually shivered, as he stood beside her in the sunshine. For several -minutes they leaned there in silence, gazing at the flowing water. - -‘The woods are _very_ busy—this evening,’ she said at length. - -‘I’m sure they are,’ he answered, before he quite realised what he was -saying. Then he pulled himself together with an effort. - -‘But does Mlle. Fleury know, and approve—?’ he asked a little stiffly, -glancing down at her bare legs and splashed white frock. - -‘Oh, no,’ she laughed wickedly, ‘but then Mlle. only understands what -she sees with her eyes! She is much too mixed up and educated to know -all _this_ kind of thing!’ She made a gesture to include the woods about -them. ‘Her sort of knowledge is so stuffing, you know.’ - -‘Rather,’ he exclaimed. ‘I would far sooner know the trees themselves -than know their Latin names.’ - -It slipped out in spite of himself. The next minute he could have bitten -his tongue off. But Nixie took no advantage of him. She let his words -pass as something taken for granted. - -‘I mean—it’s better to learn useful things while you can,’ he said -hurriedly, blushing in his confusion like a child. - -Nixie peered steadily down into the water for several minutes before she -said anything more. - -‘Either she’s found me out and knows everything,’ thought Paul; ‘or she -hasn’t found me out and knows nothing.’ But which it was, for the life -of him, he couldn’t be certain. - -‘Oh,’ she cried suddenly, looking up into his face, her eyes, to Paul’s -utter amazement, wet with tears, ‘Oh! how Daddy must have loved you!’ - -And, before he could think of a word to say, she was gone! Gone into the -woods with a fluttering as of white wings. - -‘So apparently I am not too mixed up and educated for their exquisite -little world,’ he reflected, as soon as the emotion caused by her last -words had subsided a little; ‘and the things I know are not of the -“stuffing” kind!’ - -It all made him think a good deal—this attitude the children adopted -towards _his_ attitude, this unhesitating acceptance of him in spite of -all his pretence. But he still valiantly maintained his studied -aloofness of manner, and never allowed himself to overstep the danger -line. He never forgot himself when he played with them, and the stories -he told were just what they called “ornary” stories, and not tales of -pure imagination and fantasy. The rules of the game, finely balanced, -were observed between them just as between himself and Mrs. Tompkyns. - -Yet somehow, by unregistered degrees and secretly, they loosened the -joints of his armour day by day and hour by hour. - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - All the Powers that vivify nature must be children, for all the - fairies, and gnomes, the goblins, yes, and the great giants too, are - only different sizes and shapes and characters of children.—_George - MacDonald._ - - -It was a week later, and Paul was smoking his evening pipe on the lawn -before dinner. His sister was in London for a couple of days. Mlle. -Fleury had gone to the dentist in the neighbouring town and had not yet -returned. The children, consequently, had been running rather wild. - -The sun had barely disappeared, when the full moon, rising huge and -faint in the east, cast a silvery veil over the gardens and the wood. -The night came treading softly down the sky, passing with an almost -visible presence from the hills to the motionless trees in the valley, -and then sinking gently and mysteriously down into the very roots of the -grass and flowers. - -During the day there had been rain—warm showers alternating with -dazzling sunshine as in April—and now the earth, before going to sleep, -was sending out great wafts of incense. Paul sniffed it in with keen -enjoyment. - -The odour of burning wood floated to him over the tree-tops, hanging a -little heavily in the moist atmosphere; he thought of a hundred fires of -his own making—elsewhere, far away! ‘And grey dawns saw his camp-fires -in the rain,’ he murmured. - -He wandered down to the Larch Gate, so called by the children because -the larches stood there about the entrance of the wood like the porch of -some forest temple. He halted, listening to the faint drip-drip of the -trees, and as he listened, he thought; and his thoughts, like stones -falling through a deep sea, sank down into the depths of him where so -little light was that no words came to give them form or substance. - -Overhead, the blue lanes of the sky down which the sunlight had poured -all day were slowly softening for the coming of the stars; and in -himself the plastic depths, he felt, were a-stirring, as though some -great change that he could not alter or control were about to take place -in him. He was aware of an unwonted undercurrent of excitement in his -blood. It seemed to him that there was ‘something afoot,’ although he -had no evidence to warrant the suspicion. - -‘Something’s up to-night,’ he murmured between the puffs of his pipe. -‘There’s something in the air!’ - -He blew a long whiff of smoke and watched it melt away over a bed of -mignonette among the blue shadows where the dusk gathered beneath the -ilex trees. There, for a moment, his eye followed it, and just as it -sifted off into transparency he became aware with a start of surprise -that behind the bushes something was moving. He looked closer. - -‘It’s stopped,’ he muttered; ‘but only a second ago it was moving—moving -parallel with myself.’ - -Paul was well accustomed to watching the motions of wild creatures in -the forest; his eye was trained like the eye of an Indian. The gloom at -first was too dense for anything to differentiate itself from their -general mass, but after a short inspection his sight detected little -bits of shadow that were lighter or darker than other little bits. The -moving thing began to assume outline. - -‘It’s a person!’ he decided. ‘It’s somebody watching—watching _me_!’ - -He took a step forward, and the figure likewise advanced, keeping even -pace with him. He went faster, and the figure also went faster; it moved -very silently, very softly, ‘like an Indian,’ he thought with -admiration. Behind the Blue Summer-house, where they sometimes had tea -on wet days, it disappeared. - -‘There are no cattle-stealers, or timber-sneaks in this country,’ he -reflected, ‘but there are burglars. Perhaps this is a burglar who knows -Margaret is away and thinks—’ - -He had not time to finish what the burglar thought, for at that moment, -at the top of the Long Walk, where the moonlight already lay in a patch, -the figure suddenly dashed out at full speed from the cover of the -bushes, and he beheld, not a burglar, but—a little girl in a blue frock -with a broad white collar, and long, black spindle legs. - -‘Nixie, my dear child!’ he exclaimed. ‘But aren’t you in bed?’ - -It was a stupid question of course, and she did not attempt to answer -it, but came up close to him, picking her way neatly between the -flower-beds. The moon gleamed on her shiny black shoes and on her shiny -yellow hair; over her summer dress she wore a red cloak, but it was open -and only held to her by two thin bands about the neck. Under the hood he -saw her elf-like face, the expression grave, but the eyes bright with -excitement, and she moved softly over the grass like a shadow, timidly, -yet without hesitation. A small, warm hand stole into his. - -Paul put his pipe, still alight, into his pocket like a naughty boy -caught smoking, and turned to face her. - -‘’Pon my soul, Nixie, I believe you really _are_ a sprite!’ - -She let go his hand and sprang away lightly over the lawn, laughing -silently, her hood dropping off so that her hair flew out in a net to -catch the moonlight, and for an instant he imagined he was looking at -running water, swift and dancing; but the very next second she was back -at his side again, the red hood replaced, the cloak gathered tightly -about her slim person, feeling for his big hand again with both of her -own. - -‘At night I _am_ a sprite,’ she whispered laughing, ‘and mind I don’t -bewitch you altogether!’ - -She drew him gently across the lawn, choosing the direction with evident -purpose, and he, curiously and suddenly bereft of all initiative, -allowed her to do as she would. - -‘But, please, Uncle Paul,’ she went on with vast gravity,’ I want you to -be serious now. I’ve something to say to you, and that’s why I’m not in -bed when I ought to be. All the other Sprites are about too, you know, -so be very careful how you answer.’ - -The big man allowed himself to be led away. He felt his armour dropping -off in great flakes as he went. No light is so magical as in that -mingled hour of sun and moon when the west is still burning and the east -just a-glimmer with the glory that is to come. Paul felt it strongly. He -was half with the sun and half with the moon, and the gates of fantasy -seemed somewhere close at hand. Curtains were being drawn aside, veils -lifting, doors softly opening. He almost heard the rush of the wind -behind, and tasted the keen, sweet excitement of another world. - -He turned sharply to look at his companion. But first he put the hood -back, for she seemed more human that way. - -‘Well, child!’ he said, as gruffly as he could manage, ‘and what is it -you have stayed up so late to ask me?’ - -‘It’s something I have to say to you, not to _ask_,’ she replied at once -demurely. There was a delicious severity about her. - -After a pause of twenty seconds she tripped round in front of him and -stared full into his face. He felt as though she cried ‘Hands up’ and -held a six-shooter to his head. She pulled the trigger that same moment. - -‘Isn’t it time now to stop writing all those Reports, and to take off -your dressing-up things?’ she asked with decision. - -Paul stopped abruptly and tried to disengage his hand, but she held him -so tightly that he could not escape without violence. - -‘What dressing-up things are you talking about?’ he asked, forcing a -laugh which, he admitted himself, sounded quite absurd. - -‘All this pretending that you’re so old, and don’t know about things—I -mean _real_ things—_our_ things.’ - -He searched as in a fever for the right words—words that should be true -and wise, and safe—but before he could pick them out of the torrent of -sentences that streamed through his mind, she had gone on again. She -spoke calmly, but very gravely. - -‘We are _so_ tired of helping to pretend with you; and we’ve been -waiting patiently _so_ long. Even Toby knows it’s only ’sguise you put -on to tease us.’ - -‘Even Toby?’ he repeated foolishly, avoiding her brilliant eyes. - -‘And it really isn’t quite fair, you know. There are so very few that -care—and understand—’ - -There came a little quaver in her voice. She hardly came up to his -shoulder. He felt as though a whole bathful of happiness had suddenly -been upset inside him, and was running about deliciously through his -whole being—as though he wanted to run and dance and sing. It was like -the reaction after tight boots—collars—or tight armour—and the blood was -beginning to flow again mightily. Nothing could stop it. Some keystone -in the fabric of his being dropped or shifted. His whole inner world -fell into a new pattern. Resistance was no longer possible or desirable. -He had done his best. Now he would give in and enjoy himself at last. - -‘But, my dear child—my dear little Nixie—’ - -‘No, really, Uncle, there’s no good talking like that,’ she interrupted, -her voice under command again, though still aggrieved, ‘because you know -quite well we’re all waiting for you to join us properly—our Society, I -mean—and have our a’ventures with us—’ - -She called it ‘aventures.’ She left out all consonants when excited. The -word caught him sharply. Nixie had wounded him better than she knew. - -‘Er—then do you have adventures?’ he asked. - -‘Of course—wonderful.’ - -‘But not—er—the sort—er—I could join in?’ - -‘Of course; very wonderfulindeedaventures. That’s what Daddy used to -call them—before he went away.’ - -It was Dick himself speaking. Paul imagined he could hear the very -voice. Another, and deeper, emotion surged through him, making all the -heartstrings quiver. - -He turned and looked about him, still holding the child tightly by the -hand.... - -Behind him he heard the air moving in the larches, combing out their -long green hair; the pampas grass rustled faintly on the lawn just -beyond; and from the wood, now darkening, came the murmur of the brook. -On his right, the old house looked shadowy and unreal. There stood the -chimneys, like draped figures watching him, with the first stars peeping -over their hunched shoulders. Dew glistened on the slates of the roof; -beyond them he saw the clean outline of the hill, darkly sweeping up -into the pallor of the sunset. There, too, past the wall of the house, -he saw the great distances of heathland moving down through crowds of -shadows to the sea. And the moon was higher. - -‘There’s seats in the Blue Summer-house,’ the voice beside him said, -with insinuation as well as command. - -He found it impossible to resist; indeed, the very desire to resist had -been spirited away. Slowly they made their way across the silvery -patchwork of the lawn to the door of the Blue Summer-house. This was a -tumble-down structure with a thatched roof; it had once been blue, but -was now no colour at all. Low seats ran round the inside walls, and as -Paul stood at the dark entrance he perceived that these seats were -already occupied; and he hesitated. But Nixie pulled him gently in. - -‘This is a regular Meeting,’ she said, as naturally as though she had -been wholly innocent of a part in the plot. ‘They’ve only been waiting -for us. Please come in.’ She even pushed him. - -‘It may be regular, but it is most unexpected,’ he said, breathless -rather, and curiously shy as he crossed the threshold and peered round -at the silent faces about him. Eyes, he saw, were big and round and -serious, shining with excitement. Clearly it was a very important -occasion. He wondered what an ‘irregular’ meeting would be like. - -‘We waited till mother was away,’ explained a candid voice, speaking -with solemnity from the recesses. - -‘And till Madmerzelle had to go to the dentist and stay to tea,’ added -another. - -‘So that it would be easier for _you_ to come,’ concluded Nixie, lest he -should think all these excuses were only on their own account. - -She led him across the cobbled floor to a wooden arm-chair with crooked -and shattered legs, and persuaded him to sit down. He did so. - -‘There was some sense in that, at any rate,’ he remarked irrelevantly, -not quite sure whether he referred to the children, or Mademoiselle, or -the chair, and landing at the same instant with a crash upon the rickety -support which was much lower than he thought it was. The joints and -angles of the wood entered his ribs. He lost all memory of how to be -sedate after that. He began to enjoy himself absurdly. - -Silvery laughter was heard, followed immediately by the sound of rushing -little feet as a dozen small shadows shot out into the moonlight and -tore across the lawn at top speed. China and Japan he recognised, and a -cohort of furry creatures in their rear. - -‘Now you’ve frightened them _all_ away,’ exclaimed the voice that had -spoken first. - -‘Doesn’t matter,’ replied the other, who evidently spoke with authority; -‘Uncle Paul was in before they left. They saw the introduction. That’s -enough. So now,’ it added with decision, ‘if you’re quite ready we’d -better begin.’ - -Paul grasped by this time that he was the central figure in some secret -ceremony of the children, that it was of vital importance to them, as -well as a profound compliment to himself. The animals formed part of it -so long as they could be persuaded to stay. Their own rituals, however, -were so vastly more wonderful and dignified—especially the Ritual of the -Cats—that they were somewhat contemptuous, and had escaped at the -earliest opportunity. It was, of course, his formal initiation into -their world of make-believe and imagination. He stood before them on the -floor of this tumbled-down Blue Summer-house in the capacity of the -Candidate. Strange chills began to chase one another down his long -spine. A shy happiness swept through him and made him shiver. ‘Can they -possibly guess,’ he wondered, ‘how far more important this is to me than -to them?’ - -‘Are you ready then?’ Nixie asked again. - -‘Quite ready,’ he replied in a deep and tremulous voice. - -‘Go ahead then,’ said the voice of decision. - -A little bell rang, manipulated by some invisible hand in the darkness, -and Nixie darted forward and drew a curtain that bore a close -resemblance to a carriage rug across the doorway, so that only the -faintest gleam of moonlight filtered through the cracks on either side. -Then the owner of the voice of authority left his throne on the back -wall and stepped solemnly forward in the direction of the candidate. -Paul recognised Jonah with some difficulty. He tripped twice on the way. - -The stumbling was comprehensible. On his head he wore a sort of mitre -that on ordinary occasions was evidently used to keep the tea hot on the -schoolroom table; for it was beyond question a tea-cosy. A garment of -variegated colours wrapped his figure down to the heels and trailed away -some distance behind him. It was either a table-cloth or a housemaid’s -Sunday dress, and it invested him with a peculiar air of quaint majesty. -He might have been King of the Gnomes. On his hands were large leathern -gauntlets—very large indeed; and with loose fingers whose movements were -clearly difficult to control, he grasped a stick that once may have been -a hunting crop, but now was certainly a wand of office. - -In front of Paul he came to a full stop, gathering his robes about him. - -He made a little bow, during which the mitre shifted dangerously to one -side, and then tapped the candidate lightly with the wand on the head, -shoulders, and breast. - -‘Please answer now,’ he said in a low tone, and then went backwards to -his seat against the wall. His robe of office so impeded him that he was -obliged to use the wand as a common walking-stick. Once or twice, too, -he hopped. - -‘But you’ve forgotten to ask it,’ whispered Nixie from the door where -she was holding up the curtains with both hands. ‘He’s got nothing to -answer.’ - -Quickly correcting his mistake, Jonah then stood up on his seat and -said, rather shyly, the following lines, evidently learned by heart with -a good deal of trouble:— - - You’ve applied to our Secret Society, - Which is full of unusual variety, - And, in spite of your past, - We admit you at last, - But—we hope you’ll behave with propriety. - -‘Now, stand up and answer, please,’ whispered Nixie. ‘Daddy made all -this up, you know. It’s your turn to answer now.’ - -Paul rose with difficulty. At first it seemed as if the chair meant to -rise with him, so tightly did it fit; but in the end he stood erect -without it, and bowing to the President, he said in solemn tones—and the -words came genuinely from his heart: - -‘I appreciate the honour done to me. I am very grateful indeed.’ - -‘That’s very good, I think,’ Nixie whispered under her breath to him. - -Then Toby advanced, climbing down laboriously from her perch on the -broken bench, and stalked up to the spot just vacated by her brother. -She, too, was suitably dressed for the occasion, but owing to her -diminutive size, and the fact that she did not reach up to the patch of -moonlight, it was not possible to distinguish more than the white cap -pinned on to her hair. It looked like a housekeeper’s cap. She, too, -carried a wand of office. Was it a hunting crop or poker, Paul wondered? - -Toby, then, with much more effort than Jonah, repeated the formula of -admission. She got the lines a little mixed, however:— - - You’ve applied to our Secret Society, - Which is full of unusual propriety, - And, in spite of your past, - We admit you at last, - But we hope you’ll _behave with variety_. - -‘I will endeavour to do so,’ said Paul, replying with a low bow. - -When he rose again to an upright position, Nixie was standing close in -front of him. One arm still held up the curtains, but the other pointed -directly into his face. - -‘Your ’ficial position in the Society,’ she said in her thin, musical -little voice, also repeating words learned by heart, ‘will be that of -Recording Secretary, and your principal duties to keep a record of all -the Aventures and to read them aloud at Regular Meetings. Any Meeting -anywhere is a Regular Meeting. You must further promise on your living -oath not to reveal the existence of the Society, or any detail of its -proceedings, to any person not approved of by the Society as a whole.’ - -She paused for his reply. - -‘I promise,’ he said. - -‘He promises,’ repeated three voices together. - -There was a general clatter and movement in the summer-house. He was -forced down again into the rickety chair and the three little officials -were clambering upon his knees before he knew where he was. All talked -breathlessly at once. - -‘Now you’re in properly—at last!’ - -‘You needn’t pretend any more——’ - -‘But we knew all along you were really trying hard to get in?’ - -‘I really believe I was,’ said he, getting in a chance remark. - -They covered him with kisses. - -‘We never thought you were as important as you pretended,’ Jonah said; -‘and your being so big made no difference.’ - -‘Or your beard, Uncle Paul,’ added Toby. - -‘And we never think people old till they’re married,’ Jonah explained, -putting the mitre on his uncle’s head. - -‘So now we can have our aventures all together,’ exclaimed Nixie, -kissing him swiftly, and leaping off his knee. The other two followed -her example, and suddenly—he never quite understood how it happened so -quickly—the summer-house was empty, and he was alone with the moonlight. -A flash of white petticoats and slender black legs on the lawn, and lo, -they were gone! - -On the gravel path outside sounded a quick step. Paul started with -surprise. The very next minute Mlle. Fleury, in her town clothes and -hat, appeared round the corner. - -‘’Ow then!’ she exclaimed sharply, ‘the little ones zey are no more -’ere? Mr Rivairs...!’ She shook her finger at him. - -Paul tried to look dignified. For the moment, however, he quite forgot -the tea-cosy still balanced on his head. - -‘Mademoiselle Fleury,’ he said politely, ‘the children have gone to -bed.’ - -‘It is ’igh time that they are already in bed, only I hear their voices -now this minute,’ she went on excitedly. ‘They ’ide here, do they not?’ - -‘I assure you, Mademoiselle, they have gone to bed,’ Paul said. The -woman stared at him with amazement in her eyes. He wondered why. Then, -with a crash, something fell from the skies, hitting his nose on the way -down, and bounding on to the ground. - -‘Oh, the mitre!’ he cried with a laugh, ‘I clean forgot it was there.’ -He kicked it aside and stared with confusion at his companion. She -looked very neat and trim in her smart town frock. He understood now why -she stared so, and his cheeks flamed crimson, though it was too dark for -them to be seen. - -‘Meester Reevairs,’ she said at length, the desire to laugh and the -desire to scold having fought themselves to a standstill, so that her -face betrayed no expression at all, ‘you lead zem astray, I think.’ - -‘On the contrary, it is they who lead me,’ he said self-consciously. ‘In -fact, they have just deprived me of my very best armour——’ - -‘Armour!’ she interrupted, ‘_Armoire_! Ah! They ’ide upstairs in the -cupboard,’—and she turned to run. - -‘Do not be harsh with them,’ he cried after her, ‘it is all my fault -really. I am to blame, not they.’ - -‘’Arsh! Oh no!’ she called back to him. ‘Only, you know, if your seester -find them at this hour not in bed——’ - -Paul lost the end of the sentence as she turned the corner of the house. -He gathered up the remnants of the ceremony and followed slowly in her -footsteps. - -‘Now, really,’ he thought, ‘what a simple and charming woman! How her -eyes twinkled! And how awfully nice her voice was!’ He flung down the -rugs and wands and tea-cosy in the hall. ‘Out there,’ with a jerk in the -direction of the Atlantic Ocean, ‘the whole camp would make her a -Queen.’ - -Altogether the excitement of the last hour had been considerable. He -felt that something must happen to him unless he could calm down a bit. - -‘I know,’ he exclaimed aloud, ‘I’ll go and have a hot bath. There’s just -time before dinner. That’ll take it out of me.’ And he went up the front -stairs, singing like a boy. - - - - - CHAPTER X - - Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth.—BLAKE. - - -For some days after that Paul walked on air. Incredible as it may seem -to normally constituted persons, he was so delighted to have found a -medium in which he could in some measure express himself without fear of -ridicule, that the entire world was made anew for him. He thought about -it a great deal. He even argued in his muddled fashion, but he got no -farther that way. The only thing he really understood was the plain fact -that he had found a region where his companions were about his own age, -with his own tastes, ready to consider things that were _real_, and to -let the trivial and vulgar world go by. - -This was the fact that stared him in the face and made him happy. For -the first time in his life he could play with others. Hitherto he had -played alone. - -‘It’s a safety-valve at last,’ he exclaimed, using his favourite word. -‘Now I can let myself go a bit. _They_ will never laugh; on the -contrary, they’ll understand and love it. Hooray!’ - -‘And, remember,’ Nixie had again explained to him, ‘you have to write -down all the aventures. That’s what keeping the records means. And you -must read them out to us at the Meetings.’ - -And he chuckled as he thought about it, for it meant having real Reports -to write at last, reports that others would read and appreciate. - -The aventures, moreover, began very quickly; they came thick and fast; -and he lived in them so intensely that he carried them over into his -other dull world, and sometimes hardly knew which world he was in at -all. His imagination, hungry and untamed, had escaped, and was seeking -all it could devour. - -It was a hot afternoon in mid-June, and Paul was lying with his pipe -upon the lawn. His sister was out driving. He was alone with the -children and the smaller portion of the menagerie,—smaller in size, that -is, not in numbers; cats, kittens, and puppies were either asleep, or on -the hunt, all about them. And from an open window a parrot was talking -ridiculously in mixed French and English. - -The giant cedars spread their branches; in the limes the bees hummed -drowsily; the world lay a scented garden around him, and a very soft -wind stole to and fro, stirring the bushes with sleepy murmurs and -making the flowers nod. - -China and Japan lay panting in the shade behind him, and not far off -reposed the big grey Persian, Mrs. Tompkyns. Regardless of the heat, -Pouf, Zezette, and Dumps flitted here and there as though the whole lawn -was specially made for their games; and Smoke, the black cat, dignified -and mysterious, lay with eyes half-closed just near enough for Paul to -stroke his sleek, hot sides when he felt so disposed. He—Smoke that -is—blinked indifferently at passing butterflies, or twitched his great -tail at the very tip when a bird settled in the branches overhead; but -for the most part he was intent upon other matters—matters of genuine -importance that concerned none but himself. - -A few yards off Jonah and Toby were doing something with daisies—what it -was Paul could not see; and on his other side Nixie lay flat upon the -grass and gazed into the sky. The governess was—where all governesses -should be out of lesson-time—elsewhere. - -‘Nixie, you’re sleeping. Wake up.’ - -She rolled over towards him. ‘No, Uncle Paul, I’m not. I was only -thinking.’ - -‘Thinking of what?’ - -‘Oh, clouds and things; chiefly clouds, I think.’ She pointed to the -white battlements of summer that were passing very slowly over the -heavens. ‘It’s so funny that you can see them move, yet can’t see the -thing that pushes them along.’ - -‘Wind, you mean?’ - -‘H’mmmmm.’ - -They lay flat on their backs and watched. Nixie made a screen of her -hair and peered through it. Paul did the same with his fingers. - -‘You can touch it, and smell it, and hear it,’ she went on, half to -herself, ‘but you can’t _see_ it.’ - -‘I suspect there are creatures that can see the wind, though,’ he -remarked sleepily. - -‘I ’spect so too,’ she said softly. ‘I think I could, if I really tried -hard enough. If I was very, oh very kind and gentle and polite to it, I -think——’ - -‘Come and tell me quietly,’ Paul said with excitement. ‘I believe you’re -right.’ - -He scented a delightful aventure. The child turned over on the grass -twice, roller fashion, and landed against him, lying on her face with -her chin in her hands and her heels clicking softly in the air. - -She began to explain what she meant. ‘You must listen properly because -it’s rather difficult to explain, you know’; he heard her breathing into -his ear, and then her voice grew softer and fainter as she went on. -Lower and lower it grew, murmuring like a distant mill-wheel, softer and -softer; wonderful sentences and words all running gently into each other -without pause, somewhere below ground. It began to sound far away, and -it melted into the humming of the bees in the lime trees.... Once or -twice it stopped altogether, Paul thought, so that he missed whole -sentences.... Gaps came, gaps filled with no definite words, but only -the inarticulate murmur of summer and summer life.... - -Then, without warning, he became conscious of a curious sinking -sensation, as though the solid lawn beneath him had begun to undulate. -The turf grew soft like air, and swam up over him in green waves till -his head was covered. His ears became muffled; Nixie’s voice no longer -reached him as something outside himself; it was within—curiously -running, so to speak, with his blood. He sank deeper and deeper into a -delicious, soothing medium that both covered and penetrated him. - -The child had him by the hand, that was all he knew, then—a long sliding -motion, and forgetfulness. - -‘I’m off,’ he remembered thinking, ‘off at last into a real aventure!’ - -Down they sank, down, down; through soft darkness, and long, shadowy -places, passing through endless scented caverns, and along dim avenues -that stretched, for ever and ever it seemed, beneath the gloom of mighty -trees. The air was cool and perfumed with earth. They were in some -underworld, strangely muted, soundless, mysterious. It grew very dark. - -‘Where are we, Nixie?’ He did not feel alarm; but a sense of wonder, -touched delightfully by awe, had begun to send thrills along his nerves. - -Her reply in his ear was like a voice in a tiny trumpet, far away, very -soft. ‘Come along! Follow me!’ - -‘I’m coming. But it’s so dark.’ - -‘Hush,’ she whispered. ‘We’re in a dream together. I’m not sure where -exactly. Keep close to me.’ - -‘I’m coming,’ he repeated, blundering over the roots beside her; ‘but -where are we? I can’t see a bit.’ - -‘Tread softly. We’re in a lost forest—just before the dawn,’ he heard -her voice answer faintly. - -‘A forest underground——? You mean a coal measure?’ he asked in -amazement. - -She made no answer. ‘I think we’re going to see the wind,’ she added -presently. - -Her words thrilled him inexplicably. It was as if—in that other world of -gross values—some one had said, ‘You’re going to make a million!’ It was -all hushed and soft and subdued. Everything had a coating of plush. - -‘We’ve gone backwards somewhere—a great many years. But it’s all right. -There’s no time in dreams.’ - -‘It’s dreadfully dark,’ he whispered, tripping again. - -The persuasion of her little hand led him along over roots and through -places of deep moss. Great spaces, he felt, were about him. Shadows -coated everything with silence. It was like the vast primeval forests of -his country across the seas. The map of the world had somehow shifted, -and here, in little England, he found the freedom of those splendid -scenes of desolation that he craved. Millions of huge trees reared up -about them through the gloom, and he felt their presence, though -invisible. - -‘The sun isn’t up yet,’ she added after a bit. He held her hand tightly, -as they stumbled slowly forward together side by side. He began to feel -extraordinarily alive. Exhilaration seized him. He could have shouted -with excitement. - -‘Hush!’ whispered his guide, ‘_do_ be careful. You’ll upset us both.’ -The trembling of his hand betrayed him. ‘You stumble like an om’ibus!’ - -‘I’m all right. Go ahead!’ he replied under his breath. ‘I can see -better now!’ - -‘Now look,’ she said, stopping in front of him and turning round. - -The darkness lifted somewhat as he bent down to follow the direction of -her gaze. On every side, dim and thronging, he saw the stems of immense -trees rising upwards into obscurity. There were hundreds upon hundreds -of them. His eyes followed their outline till the endless number -bewildered him. Overhead, the stars were shining faintly through the -tangled network of their branches. Odours of earth and moss and leaves, -cool and delicate, rose about them; vast depths of silence stretched -away in every direction. Great ferns stood motionless, with all the -magic of frosted window-panes, among their roots. All was still and dark -and silent. It was the heart of a great forest before the -dawn—prehistoric, unknown to man. - -‘Oh, I wonder—I wonder——’ began Paul, groping about him clumsily with -his hands to feel the way. - -‘Oh, please don’t talk so loud,’ Nixie whispered, pinching his arm; ‘we -shall wake up if you do. Only people in dreams come to places like -this.’ - -‘You know the place?’ he exclaimed with increasing excitement. ‘So do I -almost. I’m sure this has all happened before, only I can’t remember——’ - -‘We must keep as still as mice.’ - -‘We are—still as mice.’ - -‘This is where the winds sleep when they’re not blowing. It’s their -resting-place.’ - -He looked about him, drawing a deep breath. - -‘Look out; you’ll wake them if you breathe like _that_,’ whispered the -child. - -‘Are they asleep now?’ - -‘Of course. Can’t you see?’ - -‘Not much—yet!’ - -‘Move like a cat, and speak in whispers. We may see them when they -wake.’ - -‘How soon?’ - -‘Dawn. The wind always wakes with the sun. It’s getting closer now.’ - -It was very wonderful. No words can describe adequately the still -splendour of that vast forest as they stood there, waiting for the -sunrise. Nothing stirred. The trees were carved out of some marvellous -dream-stuff, motionless, yet conveying the impression of life. Paul knew -it and recognised it. All primeval woods possess that quality—trees that -know nothing of men and have never heard the ringing of the axe. The -silence was of death, yet a sense of life that is far beyond death -pulsed through it. Cisterns of quiet, gigantic, primitive life lay -somewhere hidden in these shadowed glades. It seemed the counterpart of -a man’s soul before rude passion and power have stirred it into -activity. Here all slept potentially, as in a human soul. The huge, -sombre pines rose from their beds of golden moss to shake their crests -faintly to the stars, awaiting the coming of the true passion—the great -Sun of life, that should call them to splendour, to reality, and to the -struggle of a bigger life than they yet knew, when they might even try -to shake free from their roots in the hard, confining earth, and fly to -the source of their existence—the sun. - -And the sun was coming now. The dawn was at hand. The trees moved gently -together, it seemed. The wood grew lighter. An almost imperceptible -shudder ran through it as through a vast spider’s web. - -‘Look!’ cried Nixie. His simple, intuitive little guide was nearer, -after all, to reality than he was, for all his subtle vision. ‘Look, -Uncle Paul!’ - -His attempt to analyse wonder had prevented his seeing it sooner, but as -she spoke he became aware that something very unusual was going forward -about them. His skin began to tickle, and a strange sense of excitement -took possession of him. - -A pale, semi-transparent substance he saw hung everywhere in the air -about them, clinging in spirals and circles to the trunks, and hanging -down from the branches in long slender ribbons that reached almost to -the ground. The colour was a delicate pearl-grey. It covered everything -as with the softest of filtered light, and hung motionless in the air in -painted streamers of thinnest possible vapour. - -The silken threads of these gossamer ribbons dropped from the sky in -millions upon millions. They wrapped themselves round the very -star-beams, and lay in sheets upon the ground; they curled themselves -round the stones and crept in among the tiniest crevices of moss and -bark; they clothed the ferns with their fairy gauze. Paul could even -feel them coiling about his hair and beard and eyelashes. They pervaded -the entire scene as light does. The colour was uniform; whether in -sheets or ribbons, it did not vary in shade or in degree of -transparency. The entire atmosphere was pervaded by it, frozen into -absolute stillness. - -‘That’s the winds—all that stuff,’ Nixie whispered, her voice trembling -with excitement. ‘They’re asleep still. Aren’t they awful and -wonderful?’ - -As she spoke a faint vibration ran everywhere through the ribbons. -Involuntarily he tightened his grasp on the child’s hand. - -‘That’s their beginning to wake,’ she said, drawing closer to him, ‘like -people moving in sleep.’ - -The vibration ran through the air again. It quivered as reflections in -the surface of a pool quiver to a ghost of passing wind. They seated -themselves on a fallen trunk and waited. The trees waited too; as -gigantic notes in a set piece, Paul thought, that the coming sun would -presently play upon like a hand upon a vast instrument. Then something -moved a few feet away, and he jumped in spite of himself. - -‘Only Jonah,’ explained his guide. ‘He’s asleep like us. Don’t wake him; -he’s having a dream too.’ - -It was indeed Jonah, wandering vaguely this way and that, disappearing -and reappearing, wholly unaware, it seemed, of their presence. He looked -like a gnome. His feet made no sound as he moved about, and after a few -minutes he lost himself behind a big trunk and they saw him no more. But -almost at once behind him the round figures of China and Japan emerged -into view. They came, moving fast and busily, blundering against the -trees, tumbling down, and butting into everything that came in their -path as though they could not see properly. Paul watched them with -astonishment. - -‘They’re only half asleep, and that’s why they see so badly,’ Nixie told -him. ‘Aren’t they silly and happy?’ - -Before he could answer, something else moved into their limited field of -vision, and he was aware that a silent grey shadow was stalking solemnly -by. All dignity and self-confidence it was; stately, proud, sure of -itself, in a region where it was at home, conscious of its power to see -and move better than any one else. Two wide-open and brilliant eyes, -shining like dropped stars, were turned for a moment towards them where -they sat on the log and watched. Then, silent and beautiful, it passed -on into the darkness beyond, and vanished from their sight. - -‘Mrs. Tompkyns!’ whispered Nixie. ‘_She_ saw us all right!’ - -‘Splendid!’ he exclaimed under his breath, full of admiration. - -Nixie pinched his arm. A change had come about in the last few minutes, -and into this dense forest the light of approaching dawn began to steal -most wonderfully. A universal murmuring filled the air. - -‘The sun’s coming. They’re going to wake now!’ The child gave a little -shiver of delight. Paul sat up. A general, indefinable motion, he saw, -was beginning everywhere to run to and fro among the hanging streamers. -More light penetrated every minute, and the tree stems began to turn -from black to purple, and then from purple to faint grey. Vistas of -shadowy glades began to open up on all sides; every instant the trees -stood out more distinctly. The myriad threads and ribbons were astir. - -‘Look!’ cried the child aloud; ‘they’re uncurling as they wake.’ - -He looked. The sense of wonder and beauty moved profoundly in his heart. -Where, oh where, in all the dreams of his solitary years had he seen -anything to equal this unearthly vision of the awakening winds? - -The winds moved in their sleep, and awoke. - -In loops, folds, and spirals of indescribable grace they slowly began to -unwrap themselves from the tree stems with a million little delicate -undulations; like thin mist trembling, and then smoothing out the -ruffled surface of their thousand serpentine eddies, they slid swiftly -upwards from the moss and ferns, disentangled themselves without effort -from roots and stones and bark, and then, reinforced by countless -thousands from the lower branches, they rose up slowly in vast coloured -sheets towards the region of the tree-tops. - -And, as they rose, the silence of the forest passed into sound—trembling -and murmuring at first, and then rapidly increasing in volume as the -distant glades sent their voices to swell it, and the note of every -hollow and dell joined in with its contributory note. From all the -shadowy recesses of the wood they heard it come, louder and louder, -leaping to the centre like running great arpeggios, and finally merging -all lesser notes in the wave of a single dominant chord—the song of the -awakened winds to the dawn. - -‘They’re singing to the sun,’ Nixie whispered. Her voice caught in her -throat a little and she tightened her grasp on his big hand. - -‘They’re changing colour too,’ he answered breathlessly. They stood up -on their log to see. - -‘It’s the rate they go does that,’ she tried to explain. She stood on -tiptoe. - -He understood what she meant, for he now saw that as the wind rose in -ribbons, streams and spirals, the original pearl-grey changed -chromatically into every shade of colour under the sun. - -‘Same as metals getting hot,’ she said. ‘Their colour comes ’cording to -their speed.’ - -Many of the tints he found it impossible to name, for they were such as -he had never dreamed of. Crimsons, purples, soft yellows, exquisite -greens and pinks ran to and fro in a perfect deluge of colour, as though -a hundred sunsets had been let loose and were hunting wildly for the -West to set in. And there were shades of opal and mother-of-pearl so -delicate that he could only perceive them in his bewildered mind by -translating them into the world of sound, and imagining it was the -colour of their own singing. - -Far too rapidly for description they changed their protean dress, moving -faster and faster, glowing fiercely one minute and fading away the next, -passing swiftly into new and dazzling brilliancies as the distant winds -came to join them, and at length rushing upwards in one huge central -draught through the trees, shouting their song with a roar like the sea. - -Suddenly they swept up into the sky—sound, colour and all—and silence -once more descended upon the forest. The winds were off and about their -business of the day. The woods were empty. And the sun was at the very -edge of the world. - -‘Watch the tops of the trees now,’ cried Nixie, still trembling from the -strange wonder of the scene. ‘The Little Winds will wake the moment the -sun touches them—the little winds in the tops of the trees.’ - -As she spoke, the sun came up and his first rays touched the pointed -crests above them with gold; and Paul noticed that there were thousands -of tiny, slender ribbons streaming out like elastic threads from the -tips of all the pines, and that these had only just begun to move. As at -a word of command they trooped out to meet the sunshine, undulating like -wee coloured serpents, and uttering their weird and gentle music at the -same time. And Paul, as he listened, understood at last why the wind in -the tree-tops is always more delicately sweet than any other kind, and -why it touches so poignantly the heart of him who hears, and calls -wonder from her deepest lair. - -‘The young winds, you see,’ Nixie said, peering up beneath her joined -hands and finding it difficult to keep her balance as she did so. ‘They -sleep longer than the others. And they’re not loose either; they’re -fastened on, and can only go out and come back.’ - -And, as he watched, he saw these young winds fly out miles into the -brightening sky, making lines of flashing colour, and then tear back -with a whirring rush of music to curl up again round the twigs and pine -needles. - -‘Though sometimes they _do_ manage to get loose, and make funny storms -and hurricanes and things that no one expects at all in the sky.’ - -Paul was on the point of replying to this explanation when something -struck against his legs, and he only just saved himself from falling by -seizing Nixie and risking a flying leap with her from the log. - -‘It’s that wicked Japan again,’ she laughed, clambering back on to the -tree. - -The puppy was vigorously chasing its own tail, bumping as it did so into -everything within reach. Paul stooped to catch it. At the same instant -it rose up past his very nose, and floated off through the trees and was -lost to view in the sky. - -Nixie laughed merrily. ‘It woke in the middle of its silly little -dream,’ she said. ‘It was only half asleep really, and playing. It won’t -come back now.’ - -‘All puppies are absurd like that——’ - -But he did not finish his profound observation about puppies, for his -voice at that moment was drowned in a new and terrible noise that seemed -to come from the heart of the wood. It happened just as in a children’s -fairy tale. It bore no resemblance to the roar the winds made; there was -no music in it; it was crude in quality—angry; a sound from another -place. - -It came swiftly nearer and nearer, increasing in volume as it came. A -veil seemed to spread suddenly over the scene; the trees grew shadowy -and dim; the glades melted off into mistiness; and ever the mass of -sound came pouring up towards them. Paul realised that the frontiers of -consciousness were shifting again in a most extraordinary fashion, so -that the whole forest slipped off into the background and became a dim -map in his memory, faint and unreal—and, with it, went both Nixie and -himself. The ground rose and fell under their feet. Her hand melted into -something fluid and slippery as he tried to keep his hold upon it. The -child whispered words he could not catch. Then, like the puppy, they -both began to rise. - -The roar came out to meet them and enveloped them furiously in mid air. - -‘At any rate, we’ve seen the wind!’ he heard the child’s voice murmuring -in his beard. She rose away from him, being lighter, and vanished -through the tops of the trees. - -And then the roar drowned him and swept him away in a whirling tempest, -so that he lost all consciousness of self and forgot everything he had -ever known.... - - -The noise resolved itself gradually into the crunching sounds of the -carriage wheels and the clatter of horses’ hoofs coming up the gravel -drive. - -Paul looked about him with a sigh that was half a yawn. China and Japan -were still romping on the lawn, Mrs. Tompkyns and Smoke were curled up -in hot, soft circles precisely where they had been before, Toby and -Jonah were still busily engaged doing ‘something with daisies’ in the -full blaze of the sunshine, and Nixie lay beside him, all innocence and -peace, still gazing through the tangle of her yellow hair at the -slow-sailing clouds overhead. - -And the clouds, he noticed, had hardly altered a line of their shape and -position since he saw them last. - -He turned with a jump of excitement. - -‘Nixie,’ he exclaimed, ‘I’ve seen the wind!’ - -She rolled over lazily on her side and fixed her great blue eyes on his -own, between two strands of her hair. From the expression of her brown -face it was possible to surmise that she knew nothing—and everything. - -‘Have you?’ she said very quietly. ‘I thought you might.’ - -‘Yes, but did I dream it, or imagine it, or just think it and make it -up?’ He still felt a little bewildered; the memory of that strangely -beautiful picture-gallery still haunted him. Yonder, before the porch, -the steaming horses and the smart coachman on the box, and his sister -coming across the lawn from the carriage all belonged to another world, -while he himself and Nixie and the other children still stayed with him, -floating in a golden atmosphere where Wind was singing and alive. - -‘That doesn’t matter a bit,’ she replied, peering at him gravely before -she pulled her hair over both eyes. ‘The point is that it’s really true! -Now,’ she added, her face completely hidden by the yellow web, ‘all you -have to do is to write it for our next Meeting—write the record of your -Aventure——’ - -‘And read it out?’ he said, beginning to understand. - -The yellow head nodded. He felt utterly and delightfully bewitched. - -‘All right,’ he said; ‘I will.’ - -‘And make it a very-wonderfulindeed Aventure,’ she added, springing to -her feet. ‘Hush! Here’s mother!’ - -Paul rose dizzily to greet his sister, while the children ran off with -their animals to other things. - -‘You’ve had a pleasant afternoon, Paul, dear?’ she asked. - -‘Oh, very nice indeed——’ His thoughts were still entangled with the wind -and with the story he meant to write about it for the next Meeting. - -She opened her parasol and held it over her head. - -‘Now, come indoors,’ he went on, collecting himself with an effort, ‘or -into the shade. This heat is not good for you, Margaret.’ He looked at -her pale, delicate face. ‘You’re tired too.’ - -‘I enjoyed the drive,’ she replied, letting him take her arm and lead -her towards the house. ‘I met the Burdons in their motor. They’re coming -over to luncheon one day, they said. You’ll like _him_, I think.’ - -‘That’s very nice,’ he remarked again, ‘very nice. Margaret,’ he -exclaimed suddenly, ashamed of his utter want of interest in all she was -planning for him, ‘I think you ought to have a motor too. I’m going to -give you one.’ - -‘That is sweet of you, Paul,’ she smiled at him. ‘But really, you know, -one likes horses best. They’re much quieter. Motors do shake one so.’ - -‘I don’t think that matters; the point is that it’s really true,’ he -muttered to himself, thinking of Nixie’s judgment of his Aventure. - -His sister looked at him with her expression of faint amusement. - -‘You mustn’t mind me,’ he laughed, planting her in a deck-chair by the -shade of the house; ‘but the truth is, my mind is full just now of some -work I’ve got to do—a report, in fact, I’ve got to write.’ - -He went off into the house, humming a song. She followed him with her -eyes. - -‘He is so strange. I do wish he would see more people and be a little -more normal.’ - -And in Paul’s mind, as he raced along the passage to his private study -in search of pen and paper, there ran a thought of very different kind -in the shape of a sentence from the favourite of all his books: - -‘Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth.’ - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - It is said that a poet has died young in the breast of the most - stolid. It may be contended, rather, that this (somewhat minor bard) - in almost every case survives, and is the spice of life to his - possessor.—R. L. S. - - -Now that his first Aventure was an accomplished fact, and that he was -writing it out for the Meeting, Paul carried about with him a kind of -secret joy. At last he had found an audience, and an audience is -unquestionably a very profound need of every human heart. Nixie was -helping him to expression. - -‘I’ll write them such an Aventure out of that Wind-Vision,’ he -exclaimed, ‘that they’ll fairly shiver with delight. And if _they_ -shiver, why shouldn’t all the children in the world shiver too?’ - -He no longer made the mistake of thinking it trivial; if he could find -an audience of children all about the world, children known or unknown, -to whom he could show his little gallery of pictures, what could be more -reasonable or delightful? What could be more useful and worth doing than -to show the adventuring mind some meaning in all the beauty that filled -his heart? And the Wind-Vision might be a small—a very small, beginning. -It might be the first of a series of modern fairy tales. The idea -thrilled him with pleasure. ‘A safety-valve at last!’ he cried. ‘An -audience that won’t laugh!’ - -For, in reality, there was also a queer motherly quality in him which he -had always tried more or less successfully to hide, and of which, -perhaps, he was secretly half ashamed—a feeling that made him long to -give of his strength and sympathy to all that was helpless, weary, -immature. - -He went about the house like a new man, for in proportion as he allowed -his imagination to use its wings, life became extraordinarily alive. He -sang, and the world sang with him. Everything turned up little smiling -faces to him, whispering fairy contributions to his tale. - -‘The more I give out, the more I get in,’ he laughed. ‘I declare it’s -quite wonderful,’ as though he had really discovered a new truth all for -himself. New forces began to course through his veins like fire. As in a -great cistern tapped for the first time, this new outlet produced other -little cross-currents everywhere throughout his being. Paul began to -find a new confidence. Another stone had shifted in the fabric of his -soul. He moved one stage nearer to the final pattern that it had been -intended from the beginning of time he should assume. - -A world within a world began to grow up in the old grey house under the -hill, one consisting of Nixie and her troupe, with Paul trailing heavily -in the rear, very eager; and the other, of the grown-up members of the -household, with Mlle. Fleury belonging to neither, yet in a sense -belonging to both. The cats and animals again were in the former—an -inner division of it, so that it was like a series of Chinese boxes, -each fitting within the next in size. - -And this admission of Paul into the innermost circle produced a change -in the household, as well as in himself. After all, the children had not -betrayed him; they had only divined his secret and put him right with -himself. But this was everything; and who is there with a vestige of -youth in his spirit that will not understand the cause of his mysterious -exhilaration? - -Outwardly, of course, no definite change was visible in the doings of -the little household. The children said little; they made no direct -reference to his conversion; but the change, though not easily -described, was felt by all. Paul recognised it in every fibre of his -being. Every one, he noticed, understood by some strange freemasonry -that he had been initiated, for every one, he fancied, treated him a -little differently. It was natural that the children should give signs -of increased admiration and affection for their huge new member, but -there was no obvious reason why his sister, and the servants, and the -very animals into the bargain, should regard him with a strain of -something that hesitated between tolerance and tenderness. - -If truth were told, they probably did nothing of the sort; it was his -own point of view that had changed. His imagination was responsible for -the rest; yet he felt as though he had been caught into the heart of a -great conspiracy, and the silent, unobtrusive way every one played his, -her, or its part contrived to make him think it was all very real -indeed. - -The cats, furry and tender magicians that they are, perhaps interpreted -the change more skilfully and easily than any one else. Without the -least fuss or ceremony they made him instantly free of their world, and -the way their protection and encouragement were extended to him in a -hundred gentle ways gave him an extraordinarily vivid impression that -they, too, had their plans and conferences just as much as the children -had. They made everything seem alive and intelligent, from the bushes -where they hunted to the furniture where they slept. They brought the -whole world, animate and inanimate, into his scheme of existence. -Everything had life, though not the same degree of life. It was all very -subtle and wonderful. He, and the children, and the cats, all had -imagination according to their kind and degree, and all equally used it -to make the world haunted and splendid. - -Formerly, for instance, he had often surprised Mrs. Tompkyns going about -in the passages on secret business of her own, perhaps not altogether -good, yet looking up with an _assumption_ of innocence that made it -quite impossible to chide or interfere. (It was, of course, only an -assumption of innocence. A cat’s eyes are too intent and purposeful for -genuine innocence; they are a mask, a concealment of a thousand plans.) -But now, when he met her, she at once stopped and sent her tail aloft by -way of signal, and came to rub against his legs. Her eyes smiled—that -pregnant, significant smile of the feline, shown by mere blinking of the -lids—and she walked slowly by his side with arched back, as an -invitation that he might—nay, that he should—accompany her. - -On her great, dark journeys he might not of course yet go, but on the -smaller, less important expeditions he was welcome, and she showed it -plainly every time they met. He was led politely to numerous cupboards, -corners, attics, and cellars, whose existence he had not hitherto -suspected. There were wonderful and terrible places among the -book-shelves and under massive pieces of furniture which she showed to -him when no one was about; and she further taught him how to sit and -stare for long periods until out of vacancy there issued a series of -fascinating figures and scenes of strange loveliness. And he, laughing, -obeyed. - -All this, and much else besides, they taught him cleverly. - -Some of them, too, came to visit him in his own quarters. They came into -his study, and into his bedroom, and one of them—that black, -thick-haired fellow called Smoke—the one with the ghostly eyes and very -furry trousers—even took to tapping at his door late at night (by -standing on tiptoe he could just reach the knob), and thus established -the right to sleep on the sofa or even to curl up on the foot of the -bed. - -And all that the kittens, the puppies, and the out-of-door animals did -to teach him as an equal is better left untold, since this is a story -and not a work on natural history. - -Mlle. Fleury, the little French governess, alone seemed curiously out of -the picture. She made difficulties here and there, though not -insuperable ones. The fact was, he saw, that she was not properly in -either of the two worlds. She wanted to be in both at once, but, from -the very nature of her position, succeeded in getting into neither; and -to fall between two worlds is far more perplexing than to fall between -two stools. Paul made allowances for her just as he might have made -allowances for an over-trained animal that had learned too many -human-taught tricks to make its presence quite acceptable to its own -four-footed circle. The charming little person—he, at least, always -thought her voice and her manners and her grace charming after a life -where these were unknown—had to justify herself to the grown-up world -where his sister belonged, as well as to the world of the children whom -she taught. And, consequently, she was often compelled to scold when, -perhaps, her soul cried out that she should bless. - -His heart always hammered, if ever so slightly, when he made his way, as -he now did more and more frequently, to the schoolroom or the nursery. -Schoolroom-tea became a pleasure of almost irresistible attractions, and -when it was over and the governess was legitimately out of the way, -Nixie sometimes had a trick of announcing a Regular Meeting to which -Paul was called upon to read out his latest ‘Aventure.’ - -‘Hulloa! Having tea, are you?’ he exclaimed, looking in at the door one -afternoon shortly after the wind episode. This feigned surprise, which -deceived nobody, he felt was admirable. It was exactly the way Mrs. -Tompkyns did it. - -‘Come in, Uncle Paul. _Do_ stay. You _must_ stay,’ came the chorus, -while Mlle. Fleury half smiled, half frowned at him across the table. -‘Here’s just the stodgy kind of cake you like, with jam _and_ honey!’ - -‘Well,’ he said hesitatingly, as though he scorned such things, while -Mademoiselle poured out a cup, and the children piled up a plate for -him. - -He stayed, as it were, by chance, and a minute later was as earnestly -engaged with the cake and tea as if he had come with that special -purpose. - -‘It’s all very well done,’ was his secret thought. ‘It’s exactly the way -Mrs. Tompkyns manages all her most important affairs.’ - -‘Nous avons réunion après,’ Jonah informed the governess presently with -a very grave face. The young woman glanced interrogatively at Paul. - -‘Oui, oui,’ he said in his Canadian French, ‘c’est vrai. Réunion -régulaire.’ - -‘Mais qu’elle idée, donc!’ - -‘Il est le président,’ said Toby indignantly, pointing with a jam -sandwich. - -‘Voilá vous êtes!’ he exclaimed. ‘There you are! Je suis le président!’ -and he helped himself to more cake as though by accident. - -For five seconds Mlle. Fleury kept her face. Then, in spite of herself, -her lips parted and a row of white teeth appeared. - -‘Meester Reevairs, you spoil them,’ she said, ‘and I approve it not. -Mais, voyons donc! Quelles maniéres!’ she added as Sambo and Pouf passed -from Toby’s lap on to the table and began to sniff at the water -cress.... ‘Non, ça c’est _trop_ fort!’ She leaned across to smack them -back into propriety. - -‘Abominable,’ Paul cried, ‘abominable tout à fait.’ - -‘Alwaze when you come such things ’appen.’ - -‘Pas mon faute,’ he said, helping to catch Pouf. - -‘They are deeficult enough without that you make them more,’ she said. - -‘Uncle Paul doesn’t know his genders,’ cried Jonah; ‘hooray!’ - -‘Ma faute,’ he corrected himself, pronouncing it ‘fote.’ - -Then Toby, struggling with Smoke, whose nose she was trying to force -into a saucer of milk which he did not want, upset the saucer all over -her dress and the table, splashing one and all. Jonah sprang up and -knocked his chair over backwards in the excitement. Mrs. Tompkyns, -wakening from her sleep upon the piano stool, leaped on to the notes of -the open keyboard with a horrible crash. A pandemonium reigned, all -talking, laughing, shouting at once, and the governess scolding. Then -Paul trod on a kitten’s tail under the table and extraordinary shrieks -were heard, whereupon Jonah, stooping to discover their cause, bumped -his head and began to cry. Moving forward to comfort him, Paul’s sleeve -caught in the spout of the tea-pot and it fell with a clatter among the -cups and plates, sending the sugar-tongs spinning into the air, and -knocking the milk-jug sideways so that a white sea flooded the whole -tray and splashed up with white spots on to Paul’s cheeks. - -The cumulative effect of these disasters reached a culminating point, -and a sudden hush fell upon the room. The children looked a trifle -scared. Paul, with milk drops trickling down his nose, blushed and -looked solemn. Very guilty and awkward he felt. Mlle. Fleury in fluent, -rattling French explained her view of the situation, at first, however, -without effect. At such moments mere sound and fury are vain; subtle, -latent influences of the personality alone can calm a panic, and these -the little person did not, of course, possess. - -To Paul the whole picture appeared in very vivid detail. With the -simplicity of the child and the larger vision of the man he perceived -how closely tears and laughter moved before them; and it really pained -him to see her confused and rather helpless amid all the debris. She was -pretty, slim, and graceful; futile anger did not sit well upon her. - -There she stood, little more than a girl herself, staring at him for a -moment speechless, the dainty ruffles of her neat grey dress sticking up -about her pretty throat, he thought, like the bristles of an enraged -kitten. The hair, too, by her ears and neck suddenly seemed to project -untidily and increased the effect. The sunlight from the window behind -her spread through it, making it cloud-like. - -‘C’est tout mon—ma faute,’ he said, stretching out both hands -impulsively, ‘tout!’ in his villainous Quebec French. ‘Scold _me_ first, -please.’ - -There was milk on his left eyebrow, and a crumb of cake in his beard as -well. The governess stared at him, her eyes still blazing ominously. Her -lips quivered. Then, fortunately, she laughed; no one really could have -done otherwise. And that laugh saved the situation. The children, who -had been standing motionless as statues awaiting their doom, sprang -again into life. In a trice the milk had been mopped up, the tongs -replaced, and the tea-pot put to bed under its ornamented cosy. - -‘I forgeeve—this time,’ she said. ‘But you are vairy troublesome.’ - -In future, none the less, she forgave always; her hostility, never quite -sure of itself, vanished from that moment. - -‘Blue Summer’ouse,’ whispered Jonah in his ear, ‘and bring your -Wind-Vision to read to us at the Meeting.’ - -‘But not too much Wind-Vision, please, Meester Reevairs,’ she said, -overhearing the whisper. ‘They think of nothing else.’ - -Paul stared at her. The thought in his mind was that she ought to come -too, only he knew the children would not approve. - -‘Then I must moderate their enthusiasm,’ he said gravely at last. - -Mlle. Fleury laughed in his face. ‘_You_ are worst of ze lot, I -know—worst of all. Your Aventures and plays trouble all their -lesson-time.’ - -‘It is my education,’ he said, as Jonah tugged at his coat from behind -to get him out of the room. ‘You educate _them_; they educate _me_; I -improve slowly. Voilá!’ - -‘But vairy slowly, n’est-ce pas? And you make up all such _expériences_ -like ze Wind-Vision to fill their minds.’ - -Nixie had told him that all their aventures filtered through to her, and -that she kept a special _cahier_ in her own room, where she wrote them -all out in her own language. ‘Another soul, perhaps, looking about for a -safety-valve,’ he thought swiftly. - -‘But, Mademoiselle, why not translate them into French? That’s a good -idea, and excellent practice for them.’ - -‘Per’aps,’ she laughed, ‘per’aps we do that. C’est une idée au moins.’ - -She wanted so much, it was clear, to come into their happy little world -of imagination and adventure. He realised suddenly how lonely her life -might be in such a household. - -‘You write them, and I will correct them for you,’ he said. - -‘Come on, _do_ come on, Uncle,’ cried the voices urgently from the door. -The children were already in the passage. The little governess looked -rather wistfully after them, and on a sudden impulse Paul did a thing he -had never before done in his life. He took her hand and kissed the tips -of her fingers, but so boyishly, and with such simple politeness and -sincerity that there was hardly more in the act than if Jonah had done -the same to Nixie in an aventure of another sort. - -‘Au revoir then,’ he said laughingly; ‘chacun a son devoir, don’t they? -And now I go to do mine.’ - -His sentence was somewhat mixed. He just had time to notice the pretty -blush of confusion that spread over her face, and to hear her laugh ‘You -are weecked children—vairy weecked—and you, Meester Reevairs, the -biggest of all,’ when Nixie and Jonah had him by the hand and they were -off out of the house to their Meeting in the Blue Summer-house. - -Thus Mlle. Fleury ceased to be a difficulty in the household so far as -his proceedings with the children were concerned. On the contrary, she -became a helpful force, and often acted as a sort of sentry, or outpost, -between one world and the other. Herself, she never came into their own -private region, but hovered only along the borders of it. For though -little over twenty years of age, she was French, and she understood -exactly how much interest she might allow herself to take in the Society -without endangering her own position,—or theirs—or his. She knew that -she could not enter their world freely and still maintain authority in -the other; but, meanwhile, she managed Paul precisely as though he were -one of her own charges, and saw to it that he did nothing which could -really be injurious to the responsibilities for which she was -answerable. - -Thus Paul, thundering along with his belated youth, enjoyed himself more -and more, while he enjoyed, also learned, marked, and read. - - - - - CHAPTER XII - - -It haunted him a good deal, this Vision of the Winds. Now he never heard -the stirring of the woods without thinking of those delicately brilliant -streamers flying across the sky. - -The satisfaction of spinning a fairy tale out of it for the children’s -Society was only equalled by the pleasure of the original inspiration. -Here, too, was a means of expressing himself he had never dreamed of; -the relief was great. Moreover, it brought him into close touch with the -inexhaustible reservoirs which children draw upon for their endless -world of Make-Believe, and he understood that the child and the poet -live in the same region. His feet were now set upon that secret path -trodden by the feet of children since the world began; and, for all his -burden of years, there was no telling where it might lead him. For the -springs of perennial youth have their sources in that region—the youth -of the spirit, with the constant flow of enthusiasm, the touch of -simple, ever-living beauty, and the whole magic of vision. No one with -imagination can ever become _blasé_, perhaps need ever grow old in the -true sense. - -By this means he might at last turn his accumulated stores to some -useful account. The great geysers of imagination that dry up too soon -with the majority might keep bubbling for ever; and provided the pipes -kept open for smaller visions, they might with time become channels for -inspiration of a still higher order. His audience might grow too. - -‘I’m getting on,’ he observed to Nixie a few days later; ‘getting on -pretty well for an old man!’ - -‘I knew you would,’ she replied approvingly. ‘Only you wasted a lot of -time over it. When you came you were so old that Toby thought you were -going to die, you know.’ - -‘So bad as all that, was it?’ - -‘H’mmmmm,’ she nodded, her blue eyes faintly troubled; ‘quite!’ - -Paul took her on his knee and stared at her. The world of elemental -wonder came quite close. There was something of magic about the -atmosphere of this child’s presence that made it possible to believe -anything and everything. She embodied exquisitely so many of his -dreams—those dreams of God and Nature he had lived with all those lonely -years in Canadian solitudes. - -‘You know, _I_ think,’ he said slowly as he watched with delight the -look of tender affection upon her face, ‘that, without knowing it, -you’re something of a little magician, Nixie. What do _you_ think?’ - -But she only laughed and wriggled on his knee. - -‘Am I really?’ she said presently. ‘Then what are you, I wonder?’ - -‘I used to be a Wood Cruiser,’ he replied gravely; ‘but what I am now -it’s rather difficult to say. You ought to know,’ he added, ‘as you’re -the magician who’s changing me.’ - -‘I’ve not changed you,’ she laughed. ‘I only found you out. The day you -came I saw you were simply full of our things—and that you’d be a sort -of Daddy to us. And we shall want a lot more Aventures, please, as soon -as ever you can write them out——’ - -She was off his knee and half-way to the house the same second, for the -voice of Mlle. Fleury was heard in the land. He watched her flitting -through the patches of sunshine across the lawn, and caught the -mischievous glance she turned to throw at him as she disappeared through -the open French window—a vision of white dress, black legs, and flying -hair. And only when she was gone did his heavier machinery get to work -with the crop of questions he always thought of too late. - -‘A beginning, at any rate!’ he said to himself, thinking of all the -things he was going to write for them. ‘Only I wish we were all in camp -out there among the cedars and hemlocks on Beaver Creek, instead of -boxed up in this toy garden where there are no wild animals, and you -mayn’t cut down trees for a big fire, and there are silly little Notice -Boards all over the place about trespassers being prosecuted....’ - -The thought touched something in the centre of his being. He travelled; -laughing and sighing as he went. ‘My wig!’ he thought aloud, ‘but it’s -really extraordinary how that child brings those big places over here -for me, and makes them seem alive with all kinds of things _I_ could -never have dreamed of—alone!’ - -‘Paul, dear, what _are_ you thinking about, here all by yourself—and -without a hat on too, as usual? If the gardeners hear you talking aloud -like this they will think—! Well, I hardly know quite what they _will_ -think!’ - -‘Something Blake said—to be honest,’ he laughed, turning to his sister -who had come silently down the path, dressed, as on the day he had first -seen her, in white serge with a big flower-hat. Languid she looked, but -delicate and wholly charming; she wore brown garden gauntlets over hands -and wrists, and a red parasol she held aloft, shed a becoming pink glow -upon her face. - -‘_Maurice_ Blake!’ she exclaimed. ‘Joan’s cousin with the big farm on -the Downs? But you don’t know him!’ - -‘Not that Blake,’ he laughed again; ‘and Joan, if you mean Joan -Nicholson, Dick’s niece who took up that rescue work, or something, in -London, I have never seen in my life.’ - -‘Then it’s a book you mean—one of those books you are always poring over -in the library,’ she murmured half reproachfully. - -‘One of Dick’s books, yes,’ he replied gently, linking his arm through -hers and leading the way in the direction of the cedars. ‘One of my -“treasures,”’ he added slyly, ‘that you once shamelessly imagined to be -in petticoats.’ - -She rather liked his teasing. The interests they shared were uncommonly -small, perhaps, and the coinage of available words still smaller. Yet -their differences never took on the slightest ‘edge.’ A genuine -affection smoothed all their little talks. - -‘You do read such funny old books, Paul,’ she observed, as though -somewhere in her heart lurked a vague desire to make him more modern. -‘Don’t you ever try books of the day—novels, for instance?’ She had one -under her arm at the moment. He took it to carry for her. - -‘I have tried,’ he admitted, a little ashamed of his backwardness, ‘but -I never can make out what they’re driving at—half the time. What they -described has never happened to me, or come into my world. I don’t -recognise it all as true, I mean—’ He stopped abruptly for fear he might -say something to wound her. - -‘One can always learn, though, and widen one’s world, can’t one? After -all, we _are_ all in the same world, aren’t we?’ - -He realised the impossibility of correcting her; the invitation to be -sententious could not catch him; his nature was too profound to contain -the prig. - -‘Are we?’ he said gently. - -‘Oh, I think so—more or less, Paul. There’s only one _nice_ world, at -least.’ She arranged her hat and parasol to keep the sun off, for she -was afraid of the sun, even the shy sun of England. - -He pulled out the deck-chair for her, and opened it. - -‘Here,’ she said pointing, ‘if you don’t mind, dear; or perhaps over -_there_ where it looks drier; or just _there_ under that tree, perhaps, -is better still. It’s more sheltered, and there’s less sun, isn’t -there?’ - -‘I think there is, yes,’ he replied, obeying her. The phrase ‘there’s -less sun’ seemed to him so neatly descriptive of the mental state of -persons without imagination. - -‘She’ll come here for her summer holidays soon,’ his sister resumed, -going back to Joan. ‘She works very hard at that “Home” place in town, -and Dick always liked her to use us here as if the place were her own. I -promised that.’ She dropped gracefully into the wicker chair, and Paul -sat down for a moment beside her on the grass. ‘He spent a lot of -capital, you know, in the thing and made her superintendent or -something. She has a sort of passion for this rescuing of slum children, -and, I believe, works herself to death over it, though she has means of -her own. So you will be nice to her when she comes, won’t you, and look -after her a bit? I do what I can, but I always feel I’m rather a -failure. I never know what to talk to her about. She’s so dreadfully in -earnest about everything.’ - -Paul promised. Joan sounded rather attractive, to tell the truth. He -remembered something, too, of the big organisation his old friend had -founded in London for the rescue and education of waif-boys. A thrill of -pride ran through him, and close at its heels a secret sense of shame, -that he himself did nothing in the great world of action—that his own -life was a mass of selfish dreaming and refined self-seeking, that all -his yearning for God and beauty was after all, perhaps, but a spiritual -egoism. It was not the first time this thought had come to trouble and -perplex. Of late—especially since he had begun to find these -safety-valves of self-expression, and so a measure of relief—his mind -had turned in the direction of some bigger field to work in outside -self, perhaps more than he quite knew or realised. - -‘Paul,’ his sister interrupted his reflections, after a prolonged -fidgeting to make herself comfortable so that the parasol should shade -her, the hat not tickle her, and the novel open easily for reading; ‘you -are happy here, aren’t you? You’re not too dull with us, I mean?’ - -‘It’s quite delightful, Margaret,’ he answered at once. ‘In one sense I -have never been so happy in my life.’ He looked straight at her, the sun -catching his brown beard and face. ‘And I love the children; they’re -just the kind of companions I need.’ - -‘I’m so glad, so glad,’ she said genuinely. ‘And it’s very kind and -good-natured of you to be with them such a lot. You really almost fill -Dick’s place for them.’ She sighed and half closed her eyes. ‘Some day -you may have children of your own; only you would spoil them quite -atrociously, I’m sure.’ - -‘Am I spoiling yours?’ he asked solemnly. - -‘Dreadfully,’ she laughed; ‘and turning little Mademoiselle’s head into -the bargain.’ - -It was his turn to burst out laughing. ‘I think that young lady can take -care of herself without difficulty,’ he exclaimed; ‘and as for my -spoiling the children, I think it’s they who are spoiling me!’ - -And, presently, with some easy excuse, he left her side and went off -into the woods. Margaret watched him charge across the lawn. A perplexed -expression came into her face as she picked up her novel and settled -down into the cushions, balancing the red parasol over her head at a -very careful angle. Admiration was in her glance, too, as she saw him -go. Evidently she was proud of her brother—proud that he was so -different from other people, yet puzzled to the verge of annoyance that -he should be so. - -‘What a strange creature he is,’ was her somewhat indefinite reflection; -‘I thought but one Dick could exist in the world! He’s still a boy—not a -day over twenty-five. I wonder if he’s ever been in love, or ever will -be? I think—I hope he won’t; he’s rather nice as he is after all.’ - -She sighed faintly. Then she dipped again into her novel, wherein the -emotions, from love downwards, were turned on thick and violent as from -so many taps in a factory; got bored with it; looked on to the last -chapter to see what happened to everybody; and, finally—fell asleep. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - - To me alone there came a thought of griefs - A timely utterance gave that thought relief, - And I again am strong: - - · · · · · - - I hear the echoes through the mountains throng, - The winds come to me from the fields of sleep, - And all the earth is gay.... - _Ode_, W. W. - - -For the rest of the day Paul was in peculiarly good spirits; he went -about the place full of bedevilment of all kinds, to the astonishment of -the household in general and of his sister in particular. The oppressive -heat seemed to have no effect upon him. There was something in the air -that excited him, and he was very busy getting rid of the excitement. - -With bedtime came no desire to sleep. ‘I feel all worked-up, Margaret,’ -he said as he lit her candle in the hall. ‘I think it must be an -“aventure” coming,’—though, of course, she had no idea what he meant. - -‘There’s thunder about,’ she replied. ‘It’s been so very close all day.’ - -‘Sleep well,’ Paul said when he left her at the top of the stairs; and -the last thing he heard as he went down the long winding passage to his -bedroom in the west wing was her voice faintly assuring him ‘One always -does here, I’m glad to say.’ - -Once inside, and the door shut, he gave himself up to his mood. It was a -mood apparently that came from nowhere. A soft and mysterious -excitement, all delicious, stirred in the depths of his being, rising -slowly to the surface. Perhaps it was growing-pains somewhere in the -structure of his personality, engineered subconsciously by his -imagination; perhaps only ‘weather.’ He always followed the barometer -like a strip of dried seaweed. - -But on this particular night something more than mere ‘weather’ was -abroad; his nerves sent a succession of swift faint warnings to his -brain. To begin with, the night herself claimed definite attention. Some -nights are just ordinary nights; others touch the soul and whisper ‘I am -the night. Look at me. Listen!’ - -He obeyed the summons and went to the window, leaning out as his habit -was. The darkness pressed up in a solid wall, charged to the brim with -mysteries waiting to reveal themselves. No trees were visible, no -outline of moor or hill or garden. The sky was pinned down to the -horizon more tightly than usual—keeping back all manner of things. Very -little air crept beneath the edges, so that the atmosphere was -oppressive. The day had been cloudless, but with the sunset whole -continents of vapour had climbed upon the hills of the evening wind, -driven slowly by high currents that had not yet come near enough the -earth to be heard and felt. - -He coughed—gently. The least noise, he felt, would shatter some soft and -delicate structure that rose everywhere through the darkness—some -web-like shadow-scaffolding that reared upwards, supporting the night. - -‘Something’s going to happen,’ he said low to himself. ‘I can feel it -coming.’ - -He became very imaginative, enjoying his mood enormously, letting it act -as a mental purge. Aventures that he would discover for the next Meeting -swept through him. The stress and fever of creative fancy, stirred by -the deep travailing of the elements behind that curtain of night, was -upon him. Then, sleep being far away, he went to the writing-table, -where Nixie’s deft hands had everything prepared, lit a second candle, -and began to write. - -‘I’ll write “How I climbed the Scaffolding of the Night,”’ he murmured; -‘for I feel it true within me. I feel as if I were part of the -night—part of all this beautiful soft darkness.’ - -But, before he had written a dozen lines, he stopped and fell to -listening again, staring past the steady candle-flames out into the -open. The stillness was profound. A single ivy-leaf rattled sharply all -by itself on the wall outside his window. He felt as if that leaf tapped -faintly upon his own brain. By a curious process known only to the -poetic temperament, he passed on to _feel with_ everything about him—as -though some portion of himself actually merged in with the silence, with -the perfumes of trees and garden, with the voice of that little tapping -leaf. And, in proportion as he realised this, he transferred the magic -of it to his tale. He found the words that fitted his conception like a -natural skin. He knew in some measure the satisfaction and relief of -expression. - -‘A year ago—a month ago,’ he thought with delight, ‘this would have been -impossible to me. Nixie has taught me so much already!’ - -What he really wanted, of course, were the living, flaming words of -poetry. But this he knew was denied him; perhaps the fire of inspiration -did not burn steadily enough; perhaps the intellectual foundation was -not there. At any rate, he could only do his best and struggle with the -prose, and this he did with intense pleasure. - -After a time he laid his pen down and fell to thinking again—the kind of -reverie that dramatises a mood before the inner vision. And another -inspiration came upon him with its sudden little glory; he realised -vividly that _within_ himself a region existed where all that he desired -might find fulfilment; where yearnings, dreams, desires might come true. -There existed this inner place within where he might visualise all he -most wished for into a state of reality. The workshop of the creative -imagination was its vestibule.... - -Whether or not he could put it into words for others to realise was -merely a question of craft.... - -He must have sat thinking in this way much longer than he knew, for the -candles had burnt down quite low when at length he bestirred himself -with a mighty yawn and rose to go to bed. But hardly had he begun to -unfasten his crumpled black tie when something made him pause. - -Far away, through the hush that covered the world, that ‘something’ was -astir—coming swiftly nearer. He stepped back into the middle of the room -and waited. Smoke, the sleeping black cat on the sofa, sat up and waited -too. Looking about it with brilliant green eyes, wide open, and whiskers -twitching backwards and forwards, it understood even better than he did -that a change in all that world of darkness had come to pass. The animal -stared alternately at the window and the door. - -For another minute the stillness held supreme. Then, from the silent -reaches beyond, this new sound came suddenly close, dropping down -through leagues of night. It began with a faint roar in the chimney; a -tree outside uttered a soft, rushing cry; a thousand leaves, instead of -one, rattled on the wall. - -A Messenger, running headlong through the darkness, was calling aloud a -warning as it ran, for all to understand who could. And, among the few -who were awake and understood, Paul and his four-footed companion were -certainly the first. - -A sudden movement of the vast fabric of darkness came next. That -scaffolding of shadows trembled, as though the same moment it would fall -and let in—Light. In front of the bow window the muslin curtain that so -long had hung motionless, now bellied out slowly into the room. The -movement, mysterious and suggestive, claimed attention significantly. -Paul and Smoke, watching it, exchanged glances. Then, with a long, -sighing sound, it floated back again to its original position. It hung -down straight and still as before. - -But in that moment something had entered the room. Borne by this -messenger of the coming storm, this stray Wind had left its warning—and -was gone! - -Smoke leapt softly down and padded over to sniff the curtain, and having -done so, blinked up at Paul with eloquent eyes, and sat back to wait -and—wash! No apparatus of speech ever said more plainly ‘Look out! -Something’s coming! Better be prepared as I am!’ - -And something did come—almost the same minute. The forces that had so -long been trying to upset the tent of darkness, did upset it, and from -one uplifted corner there rushed down upon the world a blue-white sheet -of light that was utterly gorgeous. For one instant trees, moor, hill -leaped into vivid outline. The hands that held the sheet of brilliance -shook it from the four corners, and all the sky shook with it; and, -immediately after, the scaffolding of night fell with a prodigious -crash, as the true storm, following upon its herald, descended with a -hundred thunders and the roar of ten hundred trumpets. - -The true wind rushed headlong into the room and extinguished both -candles. Smoke rubbed against Paul’s feet in the darkness, thoroughly -aroused; but Paul himself stood still, as the thrill and splendour of it -all entered his heart and filled him with delight. Thunder, lightning, -wind—all passed mysteriously into his blood till he was almost conscious -of a desire to add the sound of his own voice and shout aloud. The -excitement of the elemental forces swept into himself. He understood now -the signs of preparation that had been going forward in him during the -day. - -Splendid sensations, the most splendid he ever knew, raced to and fro in -his being, till it almost seemed as if his consciousness transferred -itself to the tempest. Surely, that great wind tore out of his heart, -that lightning sprang from his brain, that river of rain washed, not -merely out of the sky, but out of himself. The edges of his personality -became fluid and melted off into the very nature of the elements.... - -‘Now,’ he exclaimed aloud, pacing to and fro while Smoke followed him in -the darkness and tried to play with the bows on his pumps, ‘had I but -the means of expression, what a message I could give to the world, of -beauty, splendour, power!’ He laughed in his excitement. ‘If only the -strings of my poor instrument had been tuned——!’ - -Sighing a little to himself at the thought, he went to the window. The -first fury of the storm had passed; there was a sudden deep lull broken -only by the rushing drip of rain; he smelt the wet foliage and soaking -grass. Close to the window, it chanced, there was a dead tree, and in -its leafless branches, outlined sharply by the lightning against the -black sky, he traced what seemed the huge letters of some elemental -alphabet; and at that moment, the returning wind passed through them -like a hand on giant strings. It drew forth a wonderful sound in -response, a sound that pierced as a two-edged sword to the centre of his -being. It was a true singing wind—a Wind of Inspiration. - -And, as he heard it, the great wave that fought for utterance rose -within him and began to force and tear its way out in spite of -everything. Words came pouring through him—like the stammering of torn -strings upon a fiddle—clipped wings trying to fly—sparks streaming -towards flame yet never achieving it. Similes and metaphors rushed, -mixed and headlong, through his mind. In a moment he had dashed across -the floor; the candles were again alight; and Paul, pencil in hand, was -sitting at the table before a sheet of blank foolscap, the storm -crashing about him, and Smoke watching him calmly with eyes full of -expectant wonder. - -And then was enacted a little drama—tragedy if ever there was one—that -must often enough take place in the secret places of the world’s houses, -where the dumb poet seeks to transfer his genuine passion into the -measure of halting and inadequate verse. Poignantly dramatic the -spectacle must be, though never witnessed mercifully by an audience of -more than one. Paul wrote fast, setting the words down almost as they -came. It was that little passionate Wind of Inspiration that was the -cause of all the trouble. Smoke jumped up on the table to watch the -motion of the pencil across the paper. For some reason he hardly thought -it worth while to play with it: - - The Winds of Inspiration blow, - Yet pass me ever by; - And songs God taught me long ago, - Unuttered burn and—die. - -He read the verse over, and with an impatient motion altered ‘burn’ into -‘fade.’ Then he shook his head and continued: - - From all the far blue hills of heaven - The dews of beauty rain; - Yet unto me no drops are given - To quench the ancient pain. - -He scratched out ‘ancient’ and wrote over the top ‘undying.’ Then he -scratched out ‘undying’ and put ‘ancient’ back in its place. This time -Smoke stretched out a long black paw with a velvet end to it and gave -the pencil a deliberate dab. Paul either ignored, or did not notice it; -but Smoke left the paw thrust forward upon the paper so as to be ready -for the next dab. - - I know the passion of the night, - Full of all days unborn,— - Full of the yearning of the light - For one undying Morn. - -Smoke caught the tip of the pencil with a swift and accurate stroke, and -the ‘M’ of ‘Morn’ was provided with an irregular tail Paul had not -intended. Very quickly, however, without further interruption, he wrote -on to the end. - - Above the embers of my heart, - Waiting the Living Breath; - The sparks fly listlessly apart— - Then circle to their death. - - Dead sparks that gathered ne’er to flame, - Nor felt the kiss of fire! - Dead thoughts that never found the name - To spell their deep desire! - - Is then this instrument so poor - That it may never sound - Songs that must pass for evermore - Unuttered and uncrowned? - - O soul that fain would’st steal heaven’s fire, - Who clipped thy golden wings? - Who made so passionate a lyre, - Then never tuned the strings? - - The Winds of Inspiration blow, - Yet pass me ever by; - And songs God taught me long ago, - Lost in the silence—die. - - -He rose from the table with a gesture of abrupt impatience and read the -entire effusion through from beginning to end. First he laughed, then he -sighed. He wondered for a moment how it was that so little of his -passion had crept into the poor words. He crumpled up the paper and -tossed it into the drawer; and then, blowing out the candles, moved over -to the big arm-chair and dropped down into it. Again, as he sat there, -his thoughts fell to dramatising his mood. He imagined that region -within himself where all might come true, and all yearnings find -adequate expression. The idea got more and more mingled with the storm. -He pictured it to himself with extraordinarily vivid detail. - -‘There _is_ such a place, such a state,’ he murmured, ‘and it is, it -must be accessible.’ - -He heard the clock in the stables—or was it the church—strike the -quarter before midnight. - -As he sat in the big chair, Smoke left the table and curled up again on -the mat at his feet. - - - - - CHAPTER XIV - - Vision or imagination is a representation of what actually exists, - really and unchangeably. He who does not imagine in stronger and - better lineaments, and in stronger and better light, than his - _perishing_ mortal eye can see, does not imagine at all.—W. B. - - -It was Smoke who first drew his attention to something near the door by -‘padding’ slowly across the carpet and staring up at the handle. Paul’s -eyes, following him, perceived next that the brass knob was silently -turning. Then the door opened quickly and on the threshold stood—Nixie. -The open door made such a draught that the twenty winds tearing about -inside the room almost lifted the mat at his feet. Behind her he saw the -shadowy outline of a second figure, which he recognised as Jonah. - -‘Shut the door—quick!’ he said, but they had done so and were already -beside him almost before the words were out of his mouth. In spite of -the darkness a very faint radiance came with them so that he could -distinguish their faces plainly; and his amazement on seeing them at all -at this late hour was instantly doubled when he perceived further that -they were fully dressed for going out. At the same time, however, so -deep had he been in his reverie, and so strongly did the excitement of -it yet linger in his blood, that he hardly realised how wicked they were -to be parading the house at such a time of the night, and that his -obvious duty was to bundle them back to bed. In a strange, queer way -they almost seemed part of his dream, part of his dramatised mood, part -of the region of wonder into which his thoughts had been leading him. -Moreover, he felt in some dim fashion that they had come with a purpose -of great importance. - -‘It’s awfully late, you know,’ he exclaimed under his breath, peering -into their faces through the darkness. - -‘But not too late, if we start at once,’ Jonah whispered. For a moment -Paul had almost thought that they would melt away and disappear as soon -as he spoke to them, or that they would not answer at all. But now this -settled it; these were no figures in a dream. He felt their hands upon -his arms and neck; the very perfume of Nixie’s hair and breath was about -him. She was dressed, he noticed, in her red cloak with the hood over -her head, and her eyes were popping with excitement. The expression on -her face was earnest, almost grave. He saw the faint gleam of the gold -buckle where the shiny black belt enclosed her little waist. - -‘If we start _at once_, I said,’ repeated Jonah in a nervous whisper, -pulling at his hand. - -Paul started to his feet and began fumbling with his black tie, feeling -vaguely that either he ought to tie it properly or take it off -altogether, and that it was a sort of indecent tinsel to wear at such a -time. But he only succeeded in pricking his finger with the pin sticking -out of the collar. He felt more than a little bewildered, if the truth -were told. - -‘I’ll do that for you,’ Nixie said under her breath; and in a twinkling -her deft fingers had whipped the strip of satin from his neck. - -‘You don’t want a tie where we’re going,’ she laughed softly. - -‘Or a hat either,’ added Jonah. ‘But I wish you’d hurry, please.’ - -‘I’d better put on another coat or a dressing-gown, or something,’ he -stammered. - -‘Coat’s best,’ Jonah told him, and in a moment he had changed into a -tweed Norfolk jacket that lay upon the chair. - -They pulled him towards the door, Nixie holding one hand, Jonah the -other, and Smoke following so closely at his heels that he almost seemed -to be prodding him gently forward with his velvet padded boots. Paul -understood that tremendous forces, elemental in character like the wind -and rain and lightning, somehow added their immense suasion to the -little hands that pulled his own. He made no resistance, but just -allowed himself to go; and he went with a wild and boyish delight -tearing through his mind. - -‘Are we going out then?’ he asked, ‘out of doors?’ - -‘What’s the exact time, the _very_ exact time?’ Nixie asked hurriedly, -ignoring his question; and though Paul had looked a few minutes before -they came in, he had quite forgotten by now. She helped herself to his -watch, burrowing under his coat to find it, and peering closely to read -the position of the hands. - -‘Five minutes to twelve!’ she exclaimed, addressing Jonah in excited -whispers. ‘Oh, I say! We must be off at once, or we shall miss the crack -altogether. Come on, Uncle, or your life won’t be safe a minute.’ - -‘Then what will it be a month, I should like to know?’ he laughed as he -was swept along through the darkness, not knowing what to say or think. - -‘The crack! The crack! Quick, or we shall miss it!’ cried the children -in the same sentence, urging him heavily forward. - -‘What crack? Where are we going to? What does it all mean?’ he asked -breathlessly, trying to avoid treading on their toes and the toes of -Smoke who flew beside them with tail held swiftly aloft as though to -guide them. - -They brought him up with a sudden bump just outside the door, and Nixie -turned up a serious face to explain, while Jonah waited impatiently in -front of them. - -‘Quick!’ she whispered, ‘listen and I’ll tell you. We’re going to find -the crack between Yesterday and To-morrow, and then—slip through it.’ - -His heart leaped with excitement as he heard. - -‘Go on,’ he cried. ‘Tell me more!’ - -‘You see, Yesterday really begins just after Midnight when To-day ends’; -she said, ‘and To-morrow begins there too.’ - -‘Of course.’ - -‘After Midnight, To-morrow jumps away again a whole day, and is as far -off as ever. That’s the nearest you can get to To-morrow.’ - -‘I see.’ - -‘And Yesterday, which has been a whole day away, suddenly jumps up close -behind again. So that Yesterday and To-morrow,’ she went on, eager with -excitement, ‘meet at Midnight for a single second before flying off to -their new places. Daddy told us that long ago.’ - -‘Exactly. They must.’ - -‘But now the world is old and worn. There’s a tiny little crack between -Yesterday and To-morrow. They don’t join as they once did, and, if we’re -_very_ quick, we can find the crack and slip through——’ - -‘Bless my Timber Limits!’ he exclaimed; ‘what a glorious notion!’ - -‘And, once inside there, there’s no time, of course,’ she went on, more -and more hurriedly. ‘_Anything_ may happen, and _everything_ come true.’ - -‘The very region I was thinking about just now!’ thought Paul. ‘The very -place! I’ve found it!’ - -‘_Do_ hurry up, oh _do_!’ put in Jonah with a loud whisper that echoed -down the corridor, for his patience was at length exhausted by all this -explanation. ‘You _are_ so slow getting started.’ - -‘Ready!’ cried Paul and Nixie in the same breath. - -They were off! Down the dark and silent stairs on tiptoe, through the -empty halls, past the hat-racks and the stuffed deer heads that grinned -down upon them from the walls, along the stone passage to the kitchen -region, where the row of red fire-buckets gleamed upon the shelves, and -so, past the ghostly pantry, to the back door. This they found open, for -Jonah had already run ahead and unlocked it. Another minute and they had -crossed the yard by the stables, where the pump stood watching them like -a figure with an outstretched arm, and soon were well out on to the lawn -at the back of the house. The rain had ceased, but the wind caught them -here with such tremendous blows and shouting that they could hardly hear -themselves speak, and had to keep closely together in a bunch to make -their way at all. It was pitch dark and the stars were hidden. Paul -stumbled and floundered, treading incessantly on the toes of the more -nimble children. Smoke ran like a black shadow, now in front, now -behind. - -‘We’re nearly there,’ Nixie cried encouragingly, as he made a false step -and landed with a crash in the middle of some low laurel bushes. ‘But -_do_ be more careful, Uncle, please,’ she added, helping him out again. - -‘There’s the clock striking!’ Jonah called, a little in front of them. -‘We’re only just in time!’ - -Paul recovered himself and pulled up beside them under the shadows of -the big twin cedars that stood like immense sentries at the end of the -lawn. He came rolling in, swaying like a ship in a heavy sea. And, as he -did so, the sound of a church bell striking the hour came to their ears -through the terrific uproar of the elements, blown this way and that by -the wind. - -It was midnight striking. - -At the same instant he heard a peculiar sharp sound like whistling—the -noise wind makes tearing through a narrow opening. - -‘The crack, the crack!’ cried his guides together. ‘That’s the air -rushing. It’s coming. Look out!’ They seized him by the hands. - -‘But I shall never get through,’ shouted Paul, thinking of his size for -the first time. - -‘Yes you will,’ Nixie screamed back at him above the roar. ‘Between the -sixth and seventh strokes, remember.’ - -The fifth stroke had already sounded. The wind caught it and went -shrieking into the sky. - -Six! boomed the distant bell through the night. They held his hands in a -vice. - -There was a sound like an express train tearing through the air. A quick -flash of brilliance followed, and a long slit seemed to open suddenly in -the sky before them, and then flash past like lightning. Nixie tugged at -one hand, and Jonah tugged at the other. Smoke scampered madly past his -feet. - -A wild rush of wind swept him along, whistling in his ears; there was a -breathless and giddy sensation of dropping through empty space that -seemed as though it could never end—and then Paul suddenly found himself -sitting on a grassy bank beside a river, Nixie and Jonah on either side -of him, and Smoke washing his face in front of them as though nothing in -the whole world had ever happened to disturb his equanimity. And a -bright, soft light, like the light of the sun, shone warmly over -everything. - -‘Only just managed it,’ Nixie observed to Jonah. ‘He _is_ rather wide, -isn’t he?’ - -‘Everybody’s thin somewhere,’ was the reply. - -‘And the crack is very stretchy’—she added,—‘luckily.’ - -Paul drew a long breath and stretched himself. - -‘Well,’ he said, still a little breathless and dizzy, ‘such things were -never done in my day.’ - -‘But this isn’t your day any more,’ explained Nixie, her blue eyes -popping with laughter and mischief, ‘it’s your night. And, anyhow, as I -told you, there’s no time here at all. There’s no hurry now.’ - - - - - CHAPTER XV - - The imagination is not a state; it is the human existence itself.—W. - B. - - -Paul, looking round, felt utterly at peace with himself and the world; -at rest, he felt. That was his first sensation in the mass. He recovered -in a moment from his breathless entrance, and a subtle pleasure began to -steal through his veins. It seemed as if every yearning he had ever -known was being ministered to by competent unseen Presences; and, -obviously, the children and the cats—Mrs. Tompkyns had somehow managed -to join Smoke—felt likewise, for their countenances beamed and blinked -supreme contentment. - -‘Ah!’ observed Jonah, sitting contentedly on the grass beside him. ‘This -is the place.’ He heaved a happy little sigh, as though the statement -were incontrovertible. - -‘It is,’ echoed Paul. And Nixie’s eyes shone like blue flowers in a -field of spring. - -‘The crack’s smaller than it used to be though,’ he heard her murmuring -to herself. ‘Every year it’s harder to get through. I suppose -something’s happening to the world—or to people; some change going on——’ - -‘Or we’re getting older,’ Jonah put in with profounder wisdom than he -knew. - -Paul congratulated himself upon his successful entrance. He felt -something of a dog! The bank on which he lay sloped down towards a river -fledged with reeds and flowers; its waters, blue as the sky, flowed -rippling by, and a soft wind, warm and scented, sighed over it from the -heart of the summer. On the opposite shore, not fifty yards across, a -grove of larches swayed their slender branches lazily in the sun, and a -little farther down the banks he saw a line of willows drooping down to -moisten their tongue-like leaves. The air hummed pleasantly with -insects; birds flashed to and fro, singing as they flew; and, in the -distance, across miles of blue meadowlands, hills rose in shadowy -outline to the sky. He feasted on the beauty of it all, absorbing it -through every sense. - -‘But where are we?’ he asked at length, ‘because a moment ago we were in -a storm somewhere?’ He turned to Nixie who still lay talking to herself -contentedly at his side. ‘And what really happens here?’ he added with a -blush. ‘I feel so extraordinarily happy.’ - -They lay half-buried among the sweet-scented grasses. Jonah burrowed -along the shore at some game of his own close by, and the cats made a -busy pretence of hunting wild game in a dozen places at once, and then -suddenly basking in the sun and washing each other’s necks and backs as -though wild-game hunting were a bore. - -‘Nothing ’xactly—_happens_,’ she answered, and her voice sounded -curiously like wind in rushes—‘but everything—_is_.’ - -It seemed to him as though he listened to some spirit of the ages, very -wise with the wisdom of eternal youth, that spoke to him through the -pretty little mouth of this rosy-faced child. - -‘It’s like that river,’ she went on, pointing to the blue streak winding -far away in a ribbon through the landscape, ‘which flows on for ever in -a circle, and never comes to an end. Everything here goes on always, and -then always begins again.’ - -For the river, as Paul afterwards found out, ran on for miles and miles, -in the curves of an immense circle, of which the sea itself was -apparently nothing but a widening of certain portions. - -‘So here,’ continued the child, making a pattern with daisies on his -sleeve as she talked, ‘you can go over anything you like again and -again, and it need never come to an end at all. Only,’ she added, -looking up gravely into his face, ‘you must really, _really_ want it to -start with.’ - -‘Without getting tired?’ he asked, wonderingly. - -‘Of course; because _you_ begin over and over again with it.’ - -‘Delightful!’ he exclaimed, ‘that means a place of eternal youth, where -emotions continually renew themselves.’ - -‘It’s the place where you find lost things,’ she explained, with a -little puzzled laugh at his foolish long words, ‘and where things that -came to no proper sort of end—things that didn’t come true, I mean, in -the world, all happen and enjoy themselves——’ - -He sat up with a jerk, forgetting the carefully arranged daisies on his -coat, and scattering them all over the grass. - -‘But this is too splendid!’ he cried. ‘This is what I’ve always been -looking for. It’s what I was thinking about just now when I tried to -write a poem and couldn’t.’ - -‘_We_ found it long ago,’ said the child, pointing to Jonah and Mrs. -Tompkyns, Smoke having mysteriously disappeared for the moment. ‘We live -here really most of the time. Daddy brought us here first.’ - -‘Things life promised, but never gave, here come to full fruition,’ Paul -murmured to himself. ‘You mean,’ he added aloud, ‘this is where ideals -that have gone astray among the years may be found again, and actually -realised? A kingdom of heaven within the heart?’ He was very excited, -and forgot for the moment he was speaking to a child. - -‘I don’t know about all that,’ she answered, with a puzzled look. ‘But -it is life. We live-happily-ever-after here. That’s what I mean.’ - -‘It all comes true here?’ - -‘All, all, all. All broken things and all lost things come here and are -happy again,’ she went on eagerly; ‘and if you look hard enough you can -find ’xactly what you want and ’xactly what you lost. And once you’ve -found it, nothing can break it or lose it again.’ - -Paul stared, understanding that the voice speaking through her was -greater than she knew. - -‘And some things are lost, _we_ think,’ she added, ‘simply because they -were wanted—wanted very much indeed, but never got.’ - -‘Yet these are certainly the words of a child,’ he reflected, wonder and -delight equally mingled, ‘and of a child tumbling about among great -spiritual things in a simple, intuitive fashion without knowing it.’ - -‘All the things that ought to happen, but never do happen,’ she went on, -picking up the scattered daisies and making the pattern anew on a -different part of his coat. ‘They all are found here.’ - -‘Wishes, dreams, ideals?’ he asked, more to see what answer she would -make than because he didn’t understand. - -‘I suppose that’s the same thing,’ she replied. ‘But, now _please_, -Uncle Paul, keep still a minute or I can’t possibly finish this crown -the daisies want me to make for them.’ - -Paul stared into her eyes and saw through them to the blue of the sky -and the blue of the winding river beyond; through to the hills on the -horizon, a deeper blue still; and thence into the softer blue shadows -that lay over the timeless land buried in the distances of his own -heart, where things might indeed come true beyond all reach of -misadventure or decay. For this, of course, was the real land of wonder -and imagination, where everything might happen and nothing need grow -old. The vision of the poet saw ... far—far.... - -All this he realised through the blue eyes of the child at his side, who -was playing with daisies and talking about the make-believe of children. -His being swam out into the sunshine of great distances, of endless -possibilities, all of which he might be able afterwards to interpret to -others who did not see so far, or so clearly, as himself. He began to -realise that his spirit, like the endless river at his feet, was without -end or beginning. Thrills of new life poured into him from all sides. - -‘And when we go back,’ he heard the musical little voice saying beside -him, ‘that church will be striking exactly where we left it—the sixth -stroke, I mean.’ - -‘Of course; _I_ see!’ cried Paul, beginning to realise the full value of -his discovery, ‘for there’s no time here, is there? Nothing grows old.’ - -‘That’s it,’ she laughed, clapping her hands, ‘and you can find all the -lost and broken things you want, if you look hard and—really want them.’ - -‘I want a lot,’ he mused, still staring into the little wells of blue -opposite; ‘the kind that are lost because they’ve never been “got,”’ he -added with a smile, using her own word. - -‘For instance,’ Nixie continued, hanging the daisies now in a string -from his beard, ‘all my broken things come here and live happily—if I -broke them by accident; but if I broke them in a temper, they are still -angry and frighten me, and sometimes even chase me out again. Only Jonah -has more of these than I have, and they are all on the other side of the -river, so we’re quite safe here. Now watch,’ she added in a lower voice, -‘Look hard under the trees and you’ll see what I mean perhaps. And wish -hard, too.’ - -Paul’s eyes followed the direction of her finger across the river, and -almost at once dim shapes began to move to and fro among the larches, -starting into life where the shadows were deepest. At first he could -distinguish no very definite forms, but gradually the outlines grew -clearer as the forms approached the edges of the wood, coming out into -the sunshine. - -‘The ghosts! The ghosts of broken things!’ cried Jonah, running up the -bank for protection. ‘Look! They’re coming out. Some one’s thinking -about them, you see!’ - -Paul, as he gazed, thought he had never seen such an odd collection of -shapes in his life. They stalked about awkwardly like huge insects with -legs of unequal length, and with a lop-sided motion that made it -impossible to tell in which direction they meant to go. They had -brilliant little eyes that flashed this way and that, making a delicate -network of rays all through the wood like the shafts of a hundred -miniature search-lights. Their legs, too, were able to bend both -forwards and backwards and even sideways, so that when they appeared to -be coming towards him they really were going away; and the strange -tumbling motion of their bodies, due to the unequal legs, gave them an -appearance that was weirdly grotesque rather than terrifying. - -It was, indeed, a curious and delightful assortment of goblins. There -were dolls without heads, and heads without dolls; milk jugs without -handles, china teapots without spouts, and spouts without china teapots; -clocks without hands, or with cracked and wounded faces; bottles without -necks; broken cups, mugs, plates, and dishes, all with gaping slits and -cracks in their anatomy, with half their faces missing, or without heads -at all; every sort of vase imaginable with every sort of handle -unimaginable; tin soldiers without swords or helmets, china puppies -without tails, broken cages, knives without handles; and a collection of -basins of all sizes that would have been sufficient to equip an entire -fleet of cross-channel steamers: altogether a formidable and pathetic -army of broken creatures. - -‘What in the world are they trying to do?’ he asked, after watching -their antics for some minutes with amazement. - -‘Looking for the broken parts,’ explained Jonah, who was half amused, -half alarmed. ‘They get out of shape like that because they pick up the -first pieces they find.’ - -‘And _you_ broke all these things?’ - -The boy nodded his head proudly. ‘I reckernise most of them,’ he said, -‘but they’re nearly all accidents. I said “sorry” for each one.’ - -‘That, you see,’ Nixie interrupted, ‘makes all the difference. If you -break a thing on purpose in a temper, you murder it; but the accidents -come down here and feel nothing. They hardly know who broke them. In the -end they all find their pieces. It’s the heaven of broken things, we -call it. But now let’s send them away.’ - -‘How?’ asked Paul. - -‘By forgetting them,’ cried Jonah. - -They turned their faces away and began to think of other things, and at -once the figures began to fade and grow dim. The lights went out one by -one. The grotesque shapes melted into the trees, and a minute later -there was nothing to be seen but the slender larch stems and the play of -sunlight and shadow beneath their branches. - -‘You see how it works, at any rate,’ Nixie said. ‘Anything you’ve lost -or broken will come back if you think hard enough—nice things as well as -nasty things—but they must be real, real things, and you must want them -in a real, real way.’ - -It was, indeed, he saw, the region where thoughts come true. - -‘Then do broken people come here too?’ Paul asked gravely after a -considerable pause, during which his thoughts went profoundly wandering. - -‘Yes; only we don’t happen to know any. But all our dead animals are -here, all the kittens that had to be drowned, and the puppies that died, -and the collie the Burdons’ motor killed, and Birthday, our old horse -that had to be shot. They’re all here, and all happy.’ - -‘Let’s go and see them then,’ he cried, delighted with this idea of a -heaven of broken animals. - -In a moment they were on their feet and away over the springy turf, -singing and laughing in the sunshine, picking flowers, jumping the -little brooks that ran like crystal ribbons among the grass, Nixie and -Jonah dancing by his side as though they had springs in their feet and -wings on their shoulders. More and more the country spread before them -like a great garden run wild, and Paul thought he had never seen such -fields of flowers or smelt such perfumes in the wind. - -‘What’s the matter now?’ he exclaimed, as Jonah stopped and began to -stare hard at an acre of lilies of the valley by the way. - -‘He’s calling some things of his own,’ Nixie answered. ‘Stare and -think—and they’ll all come. But we needn’t bother about him. Come -along!’ And he only had time to see the lilies open in an avenue to make -way for a variety of furry, four-legged creatures, when the child pulled -him by the hand and they were off again at full speed across the fields. - -A sound of neighing made him turn round, and before he could move aside, -a large grey horse with a flowing tail and a face full of gentle -beneficence came trotting over the turf and stopped just behind him, -nuzzling softly into his shoulder. - -‘Nice, silly-faced old thing,’ said Nixie, running up to speak to it, -while a brown collie trotted quietly at her heels. A little further off, -peeping up through a tangled growth of pinks and meadow-sweet, he saw -the faces of innumerable kittens, watching him with large and -inquisitive eyes, their ears just topping the flowers like leaves of -fur. Such a family of animals Paul thought he had never even dreamed of. - -‘This is the heaven of the lost animals,’ Nixie cried from her seat on -the back of the grey horse, having climbed up by means of a big stone. -On her shoulder perched a small brown owl, blinking in the light like -the instantaneous shutter of a photographic camera. It had fluffy -feathers down to its ankles like trousers, and was very tame. ‘And they -are always happy here and have plenty to eat and drink. They play with -us far better here than outside, and are never frightened. Of course, -too, they get no older.’ - -Paul climbed up behind her on the horse’s back. - -‘Now we’re off!’ he cried; and with Jonah and a dozen animals at their -heels, they raced off across the open country, holding on as best they -could to mane and tail, laughing, shouting, singing, while the wind -whistled in their ears and the hot sun poured down upon their bare -heads. - -Then, suddenly, the horse stopped with a jerk that sent them sprawling -forward upon his neck. He turned his head round to look at them with a -comical expression in his big, brown eyes. Paul slid off behind, and -Nixie saved herself by springing sideways into a bed of forget-me-nots. -The owl fluttered away, blinking its eyes more rapidly than ever in a -kind of surprised fury, shaking out its fluffy trousers, and Jonah -arrived panting with his dogs and rabbits and puppies. - -‘Come,’ exclaimed Nixie breathlessly, ‘he’s had enough by now. No animal -wants people too long. Let’s get something to eat.’ - -‘And I’ll cook it,’ cried the boy, busying himself with sticks and twigs -upon the ground. ‘We’ll have stodgy-pudding and cake and jam and -oyster-patties, and then more stodgy-pudding again to finish up with.’ - -Paul glanced round him and saw that all the animals had disappeared—gone -like thoughts forgotten. In their place he soon saw a column of blue -smoke rising up among the fir trees close behind him, and the children -flitting to and fro through it looking like miniature gypsies. The odour -of the burning wood was incense in his nostrils. - -‘But can’t I see something too—something of my own?’ he asked in an -aggrieved tone. - -Nixie and Jonah looked up at him with surprise. ‘Of course you can,’ -they exclaimed together. ‘Just stare into space as the cats do, and -think, and wish, and wait. Anything you want will come—with practice. -People you’ve lost, or people you’ve wanted to find, or anything that’s -never come true anywhere else.’ - -They went on busily with their cooking again, and Paul, lying on his -back in the grass some distance away, sent his thoughts roaming, -searching, deeply calling, far into the region of unsatisfied dreams and -desires within his heart.... - -For what seemed hours and hours they wandered together through the -byways of this vast, enchanted garden, finding everything they wished to -find, forgetting everything they wished to forget, amusing themselves to -their heart’s content; till, at last, they stood together on a big -boulder in the river where the spray rose about them in a cloud and -painted a rainbow above their heads. - -‘Get ready! Quick!’ cried Jonah. ‘The Crack’s coming!’ - -‘It’s coming!’ repeated Nixie, seizing Paul’s hand and urging him to -hold very tight. - -He had no time to reply. There was a rushing sound of air tearing -through a narrow opening. The sky grew dark, with a roaring in his ears -and a sense of great things flying past him. Again came the sensation of -dropping giddily through space, and the next minute he found himself -standing with the two children upon the lawn, darkness about them, and -the storm howling and crashing over their heads through the branches of -the twin cedars. - -‘There’s the clock still striking,’ Nixie cried. ‘It’s only been a few -seconds altogether.’ - -He heard the church clock strike the last six strokes of midnight. - - -For some minutes he realised little more than that he felt rather stiff -and uncomfortable in his bedroom chair, and that he was chilly about the -legs. Outside the wind still roared and whistled, making the windows -rattle, while gusts of rain fell volleying against the panes as though -trying to get in. A roll of distant thunder came faintly to his ear. He -stretched himself and began to undress by the light of a single candle. - -On the table lay a sheet of paper headed ‘How I climbed the Scaffolding -of the Night,’ and he read down the page and then took his pen and wrote -the heading of something else on another sheet: ‘Adventure in the Land -between Yesterday and To-morrow.’ With a mighty yawn he then blew out -his candle and tumbled into bed. - -And with him, for all the howling of the elements, came a strange sense -of peace and happiness. Out of the depths rose gradually before his -inner eye in a series of delightful pictures the scenes he had just -left, and he understood that the pathway to that country of dreams -fulfilled and emotions that never die, lay buried far within his own -being. - -‘Between Yesterday and To-morrow’ was to be the children’s counterpart -of that timeless, deathless region where the spirit may always go when -hunted by the world, fretted by the passion of unsatisfied yearnings, -plagued by the remorseless tribes of sorrow and disaster. There none -could follow him, just as none—none but himself—could bring about its -destruction. For he had found the mystical haven where all lost or -broken things eternally reconstruct themselves. - -The ‘Crack,’ of course, may be found by all who have the genuine -yearning to recreate their world more sweetly, provided they possess at -the start enough imagination to repay the trouble of training—also that -_Wanderlust_ of the spirit which seeks ever for a resting-place in the -great beyond that reaches up to God. - -Paul as yet had but discovered the entrance, led by little children who -dreamed not how wondrous was the journey; but the rest would follow. For -it is a region mapped gradually out of a thousand impulses, out of ten -thousand dreams, out of the eternal desires of the soul. It is not -discovered in a day, nor do the ways of entrance always remain the same. -A thousand joys contribute to its fashioning, a thousand frustrated -hopes describe its boundaries, and ten thousand griefs bring slowly, -piece by piece, the material for its construction, while every new -experience of the soul, successful or disastrous, adds something to its -uncharted geography. Slowly it gathers into existence, becoming with -every sojourn more real and more satisfying, till at length from the -pain of all possible disillusionment the way opens to the heart of -relief, to the peaceful place of hopes renewed, of purposes made -fruitful and complete. - -And from this deathless region, too, flow all the forces of the soul -that make for hope, enthusiasm, courage, and delight. The children might -call it ‘Between Yesterday and To-morrow,’ and find their little broken -dreams brought back to life; but Paul understood that its rewards might -vary immensely according to the courage and the need of the soul that -sought it. - - - - - CHAPTER XVI - - But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you. - YEATS. - - -Thus, led delicately by the animals and the children, and guided to a -certain extent, too, by the curious poesy of his own soul, Paul Rivers -came gradually into his own. Once made free of their world, he would -learn next that the process automatically made him free of his own. This -simple expedient of having found an audience did wonders for him, for it -not only loosened his tongue and his pen, but set all the deeper parts -of him running into speech, and the natural love and poetry of the man -began to produce a delightful, if somewhat extraordinary, harvest. - -He understood—none better—that fantasy, unless rooted in reality, leads -away from action and tends to weakness and insipidity; but that, -grounded in the common facts of life, and content with idealising the -actual, it might become an important factor for good, lending wings to -the feet and lifting the soul over difficult places. His education -advanced by leaps and bounds. - -And in some respects he showed himself possessed of a wisdom that could -only have belonged to him because at heart he was still a child, and the -ordinary ‘knowledge of the world’ had not come to spoil him in his life -of solitude among the trees. - -For instance, that ‘Between Yesterday and To-morrow’ bore some curious -relation to reverie and dreams, he dimly discerned, yet, with this -simple and profound wisdom of his, he refused to pry too closely into -the nature of such relationship. He did not seek to reduce the -delightful experience to the little hard pellet of an exact fact. For -that, he felt, would be to lose it. Exact knowledge, he knew, was often -merely a great treachery, and ‘fact’ a dangerous weapon that deceived, -and might even destroy, its owner. If he analysed too carefully, he -might analyse the whole thing out of existence altogether, and such a -contingency was not to be thought of for a single moment. - -Moreover, the attitude of the children confirmed his own. They never -referred to their adventures until he had given them form and substance -in his reports as recording secretary of the society. No word passed -their lips until they had heard them read out, and _then_ they talked of -nothing else. During the day they maintained a sublime ignorance of his -‘aventures of the night,’ as though nothing of the kind had ever -happened; and this tended still further to relegate it all to a region -untouched by time, beyond the reach of chance, beyond the destruction of -mere talk, eternal and real in the great sense. - -Meanwhile, as this hidden country he had discovered yielded to -exploration, becoming more and more mapped out, and its springs of water -tapped, Paul was conscious that the power from these vital sources began -to modify his character, and to enlarge his outlook upon life. -Imagination, released and singing, provides the greatest of all -magics—belief in one’s self. The rivers of feeling carve their own -channels, which are ever the shortest way to the ocean of fulfilment. -The effects spread gradually to the remotest corner of his being. - -One rainy day he found himself alone in the schoolroom with Nixie, for -it was Saturday afternoon, and Mlle. Fleury had carried off Jonah and -Toby in their best clothes, and to their acute dismay, to have tea with -the children—they were dull children—at the vicarage. - -Dressed in blue serge, with a broad white collar over her shoulders and -a band of gold about her waist that matched the colour of her hair, she -darted about the room with her usual effect of brightness, so that he -found himself continually thinking the sun had burst through the clouds. -She was busily arranging cats and kittens in various positions in which -they showed no inclination to remain, till the performance had somewhat -the air of the old-fashioned game of ‘general post.’ Paul sat lazily at -the ink-stained table, dividing his attentions between watching the -child’s fascinating movements and pecking idly into the soft wood with -his little gold penknife. - -‘Aren’t you _very_ glad we found you out so soon, Uncle Paul?’ she asked -suddenly, looking up at him over a back of glossy and wriggling yellow -fur. ‘Aren’t you very glad _indeed_, I mean?’ - -He went on picking at the soft ditches between the ridges of dirty brown -without answering for a moment. - -‘Yes,’ he said presently, in the slow manner of a man who weighs his -words; ‘very glad indeed. It’s increased my interest in life. It’s made -me happier, and healthier, and wealthier, and all the rest of it—and -wiser too.’ He bent, frowning, over the ditches. - -‘It was all your own fault, you know, that we didn’t get you sooner. Oh, -years ago—ever so many.’ - -‘But I was in the backwoods, Nixie.’ - -‘That made no difference,’ she answered promptly. ‘If you had written to -us, as mother often asked, we should have noticed at once what you -were.’ - -‘How could that possibly be?’ he objected, still without looking up. - -‘Of course!’ was the overwhelming reply. - -‘Oh, come now,’ he said, staring at her solemnly over the table; ‘I -admit your penetration is pretty keen, but I doubt _that_.’ - -She returned his gaze with an expression of grave, almost contemptuous -surprise, tossing her hair back impatiently with a jerk from her face. -She had finally established the kittens, Zezette and Sambo, in a sleepy -heap just where she wanted them on the top of the squirrel’s cage. - -‘But, Uncle,’ she exclaimed, ‘between yesserdayantomorrow you can meet -people even after they’ve gone altogether. So America wouldn’t have been -difficult. How can you think such things?’ - -Not knowing exactly how it was he could think such things, Paul made no -immediate reply. - -‘Anyhow,’ she resumed, ‘it didn’t take long once you were here. We saw -in a second in the drawinroom what you were—the day you arrived.’ - -‘But I acted so well! I’m sure now I behaved—’ - -‘You behaved just like Jonah,’ she interrupted him with swift decision, -‘—only bigger!’ - -Paul laughed to himself. His inquisitor shot across the room to -establish Pouf, another kitten, on the piano top. She moved lightly, -with a dancing motion that flung her hair behind her through the air, -again producing the effect of a sunlight gleam. Paul continued to -destroy the table with his blunt penknife, chuckling inwardly at the -figure he must have cut that summer afternoon in the ‘drawinroom’ before -these mercilessly observant eyes. - -‘You stood about shyly just like him and Toby—in lumps,’ she went on -presently, ‘saying things in a sudden, jerky way—’ - -‘In lumps!’ cried Paul. ‘That’s a nice way to talk to your Uncle!’ - -Nixie burst out laughing. ‘Oh, I don’t mean that quite,’ she explained; -‘but you stood about as if you found it hard to balance, and were afraid -to move off the mat. Just as Jonah does at a party when he’s shy. I -copied you _exactly_ when I got upstairs.’ - -‘Did I indeed? Did you indeed, I mean?’ said he, wondering whether he -ought to feel offended or pleased at the picture. - -‘Yes, rather,’ declared the child emphatically, darting up with Pouf who -had definitely rejected the top of the piano, and planting it on the -table under his nose, where it immediately sat down, purring loudly and -staring into his face. ‘I should think you did! You see, Pouf says so -too; he’s purring his agreement. Listen to him! That’s fur language.’ - -He listened as he was bid, gazing first into the green eyes of the -kitten that opened so wide they seemed to have no lids at all, and then -into the mischievous blue eyes of his other tormentor. He decided that -on the whole he felt pleased. - -‘Then I wasted a lot of time,’ he observed presently, ‘about joining, I -mean—coming into your world.’ - -‘H’mmmm, you did.’ - -‘Only, remember, you were all very young when I was in America, weren’t -you?’ he added by way of excuse. - -Nixie nodded her head approvingly. - -‘And you, I expect,’ she replied thoughtfully, ‘were too hard then. I -hadn’t thought of that. You might never have squeezed through the Crack, -mightn’t you? You’re much softer now,’ she decided after a second’s -reflection, ‘ever so much softer!’ - -‘I _have_ improved, I think,’ he admitted, blushing like a pleased -schoolboy. ‘I am decidedly softer!’ - -He made a violent dig with his penknife, breaking down the hard barrier -between two ditches, whereupon Pouf, thinking the resultant splinter was -a plaything specially contrived for its happiness, opened its eyes wider -than ever, and stretched out a paw that looked huge compared with the -splinter and the penknife. Paul put the weapon away, and Pouf fixed its -eyes intently on the pocket where it had vanished, leaving its paw -absent-mindedly lying on the splinter which it had already wholly -forgotten. It purred louder than ever, trying to give the impression -that it was really a big cat. - -Outside the rain fell softly. A blue-bottle buzzed noisily about the -room, banging the ceiling and the walls as though it were exceedingly -angry. Through the open window floated the smell of the English garden -soaked in rain, odours of soused trees and lawns, and wet -air—exquisitely fragrant. - -A hush fell over the room; only the purring of the kittens broke it. -Paul thought it was the most soothing sound in the whole world; -something began to purr within himself. His head, and Nixie’s head, and -little Pouf’s head—all lay very close together over that schoolroom -table, each full of its own busy dreams. These queer, gentle talks with -the child were very delightful to him, all his shyness and -self-consciousness gone, and the spirit of true wonder, simple and -profound, awake in his heart. - -Together, for a long time, they listened in silence to these sounds of -purring and breathing and the murmur of rain falling outside: deep, -velvety breathing it was, almost inaudible. Everything in life, Paul -caught himself reflecting, tragedy or comedy, goes on against a -background of this deep, hidden, purring sound of life. Breathing is the -first manifestation of life; it is the music of the world, the soft, -continuous hum of existence. His thoughts travelled far.... - -‘Yes, on the whole,’ he muttered at length inconsequently, ‘I think I -may consider myself softer than before—kinder, gentler, more alive!’ - -But neither Nixie, nor Pouf, nor, for that matter, Sambo and Zezette -either, paid the smallest attention to his remark; he was soon lost -again in further reflections. - -It was the child’s voice that presently recalled him. - -‘Uncle Paul,’ she said very softly, her mind still busy with thoughts of -her own, ‘do you know that sometimes I have heard the earth breathing -too—akchilly breathing?’ - -Paul, coming back from a long journey, turned and gazed at the eager -little face beside him in silence. - -‘The earth is alive, I’m sure,’ she went on with an air of great -mystery. ‘It breathes and whispers, and even purrs; sometimes it cries. -It’s a great body, alive—just like you and the other stars——’ - -‘Nixie!’ - -‘They are all bodies, though; heavenly bodies, Daddy called them. Only -we, I suppose, are too small to see it that way perhaps.’ - -Paul listened, stroking Pouf slowly. The child’s voice was low and -somewhat breathless with the excitement of what she was saying. She -believed every word of it intensely. Only a very small part of what she -was thinking found expression in her words. Her ideas beckoned her -beyond; and mere words could not overtake them at her age. - -‘The earth,’ she went on, seeing that he did not laugh, ‘is somebody’s -big round body rolling down the sky. It simply must be. Daddy always -said that a fly settling on our bodies didn’t know we were, alive, so we -can’t understand that the earth is alive either. Only _I know it_. Oh!’ -she cried out with sudden enthusiasm, ‘how I would love to hear its real -out-loud voice. What a t’riffic roar it must be. I only wish my ears -were further——’ - -‘Sharper, you mean.’ - -‘But, all the same, I _have_ heard it breathing,’ she added more -quietly, lifting Pouf suddenly and wrapping its sleeping body round her -neck like a boa, ‘just like this.’ She put her head on one side, so that -her cheek was against the kitten’s lips, and the faint stream of its -breathing tickled her ear. ‘Only the breathing of the earth is much, -ever so much, longer and deeper. It’s whole months long.’ - -Paul was listening now with his undivided attention. He was being -admitted to the very heart of an imaginative child’s world, and the -knowledge of it charmed him inexpressibly. His eyes were almost as -bright, his cheeks as pink with excitement, as her own. Only he must be -very careful indeed. The least mistake on his part would close the door. - -‘Months, Nixie?’ - -‘Oh, yes, a single breath is months long,’ she whispered, her eyes -growing in size, and darkening with wonder and awe. ‘Pouf lies on me and -breathes twice to my once, but I breathe millions of times—ever so many -millions—as I lie on the earth’s body. And it breathes in and out just -as Pouf and I do. Winter is breathing in, and summer is breathing out, -you see.’ - -‘So the equinoctial gales are the changes from one breath to the other?’ -he put in gravely. - -‘I hadn’t thought about the—the gales,’ she said, putting her face -closer and lowering her voice, ‘but I know that in the summer I often -hear the earth breathing out—’specially on still warm nights when -everything lies awake and listens for it.’ - -‘Then do “Things” really listen as we do?’ he asked gently. - -‘Not ’xactly as we do. We only listen in one place—our ears. They listen -all over. But they’re alive just the same, though so much quieter. Oh, -Uncle Paul, everything is alive; everything, I know it!’ She fixed a -searching look on him. ‘You knew _that_, didn’t you?’ - -There was a trace of real surprise and disappointment in her voice. - -‘Well,’ he answered truthfully, ‘I had often and often thought about it, -and wondered sometimes—whether——’ - -But the child interrupted him almost imperiously. He realised sharply -how the knowledge that the years bring—little, exact, precise -knowledge—may kill the dreams of the naked soul, yet give nothing in -their place but dust and ashes. And, by the same token, he recognised -that his own heart was still untouched, unspoiled. The blood leaped and -ran within him at the thought. - -‘The winds, too, are alive,’—she spoke with a solemn excitement that -made her delicate face flush as though a white fire glowed suddenly -beneath the skin and behind the charming eyes—‘they run about, and -sleep, and sing, and are full of voices. The wind has hundreds of -voices—just like insects with such a lot of eyes.’ (Even her strange -simile did not make him smile, so real was the belief and enthusiasm of -her words.) ‘_We_ (with scorn) have only one voice; but the wind can -laugh and cry at the same time!’ - -‘I’ve heard it,’ he put in, secretly thrilled. - -‘I know its angry voice as well as its pretended-angry voice, when it’s -very loud but means nothing in particular. Its baby-voice, when it comes -through the keyhole at night, or down the chimney, or just outside the -window in the early morning, and tells me all its little -very-wonderful-indeed aventures, makes me so happy I want to cry and -laugh at once.’ - -She paused a moment for breath, dimly conscious, perhaps, that her -description was somewhat confused. Her excitement somehow communicated -itself to Pouf at the same time, for the kitten suddenly rose up with an -arched back and indulged in a yawn that would have cracked the jaws of -any self-respecting creature. After a prolonged stare at Paul, it -proceeded inconsequently to wash itself with an air that plainly said, -‘You won’t catch me napping again. _I_ want to hear this too.’ - -Paul, meanwhile, stared at the child beside him, thinking that the -gold-dust on her hair must surely come from her tumbling journeys among -the stars, and wondering if she understood how deeply she saw into the -heart of things with those dreamy blue eyes of hers. - -‘Listen, Nixie, you fairy-child, and I’ll tell you something,’ he said -gently, ‘something you will like very much’; and, while she waited and -held her breath, he whispered softly in her ear: - - Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: - The soul that rises in us, our life’s star - Hath had elsewhere its setting, - And cometh from afar: - Not in entire forgetfulness, - And not in utter nakedness, - But trailing clouds of glory do we come - From God who is our home. - - - - - CHAPTER XVII - - And snatches of thee everywhere - Make little heavens throughout a day. - ALICE MEYNELL. - - -‘That’s very pretty, I think,’ she said politely, staring at him, with a -little smile, half puzzled. The music of the words had touched her, but -she evidently did not grasp why he should have said it. She waited a -minute to see if he had really finished, and then went on again with her -own vein of thought. - -‘Then please tell me, Uncle,’ she asked gravely, with deep earnestness, -‘what is it people lose when they grow up?’ - -And he answered her with equal gravity, speaking seriously as though the -little body at his side were habited by an old, discriminating soul. - -‘Simplicity, I think, principally—and vision,’ he said. ‘They get wise -with so many little details called facts that they lose the great view.’ - -The child watched his face, trying to understand. After a pause she came -back to her own thinking—the sphere where she felt sure of herself. - -‘They never see things properly once they’re grown up,’ she said sadly. -‘They all walk into a fog, _I_ believe, that hides all the things _we_ -know, and stuffs up their eyes and ears. Daddy called it the cotton-wool -of age, you know. Oh, Uncle, I do hope,’ she cried with the sudden -passion of the child, ‘I _do_ hope I shall never, never get into that -horrid fog. _You_ haven’t, and I won’t, won’t, won’t!’ Her voice rose to -a genuine cry. Then she added with a touch of child-wonder that followed -quite naturally upon the outburst, ‘How did you ever stop yourself, I -wonder!’ - -‘I lived with the fairies in the backwoods,’ he answered, laughing -softly. - -She stared at him with complete admiration in her blue eyes. - -‘Then I shall grow up ’xactly like you,’ she said, ‘so that I can always -get out of the cage just as you do, even if my body is big.’ - -‘Every one’s thin somewhere,’ Paul said, remembering her own -explanation. ‘And the Crack into Yesterday and To-morrow is always close -by when it’s wanted. That’s the real way of escape.’ - -She clapped her hands and danced, shaking her hair out in a cloud and -laughing with happiness. Paul took her in his arms and kissed her. With -a gesture of exquisite dignity, such as animals show when they resent -human interference, the child tumbled back into her chair by the table, -an expression of polite boredom—though the faintest imaginable—in her -eyes. Many a time had he seen the kittens behave exactly in the same -way. - -‘But how do you know all these things, Nixie, and where do all your -ideas come from?’ he asked. - -‘They just come to me when I’m thinking of nothing in particular. They -float into my head of their own accord like ships, little fairy ships, I -suppose. And I think,’ she added dreamily after a moment’s pause, ‘some -of them are trees and flowers whispering to me.’ She put her face close -to his own across the table, staring into his very brain with her -shining eyes. ‘Don’t you think so too, Uncle?’ - -‘I think I do,’ he answered honestly. - -‘Though some of the things I hear,’ she went on, ‘I don’t understand -till a long time afterwards.’ - -‘What kind of things, for instance?’ - -She hesitated, answering slowly after a pause: - -‘Things like streams, and the dripping of rain, and the rustling of wet -leaves, perhaps. At the time I only hear the noise they make, but -afterwards, when I’m alone, doing nothing, it all falls into words and -stories—all sorts of lovely things, but _very_ hard to remember, of -course.’ - -She broke off and smiled up into his face with a charm that he could -never have put into words. - -‘You’ll grow up a poet, Nixie,’ he said. - -‘Shall I _really_? But I could never find the rhymes—simply never.’ - -‘Some never do,’ he answered; ‘and some—the majority, I think—never find -the words even!’ - -‘Oh, how dreadful!’ she exclaimed, her face clouding with a pain she -could fully understand. ‘Poets who can’t talk at all. I should think -they would burst.’ - -‘Some of them nearly do,’ he exclaimed, hiding a smile; ‘they get very -queer indeed, these poor poets who cannot express themselves. I have -known one or two.’ - -‘Have you? Oh, Uncle Paul!’ Her tone expressed all the solemn sympathy -the world could hold. - -He nodded his head mysteriously. - -The child suddenly sat up very erect. An idea of importance had come -into her head. - -‘Then I wonder if Pouf and Smoke, and Zezette and Mrs. Tompkyns are like -that,’ she cried, her face grave as a hanging judge—‘poets who can’t -express themselves, and may burst and get queer! Because they understand -all that sort of thing—scuttling leaves and dew falling, and tickling -grasses and the dreams of beeties, and things we never hear at all. -P’raps that’s why they lie and listen and think for such ages and ages. -I never thought of that before.’ - -‘It’s quite likely,’ he replied with equal solemnity. - -Nixie sprang to her feet and flew round the room from chair to chair, -hugging in turn each kitten, and asking it with a passionate earnestness -that was very disturbing to its immediate comfort in life: ‘Tell me, -Pouf, Smoke, Sambo, this instant! Are you all furry little poets who -can’t tell all your little furry poems? Are you, _are you_, ARE YOU?’ - -She kissed each one in turn. ‘Are you going to burst and get queer?’ She -shook them all till, mightily offended, they left their thrones and took -cover sedately under tables and sofas well out of reach of this intimate -and public cross-examination. And there they sat, looking straight -before them, as though no one else existed in the entire world. - -‘I believe they are, Uncle.’ - -A silence fell between them. Under the furniture, safe in their dark -corners, the cats began to purr again. Paul got up and strolled to the -open window that looked out across lawns and shrubberies to the fringe -of oaks and elms that marked the distant hayfields. The rain still fell -gently, silently—a fine, scented, melancholy rain; the rain of a minor -key. Tinged with a hundred delicate odours from fields and trees—ghostly -perfumes far more subtle than the perfumes of flowers—the air seemed to -brush the surface of his soul, dropping its fragrance down into his -heart like the close presence of remembered friends. - -The evening mode invaded him softly, soothingly; and out of it, in some -way he scarcely understood, crept something that brought a vague -disquiet in its train. A little timid thought stole to the threshold of -his heart and knocked gently upon the door of its very inmost chamber. -And the sound of the knocking, faint and muffled though it was, woke -echoes in this secret chamber that proclaimed in a tone of reproach, if -not almost of warning, that it was still empty and unfurnished. A deep, -infinite yearning, and a yearning that was _new_, stirred within him, -then suddenly rose to the surface of his mind like a voice calling to -him from far away out of mist and darkness. - -‘If only I had children of my own...!’ it called; and the echo whispered -afterwards ‘of my very own, made out of my very thoughts...!’ - -He turned to Nixie who had followed, and now leaned beside him on the -window-sill. - -‘So the language of wind and trees and water you translate afterwards -into stories, do you?’ he asked, taking up the conversation where they -had left it. It was hardly a question; he was musing aloud as he gazed -out into the mists that gathered with the dusk. ‘It’s all silent enough -now, at any rate there’s not a breath of air moving. The trees are -dreaming—dreaming perhaps of the Dance of the Winds, or of the -love-making of the snow when their leaves are gone and the flakes settle -softly on the bare twigs; or perhaps dreaming of the humming of the sap -that brings their new clothes with such a rush of glory and wonder in -the spring——’ - -Again the child looked up into his face with shining eyes. The magic of -her little treasured beliefs had touched the depths of him, and she felt -that they were in the same world together, without pretence and without -the barriers of age. She was radiantly happy, and rather wonderful into -the bargain, a fairy if ever there was one. - -‘They’re just thinking,’ she said softly. - -‘So trees think too?’ - -She nodded her head, leaning her chin on her hands as she gazed with him -into the misty air. - -‘I wonder what their thoughts are like,’ he said musingly, so that she -could take it for a question or not as she chose. - -‘Like ours—in a way,’ she answered, as though speaking of something she -knew beyond all question, ‘only not so small, not so sharp. Our thoughts -prick, I think, but theirs stroke, all running quite smoothly into each -other. Very big and wonderful indeed thoughts—big as wind, I mean, and -wonderful as sky or distance. And the streams—the streams have long, -winding thoughts that run down their whole length under water——’ - -‘And the trees, you were saying,’ he said, seeing that her thought was -wandering. - -‘Yes, the trees,’ she repeated, ‘oh! yes, the trees are different a -little, I think. A wood, you see, may have one big huge thought all at -once——’ - -‘All at once!’ - -‘I mean all at the same time, every tree thinking the same thought for -miles. Because, if you lie in a wood, and don’t think yourself, but just -wait and wait and wait, you gradgilly get its great thought and know -what it’s thinking about exactly. You feel it all over instead of—of——’ - -‘Instead of getting a single little sharp picture in your mind,’ Paul -helped her, grasping the wonder of her mystical idea. - -‘I think that’s what I mean,’ she went on. ‘And it’s exactly the same -with everything else—the sea, and the fields, and the sky—oh! and -everything in the whole world.’ She made a sweeping gesture with her arm -to indicate the universe. - -‘Oh, Nixie child!’ he cried, with a sudden enthusiasm pouring over him -from the strange region where she had unknowingly led him, ‘if only I -could take you out to the big woods I know across the sea, where the -trees stretch for hundreds of miles, and the moss is everywhere a foot -thick, and the whole forest is such a conspiracy of wonder and beauty -that it catches your heart away and makes you breathless with delight! -Oh, my child, if only you could hear the thoughts and stories of woods -like that—woods untouched since the beginning of the world——!’ - -‘Take me! Take me! Uncle Paul, oh! take me!’ she cried as though it were -possible to start next day. ‘These woods are such _little_ woods, and I -know all their stories.’ She danced round him with a wild and eager -delight. - -‘Such stories, yes, such stories,’ Paul continued, his face shining -almost as much as hers as he thought of his mighty and beloved forests. - -‘Please tell me, take me, tell me!’ she cried. ‘All, all, all! Quick!’ - -‘I can’t. I never understood them properly; only the old Indians know -them now,’ he said sadly, leaning out of the window again with her. -‘They are tales that few people in this part of the world could -understand; in a language old as the wind, too, and nearly forgotten. -You see, the trees are different there. They stand in thousands—pine, -hemlock, spruce, and cedar—mighty, very tall, very straight, very dark, -pouring day and night their great balsam perfumes into the air so that -their stories and their thoughts are sweet as incense and very -mysterious.’ - -Nixie took the lapels of his coat in her hands and stared up into his -face as though her eyes would pop out. She looked _through_ his eyes. -She saw these very woods he was speaking of standing in dim shadows -behind him. - -‘No one ever comes to disturb their lives, and few of them have ever -heard the ringing of the axe. Only giant moose and caribou steal -silently beneath their shade, and Indians, dark and soft-footed as -things of their own world, make camp-fires among their roots. They know -nothing of men and cities and trains, and the wind that sings through -their branches is a wind that has never tasted chimney-pots, and hot -crowds, and pretty, fancy gardens. It is a wind that flies five hundred -miles without taking breath, with nothing to stop its flight but -feathery tree-tops, brushing the heavens, and clean mountain ridges -thrusting great shoulders to the stars. Their thoughts and stories are -difficult to understand, but _you_ might understand them, I think, for -the life of the elements is strong in your veins, you fairy daughter of -wind and water. And some day, when you are stronger in body—not older -though, mind, not older—I shall take you out there so that you may be -able to learn their wonder and interpret it to all the world.’ - -The words tore through him in such curious, impersonal fashion, that he -hardly realised he was giving utterance to a longing that had once been -his own, and that he was now seeking to realise vicariously in the -person of this little poet-girl beside him. He stroked her hair as she -nestled up to him, breathing hard, her eyes glistening like stars, -speechless with the torrent of wonder with which her big uncle had -enveloped her. - -‘Some day,’ she murmured presently, ‘some day, remember. You promise?’ - -‘I promise.’ - -‘And—and will you write that all out for me, please?’ - -‘All what?’ - -‘About the too-big woods and the too-old language and the winds that fly -without stopping, and the stories——’ - -‘Oh, oh!’ he laughed; ‘that’s another matter!’ - -‘Yes, oh you must, Uncle! Make a story of it—an aventure. Write it out -as a verywonerfulindeedaventure, and put you and me in it!’ She forgot -the touch of sadness and clapped her hands with delight. ‘And then read -it out at a Meeting, don’t you see?’ - -And in the end Paul promised that too, making a great fuss about it, but -in his heart secretly pleased and happy. - -‘I’ll try,’ he said, with portentous gravity. - -The child stared up at him with the sure knowledge in her eyes that -between them they held the key to all that was really worth knowing. - -He stooped to kiss her hair, but before he could do so, with a laugh and -a dancing step he scarcely heard, she was gone from his side and -half-way down the passage, so that he kissed the empty air. - -‘Bless her mighty little heart!’ he exclaimed, straightening himself up -again. ‘Was there ever such a teacher in the world before?’ - -He became aware that the world held powers, gentle yet immense, that -were urging him in directions hitherto undreamed of. With such a fairy -guide he might find—he was already finding—not merely safety-valves of -expression, but an outlet into the bargain for his creative imagination. - -‘And a little child shall lead them,’ he murmured in his beard, as he -went slowly down the passage to his room to dress for dinner. Again he -felt like singing. - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII - - The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others - only a green thing standing in the way.—W.B. - - -Thus, gradually, the grey house under the hills changed into a palace; -the garden stretched to include the stars; and Paul, the retired Wood -Cruiser, walked in a world all new and brilliant. For to find the means -of self-expression is to build the foundations of spiritual health, and -an ideal companionship, unvexed by limitations of sense, holds -potentialities that can change earth into heaven. His accumulated stores -of imagination found wings, and he wrote a series of Aventures that -delighted his audience while they healed his own soul. - -‘I wish they’d go on for ever and ever,’ observed Toby solemnly to her -brother. ‘Perhaps they do really, only——’ - -‘Of course they do,’ Jonah said decisively, ‘but Uncle Paul only tells -bits of them to us—bits that _you_ can understand.’ - -Toby was too much in earnest to notice the masculine scorn. - -‘He does know a lot, doesn’t he?’ she said. ‘Do you think he sees up -into heaven? They’re not a bit like made-up aventures.’ She paused, -deeply puzzled; very grave indeed. - -‘He’s a man, of course,’ replied Jonah. ‘Men know big things like that.’ - -‘The Aventures are true,’ Nixie put in gently. ‘That’s why they’re so -big, and go on for ever and ever.’ - -‘It’s jolly when he puts us in them too, isn’t it?’ said Jonah, -forgetting the masculine pose in his interest. ‘He puts me in most,’ the -boy added proudly. - -‘But _I_ do the funniest things,’ declared Toby, slightly aggrieved. ‘It -was me that rode on the moose over the tree-tops to the North Pole, and -understood all it said——’ - -‘That’s nothing,’ cried her brother, making a huge blot across his -copy-book. ‘He had to get me to turn on the roarer boryalis.’ - -‘Nixie’s always leader, anyhow,’ replied the child, losing herself for a -moment in the delight of that tremendous blot. She often borrowed Nixie -in this way to obliterate Jonah when her own strength was insufficient. - -‘Of course she is,’ was the manly verdict. ‘She knows all those things -almost as well as Uncle Paul. Don’t you, Nixie?’ - -But Nixie was too busy cleaning up his blot with bits of torn -blotting-paper to reply, and the arrival of Mlle. Fleury put an end to -the discussion for the moment. - -And Paul himself, as the big child leading the littler children, or -following their guidance when such guidance was clear, accepted his new -duties with a happy heart. His friendship with them all grew -delightfully, but especially, of course, his friendship with Nixie. This -elemental child slipped into his life everywhere, into his play, as into -his work; she assumed the right to look after him; with charming gravity -she positively mothered him; and Paul, whose life hitherto had known -little enough of such sympathy and care, simply loved it. - -If her native poesy won his imagination, her practical interest in his -welfare and comfort equally won his heart. The way she ferreted about in -his room and study, so serious, so thoughtful, attending to so many -little details that no one else ever thought of,—all this came into his -life with a seductive charm as of something entirely new and strange to -him. It was Nixie who always saw to it that his ink-pot was full and his -quill pens trimmed; that flowers had no time to fade upon his table; and -that matches for his pipes never failed in the glass match-stands. He -used up matches, it seemed, almost by the handful. - -‘You’re far worse than Daddy used to be,’ she reproved him. ‘I believe -you eat them.’ And when he assured her that he did nothing of the sort, -she only shook her head darkly, and said she couldn’t understand then -what he did with them all. - -A hundred services of love and kindness she did for him that no one else -would have thought of. On his mantelpiece she put mysterious little -bottles of medicine. - -‘For nettle-stings and scratches,’ she explained. ‘Your poor hands are -always covered with them both when you’ve been out with us.’ And it was -she, too, who bound up his fingers when wounds were more serious, and -saw to it that he had a clean rag each day till the sore was healed. She -put the new red riband on his straw hat after it fell (himself with it) -into the Gull Pond; and one service especially that earned her his -eternal respect was to fasten his evening black tie for dinner. This she -did every night for him. Such tasks were for magical fingers only. He -had never yet compassed it himself. He would run to the nursery to say -good-night, and Nixie, looking almost unreal and changeling in her white -nightgown, with her yellow hair top-knotted quaintly for sleep, would -deftly trim and arrange the strip of satin that he never could manage -properly himself. It was a regular little ritual, Toby watching eagerly -from the bed across the room. - -‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Uncle Paul,’ she said another -time, holding up a mysterious garment, ‘I never saw such holes—never!’ -And then she darned the said socks with results that were picturesque if -not always entirely satisfactory. And once she sewed the toes so tightly -across with her darning that he could not get his foot into them. She -allowed no one else to touch them, however. Little the child guessed -that while she patched his clothes, she wove his life afresh at the same -time. - -And with all the children he took Dick’s place more and more. His -existence widened, filled up; he felt in touch with real things as of -old in the woods; the children replaced the trees. - -But it was Nixie in particular who crept close to his unsatisfied heart -and tied him to her inner life with the gossamer threads of her -sand-coloured hair. This elfin little being, with her imagination and -tenderness, brought to him something he had never known before, never -dreamed of even; a perfect companionship; a companionship utterly -unclouded. - -And the other children understood it; there was no jealousy; it was not -felt by them as favouritism. Natural and right it seemed, and was. - -‘You must ask Nixie,’ Jonah would say in reply to any question -concerning his uncle’s welfare or habits. ‘She’s his little mother, you -know.’ - -For, truth to tell, they were born, these two, in the same corner of the -world of fantasy, bred under the same stars, and fathered by the same -elemental forces. But for the trick of the years and the accident of -blood, they seemed made for one another ideally, eternally. - -Things he could speak of to no one else found in her a natural and easy -listener. To grown-ups he had never been able to talk about his mystic -longings; the very way they listened made such things instantly seem -foolish. But Nixie understood in her child-way, not because she was -sympathetic, but because she was _in and of_ them. He was merely talking -the language of her own world. He no longer felt ashamed to ‘think -aloud.’ Most people were in pursuit of such stupid, clumsy things—fame, -money, and other complicated and ugly things—but this child seemed to -understand that he cared about Realities only; for, in her own simple -way, this was what she cared about too. - -To talk with her cleared his own mind, too, in a way it had never been -cleared before. He came to understand himself better, and in so doing -swept away a great deal of accumulated rubbish; for he found that when -his thought was too confused to make clear to her, it was usually false, -wrong—not real. - -‘I can’t make that out,’ she would say, with a troubled face. ‘I -suppose, I’m not old enough yet.’ And afterwards Paul would realise that -it was himself who was at fault, not the child. Her instinct was -unerring; whereas he, with those years of solitude behind him, sometimes -lost himself in a region where imagination, self-devouring, ran the risk -of becoming untrue, possibly morbid. Her wholesome little judgments -brought sanity and laughter. - -For, like other mystical temperaments, what he sought, presumably, was -escape from himself, yet not—and herein he differed healthily from most -of his kidney—so much from his Real Inner Self, as from its outer -pettiness and limitations. True, he sought union with something larger -and more perfect, and in so far was a mystic; but this larger -‘something,’ he dimly understood, was the star of his own soul not yet -emancipated, and in so far he remained a man of action. His was the -true, wholesome mysticism; hysteria was not—as with most—its chief -ingredient. Moreover, this other, eternal part of him touched Eternity. -To be identified with it meant to be identified with God, but never for -one instant to lose his own individuality. - -And to express himself through the creative imagination, to lose his own -smallness by interpreting beauty, he had always felt must be a half-way -house to the end in view. His inability, therefore, to find such means -of expression had always meant something incalculably grave, something -that hindered growth. But now this child Nixie, in some extraordinary -yet utterly simple fashion, had come to show him the way. It was -wonderful past finding out. He hardly knew himself how it had come -about. Yet, there she was, ever by his side, pointing to ways that led -him out into expression. - -No woman could have done it. His two longings, he came to realise, were -actually one: the desire to express his yearnings grew out of the desire -to find God. - -And so it was that the thought of her growing up was horrid to him. He -could not bear to think of her as a ‘young woman’ moving in a modern -world where she would lose all touch with the elemental forces of vision -and simplicity whence she drew half her grace and wonder. Already for -him, in some mystical fashion of spiritual alchemy, she had become the -eternal feminine, exquisitely focused in the little child. With the -advance of years this must inevitably pass from her, as she increased -the distance from her source of inspiration. - -‘Nixie, you must promise never to grow up,’ he would say, laughing. - -‘Because Aventures stop then, don’t they?’ she asked. - -‘Partly that,’ he answered. - -‘And I should get tired, like mother; or stupid, like the head -gardener,’ she added. ‘I know. But I don’t think I ever shall, somehow. -I think I am meant to be always like this.’ - -The serious way she said this last phrase escaped him at the time. He -remembered it afterwards, however. - -It was so delightful, too, to read out his stories and aventures to her; -they laughed over them, and her criticisms often improved them vastly. -He even read her his first poem without shyness, and they discussed each -verse and talked about ‘stealing Heaven’s fire,’ and the poor ‘sparks’ -that never grew into flames. The ‘kiss of fire’ she thought must be -wonderful. She also asked what a ‘lyre’ was. They made up other verses -together too. But though they laughed and she asked odd questions, on -the whole she grasped the sadness of the poem perfectly. - -‘Let’s go and cry a bit somewhere,’ she remarked quietly, her eyes very -wistful. ‘It helps it out awfully, you know.’ - -He reminded her, however, of a sage remark of Toby’s, to the effect that -when men grew beards they lost the power to cry. Quick as a flash, then, -she turned with one of her exquisite little bits of unconscious poetry. - -‘Let’s go to the Gwyle then, and make the stream cry for us instead,’ -she said gravely, with a profound sympathy, ‘because everybody’s tears -must get into the water some time—and so to the sea, mustn’t they?’ - -And on their way, what with jumping ditches and flower-beds, they forgot -all about the crying. On the edge of the woods, however, she raced up -again to his side, her blue eyes full of a new wonder. ‘I know that wind -of inspiration that your poetry said never blew for you,’ she cried. ‘I -know where it blows. Quick! I’ll show you!’ The pace made him pant a -bit; he almost regretted he had mentioned it. ‘I know where it blows, -we’ll catch it, and you shall see. Then you can always, always get it -when you want it.’ - -And a little farther on, after wading through deep bracken, they -stopped, and Nixie took his hand. ‘Come on tiptoe now,’ she whispered -mysteriously. ‘Don’t crack the twigs with your feet.’ And, smiling at -this counsel of perfection, he obeyed to the best of his ability, while -she pretended not to notice the series of explosions that followed his -tread. - -It was a curve in the skirts of the wood where they found themselves; a -small inlet where the tide of daylight flowed against the dark cliffs of -the firs, and then fell back. The thick trees held it at bay so that -only the spray of light penetrated beyond, as from advancing waves. -‘Thus far and no farther,’ very plainly said the pine trees, and the -sunshine lay there collected in the little hollow with the delicious -heat of all the summer. It was a corner hitherto undiscovered by Paul; -he saw it with the pleasure of a discovery. - -And there, set brightly against the sombre background, stood the slender -figure of a silver birch tree, all sweet and shining, its branches -sifting the sunshine and the wind; while behind it, standing forth -somewhat from the main body of the wood, a pine, shaggy and formidable, -grew close as though to guard it. The picture, with its striking -contrast, needed no imagination to make it more appealing. It was patent -to any eye. - -‘That’s _my_ tree,’ said Nixie softly, with both arms linked about his -elbow and her cheek laid against the sleeve of his coat. ‘My fav’rite -tree. And that’s where your winds of inspiration blow that you said you -couldn’t catch. So now you can always come and hear them, you see.’ - -Paul entered instantly into the spirit of her dream. The way her child’s -imagination seized upon inanimate objects and incorporated them into the -substance of her own life delighted him, for it was also his own way, -and he understood it. - -‘Then that old pine,’ he answered, pointing to the other, ‘is my tree. -See! It’s come out of the wood to protect the little birch.’ - -The child ran from his side and stood close to them. ‘Yes, and don’t you -see,’ she cried, her eyes popping with excitement, ‘this is me, and -that’s you!’ She patted the two trunks, first the birch and then the -pine. ‘It’s us! I never thought of that before, never! It’s you looking -after me and taking care of me, and me dancing and laughing round you -all the time!’ She ran back to his side and hopped up to plant a kiss in -his beard. He quite forgot to correct her a’venturous grammar. - -‘Of course,’ he cried, ‘so it is. Look! The branches touch too. Your -little leaves run up among my old needles!’ - -Nixie clapped her hands and ran to and fro, laughing and talking, on -errands of further discovery, while Paul sat down to watch the scene and -think his own thoughts. It was just the picture to appeal strongly to -him. At any time the beauty of the tree would have seized him, but with -no one else could he have enjoyed it in the same way, or spoken of his -enjoyment. While Nixie flitted here and there in the sunshine, the -little birch behind her bent down and then released itself with a -graceful rush of branches as the pressure of the wind passed. Against -the blue sky she tossed her leafy hands; then, with a passing shiver, -stood still. - -‘I wonder,’ ran his thought, ‘why poets need invent Dryads when such an -incomparable revelation lies plain in one of the commonest of trees like -this?’ And, at the same moment, he saw Nixie dart past between the fir -trees and the birch, as though the very Dryad he was slighting had -slipped out to chide him. Her hair spread in the sunshine like leaves. -In the world of trees here, surely, was the very essence of what is -feminine caught and imprisoned. Whatever of grace and wonder emanate -from the face and figure of a young girl to enchant and bewitch here -found expression in the silver stem and branches, in the running limbs -so slender, in the twigs that bent with their cataracts of flying hair. -Seen against the dark pine-wood, this little birch tree laughed and -danced; over that silver skin ran, positively, smiles; from the facets -of those dainty leaves twinkled mischief and the joys of innocence. -Here, in a word, was Nixie herself in the terms of tree-dom; and, as he -watched, the wind swept out the branches towards him in a cluster of -rustling leaves,—and at the same instant Nixie shot laughing to his -side. - -For a second he hardly knew whether it was the child or the silver birch -that nestled down beside him and began to murmur in his ear. - -‘This is it, you see,’ she was saying; ‘and there’s your wind of -inspiration blowing now.’ - -‘We shall have to alter the first verse then,’ he said gravely: - - ‘The winds of inspiration blow, - Yet _never_ pass me by.’ - -‘Of course, of course,’ she whispered, listening half to her uncle, -half to the rustle in the branches. ‘And now,’ she added presently, -‘you can always come and write your poetry here, and it will be -very-wonderfulindeed poetry, you see. And if you leave a bit of paper -on the tree you’ll find it in the morning covered with all sorts of -things in very fine writing—oh, but _very very_ fine writing, so small -that no one can see it except you and me. One of the Little Winds we -saw, you know, will twine round it and leave marks. And the big pine -is you and the birch is me, isn’t it?’ she ended with sudden -conviction. - -The game, of course, was after her own heart. Up she sprang then -suddenly again, picked a spray of leaves from a hanging branch, and -brought it back to him. - -‘And here’s a bit of me for a present, so that you can’t ever forget,’ -she said with a gravity that held no smile. And she fastened it with -much tugging and arranging in his buttonhole. ‘A bit of my tree, and so -of me.’ - -‘Then I might leave a bit of paper in the water too,’ he remarked slyly -on their way home, ‘so as to get the thoughts of the stream.’ - -‘Easily,’ she said, ‘only it must be wrapped up in something. I’ll get -Jonah’s sponge-bag and lend it you. Only you must promise faithfully to -return it in case we go to the seaside in the summer.’ - -‘And perhaps some of those tears we were talking about will stick on it -and leave their marks before they go on to the sea,’ he suggested. - -‘Oh, but they’d be too sad,’ she answered quickly. ‘They’re much better -lost in the sea, aren’t they?’ - - * * * * * - -Thus the poetry in his soul that he could not utter, he lived. - -Without any conscious effort of the imagination, the instant Nixie, or -the thought of her, stood beside him—lo, he was in Fairyland. It was so -real that it was positively bewildering. - -And the rest of that quiet household, without knowing it, contributed to -its reality. For, to begin with, the place was delightfully ‘out of the -world’; and, after that, the gradations between the two regions seemed -so easy and natural: the shadowy personality of his sister; the dainty -little French governess flitting everywhere with her plaintive voice in -the wake of the elusive children; then the children themselves—Jonah, -the mischievous; Toby with her shining face of onion skin; and, last of -all, the host of tumbling animals, the mysterious cats, the kittens, all -fluff and wonder; and the whole of it set amid the scenery of flowers, -hills, and sea. It was impossible to tell exactly where the actual -threshold lay, this shifting, fluid threshold dividing the two worlds; -but there can be no question that Paul passed it day by day without the -least difficulty, and that it was Nixie who knew all the quickest -short-cuts. - -And to all who—since childhood—have lived in Fairyland and tasted of its -sweet innocence and loveliness, comes sooner or later the desire to -transfer something of these qualities to the outer world. Paul felt this -more and more as the days passed. The wish to beautify the lives of -others grew in him with a sudden completeness that proved it to have -been there latent all the time. Through the voices of Nixie, Jonah, and -Toby, as it were, he heard the voices—those myriad, faint, unhappy -voices—of the world’s neglected children a-calling to him: ‘Tell us the -Aventures too!’—‘Take us with you through that Crack!’—‘Show us the -Wind, and let us climb with you the Scaffolding of Night.’ - -And Paul, listening in his deep heart, began to understand that Nixie’s -education of himself was but a beginning: all unconsciously that elfin -child was surely becoming also his inspiration. This first lesson in -self-expression she had taught him was like the trickle that would lead -to the bursting of the dam. The waters of his enthusiasms would -presently pour out with the rush of genuine power behind them. What he -had to say, do, and live—all forms of self-expression—were to find a -larger field of usefulness than the mere gratification of his personal -sense of beauty. - -As yet, however, the thought only played dimly to and fro at the back of -his mind, seeking a way of escape. The greater outlet could not come all -at once. The germ of the desire lay there in secret development, but the -thing he should do had not yet appeared. - -So, for the time being, he continued to live in Fairyland and write -Aventures. - -It was really incalculable the effect of enchantment this little -yellow-haired girl cast upon him—hard to believe, hard to realise. So -true, so exquisite was it, however, that he almost came to forget her -age, and that she was actually but a child. To him she seemed more and -more an intimate companion of the soul who had existed always, and that -both he and she were ageless. It was their souls that played, talked, -caressed, not merely their minds or bodies. In her flower-like little -figure dwelt assuredly an old and ripened soul; one, too, it seemed to -him sometimes, that hardly belonged to this world at all. - -There was that about their relationship which made it eternal—it always -had been somewhere, it always would be—somewhere. No confinings of -flesh, no limitations of mind and sense, no conditions of mere time and -space, could lay their burden upon it for long. It belonged most sweetly -to the real things which are conditionless. - -Moreover, one of the chief effects of the world of Faery, experts say, -is that Time is done away with; emotions are inexhaustible and last for -ever, continually renewing themselves; the Fairies dance for years -instead of only for a night; their minds and bodies grow not old; their -desires, and the objects of their desires, pass not away. - -‘So, unquestionably,’ said Paul to himself from time to time as he -reflected upon the situation, ‘I am bewitched. I must see what there is -that I can do in the matter to protect myself from further -depredations!’ - -Yet all he did immediately, so far as can be ascertained among the -sources of this veracious history, was to collect the ‘Aventures’ -already written and journey with them one fine day to London, where he -had an interview of some length with a publisher—Dick’s publisher. The -result, at any rate, was—the records prove it—that some time afterwards -he received a letter in which it was plainly stated that ‘the success of -such a book is hard to predict, but it has qualities, both literary and -imaginative, which entitle it to a hearing’; and thus that in due course -the said ‘Adventures of a Prisoner in Fairyland’ appeared upon the -book-stalls. For the publishers, being the foremost in the land, took -the high view that seemed almost independent of mercenary calculations; -and it is interesting to note that the years justified their judgment, -and that the ‘Adventures’ may now be found upon the table of every house -in England where there dwells a true child, be that child seven or -seventy. - -And any profits that Paul collected from the sale went, not into his own -pocket, but were put aside, as the sequel shall show, for a secret -purpose that lay hidden at this particular stage of the story among the -very roots of his heart and being. - -The summer, meanwhile, passed quickly away, and August melted into -September, finding him still undecided about his return to America. - -For the rest, there was no hurry. There was another six months in which -to make up his mind. Meanwhile, also, he made frequent use of the -‘Crack,’ and the changes in his soul went rapidly forward. - - - - - CHAPTER XIX - - There was a Being whom my spirit oft - Met on its visioned wanderings, far aloft, - In the clear golden prime of my youth’s dawn, - Upon the fairy isles of sunny lawn, - Amid the enchanted mountains, and the caves - Of divine sleep, and on the air-like waves - Of wonder-level dream, whose tremulous floor - Paved her light steps;—on an imagined shore - Under the grey beak of some promontory - She met me, robed in such exceeding glory, - That I beheld her not - _Epipsychidion_ - - -One afternoon in late September he made his way alone across the hills. -Clouds blew thinly over a sky of watery blue, driven by an idle wind the -roses had left behind. It seemed a day strayed from out the summer that -now found itself, thrilled and a little confused, in the path of -autumn—and summer had sent forth this soft wind to bring it back to the -fold. - -The ‘Crack’ was always near at hand on such a day, and Paul slipped in -without the least difficulty. He found himself in a valley of the Blue -Mountains hitherto unknown, and, so wandering, came presently to a bend -of the river where the sand stretched smooth and inviting. - -For a moment he stopped to watch the slanting waves and listen, when to -his sudden amazement he saw upon the shore, half concealed by the reeds -near the bank—a human figure. A second glance showed him that it was the -figure of a young girl, lying there in the sun, her bare feet just -beyond reach of the waves, and her yellow hair strewn about the face so -as to screen it almost entirely from view. A white dress covered her -body; she was slim, he saw, as a child. She was asleep. - -Paul stood and stared. - -‘Shall I wake her?’ was his first thought. But his second thought was -truer: ‘Can I help waking her?’ And then a third came to him, subtle and -inexplicable, yet scarcely shaping itself in actual language: ‘Is she -after all _a stranger_?’ - -Flying memories, half-formed, half-caught, ran curiously through his -brain. What was it in the turn of the slender neck, in the lines of the -little mouth, just visible where he stood, that seemed familiar? Did he -not detect upon that graceful figure lying motionless in repose some -indefinable signature that recalled his outer life? Or was it merely -that fancy played tricks, and that he reconstructed a composite picture -from the galleries of memory, with the myriad expression and fugitive -magic of dream or picture—ideal figures he had conjured with in the past -and set alive in some inner frame of his deepest thoughts? He was -conscious of a delicious bewilderment. A singular emotion stirred in his -heart. Yet the face and figure he sought utterly evaded him. - -Then, the first sharp instinct to turn aside passed. He accepted the -adventure. Stooping down for a stone, he flung it with a noisy splash -into the river. The girl opened her eyes, threw her hair back in a -cloud, and sat up. - -At once a wave of invincible shyness descended upon Paul, rendering -words or action impossible; he felt ridiculously embarrassed, and sought -hurriedly in his mind for ways of escape. But, before any feasible plan -for undoing what was already done suggested itself, he became aware of a -very singular thing—the face of the girl was covered! He could not see -it clearly. Something, veil-like and misty, hung before it so that his -eyes could not focus properly upon the features. The recognition he had -half anticipated, therefore, did not come. - -And this helped to restore his composure. It was, in any case, futile to -pretend he did not see her. For one thing, he realised that she was -staring at him just as hard as he was staring at her. The very next -instant she rose and came across the hot sand towards him, her hair -flying loose, and both hands outstretched by way of greeting. Again, the -half-recognition that refused to complete itself swept confusingly over -him. - -But this spontaneous and unexpected action had an immediate effect upon -him of another kind. His embarrassment vanished. What she did seemed -altogether right and natural, and the beauty of the girl drove all minor -emotions from his mind. His whole being rose in a wave of unaffected -delight, and almost before he was aware of it, he had stepped forward -and caught both her hands in his own. - -This strange golden happiness at first troubled his speech. - -‘But surely I know you!’ he cried. ‘If only I could see your face——!’ - -‘You ought to know me,’ she replied at once with a laugh as of old -acquaintance, ‘for you have called for me often enough, I’m sure!’ Her -voice was soft; curiously familiar accents rang in it; yet, as with the -face, he knew not whose it was. - -She looked up at him, and though he could not make out the features, he -discerned the expression they wore—an expression of peace and -confidence. The girl trusted him delightfully. - -‘Then what hides you from me?’ he insisted. - -She answered him so low that he hardly caught the words. Certainly, at -the moment he did not understand them, for happiness still confused him. -‘The body,’ she murmured; ‘the veil of the body.’ - -She returned the firm and equal pressure of his hands, and allowed him -to draw her close. Their faces approached, and he looked searchingly -down upon her, trying to pierce the veil in vain. The hot sunshine fell -in a blaze upon their uncovered heads. The next moment the girl raised -her lips to his, and almost before he knew it they had kissed. - -Yet that kiss seemed the most natural thing in the world; at a stroke it -killed the last vestige of shyness. Youth ran in his veins like fire. - -‘Now, tell me exactly who you are, please,’ he cried, standing back a -little for an inspection, but still holding her hands. They swung out at -arm’s length like children. - -‘I think first you should tell me who you are,’ she laughed. ‘I want to -be a mystery a little longer. It’s so much more interesting!’ - -Leaning backwards with her hair tumbling down her neck, she looked at -him out of eyes that he half imagined, half knew. Laughter and -gentleness played over her like sunlight. Standing there, framed against -the reeds of the river bank, with the blue waters behind and the wind -and sky about her head, Paul thought that never till this moment had he -understood the whole magic of a woman’s beauty. Yet at the same time he -somehow divined that she was as much child as woman, and that something -of eternal youthfulness mingled exquisitely with her suggestion of -maturity. - -‘Of course,’ he laughed in return, like a boy in mid-mischief, ‘that’s -your privilege, isn’t it? My name, then, is——’ - -But there he stuck fast. It seemed so foolish to give the name he owned -in that other tinsel world; it was merely a disguise like a frock-coat -or evening dress, or the absurd uniform he had once assumed to deceive -the children with. He almost felt ashamed of the name he was known by in -that world! - -‘Well?’ she asked slyly, ‘and have you forgotten it quite?’ - -‘I’m the _Man who saw the Wind_, for one thing,’ he said at length; -‘and, after that, well—I suppose I’m the man who’s been looking for you -without knowing it all his life! Now do you know me?’ he concluded -triumphantly. - -‘You foolish creature! Of course _I_ know you!’ - -She came closer; the sunshine and the odour of the flowers seemed to -come with her. ‘It’s _you_ who couldn’t find _me_! I’ve been waiting for -you to claim me ever since—either of us can remember.’ - -A queer, faint rush of memory rose upon him from the depths—and was -gone. For an instant it seemed that her face half cleared. - -‘Then, in the name of beauty,’ he cried, starting forward, ‘why can’t I -see your face and eyes? Why do I only see you partly——?’ - -She hesitated an instant and drew back; she lowered her eyes—he felt -that—and the voice dropped very low again as she answered: - -‘Because, as yet, you only know me—partly.’ - -‘As through a glass, darkly, you mean?’ he said, half grave, half -laughing. - -The girl took both his hands and pressed them silently for a moment. - -‘When you know me as I know you,’ she whispered softly, ‘then—we shall -know one another—see one another—face to face. But even now, in these -few minutes, you have come to know me better than you ever did before. -And that is something, isn’t it?’ - -She moved quite close, passing her hands down his bronzed cheeks and -shaking his head playfully as one might do to a loved child. - -‘You take my breath away!’ gasped the delighted man, too bewildered in -his new happiness to let the strangeness of her words perplex him long. -‘But, tell me again,’ he added, slowly releasing himself, ‘how it is -that you know me so well? Tell me again and again!’ - -She replied demurely, standing before him like a teacher before a -backward pupil. ‘Because I have always watched, studied, and loved -you—from within yourself. It was not my fault that you failed to know me -when I spoke. Perhaps, even now, you would not have found me unless—in -certain ways—through the children—you had begun to come into your own——’ - -Paul interrupted her, taking her in his arms, while she made no effort -to escape, but only laughed. ‘And I’ll take good care I never lose you -again after this!’ he cried. - -‘You know, I wasn’t really asleep just now on the sand,’ she told him a -little later. ‘I heard you coming all the time; only I wanted to see if -you would pass me by as you always did before.’ - -‘It’s very odd and very wonderful,’ he said, ‘but I never noticed you -till to-day.’ - -‘And very natural,’ she added under her breath, so low that he did not -hear. - -And Paul, moving beside her, murmured in his beard, ‘If she’s not my -Ideal, set mysteriously somehow into the framework of one I already -love—I swear I don’t know who she is!’ - - -They made their way along the sandy shores of the river, the waves -breaking at their feet, the wind singing among the reeds; never had the -sunlight seemed so brilliant, the day so wonderful and kind. All nature -helped them; playing their great game as if it was the only game worth -playing in the whole world—the game loved from one eternity to another. - -‘So the children have told you about me, have they?’ he whispered into -the ear that came just level with his lips. - -‘And all you love, as well. Your dreams and thoughts more than anything -else—especially your thoughts. You must be very careful with those; they -mould me; they make me what I am. If you didn’t think nicely of -me—verynicelyindeed——’ - -‘But I shall always think nicely, beautifully, of you,’ he broke in -eagerly, not noticing the familiar touch of language. - -‘You have so far, at any rate,’ she replied, ‘for the yearning and -desire of your imagination have created me afresh.’ And he discerned the -smile upon her veiled face as one may see the sun only through troubled -glass, yet know its warmth and brilliance. - -‘Then it is because you are part and parcel of my inner self that you -seem so real and intimate and—true?’ he asked passionately. - -‘Of course. I am in your very blood; I beat in your heart; I understand -your every passion and emotion, because I am present at their birth. The -most fleeting of your dreams finds its reflection in me; your spirit’s -faintest aspiration runs through me like a trumpet call; and, now that -you have found me, we need never, we _can_ never, separate!’ - -The passion of her words broke over his heart like a wave. He felt -himself trembling. - -‘But it is all so swift and wonderful that it makes me almost -afraid—afraid it cannot last,’ he objected, knowing all the time that -his words were but a common device to make his pleasure the more real. - -‘If only, oh, if only I could carry you away with me into that outer -world——!’ - -She laughed deliciously in his face. ‘It is from that very “outer world” -that you have carried me _in here_,’ she told him softly, ‘for I am -always with you.’ And with the words came that fugitive trick of voice -and gesture that made him certain he knew her—then was gone again. ‘In -the house with your sister and the children,’ she continued; ‘when you -write your Aventures and your verses; in your daily round of duties, -small and great; and when you lie down at night—ah! especially then—I -curl up beside you in your heart, and fly with you through all your -funny dreamland, and wake your dear eyes with a kiss so soft you never -know it. In your early morning rambles, as in your reveries of the dusk, -I never leave you—because I cannot. All day long I am beside you, though -you little realise my presence. I share half your pleasures and all your -pains. And in return you hand over to me half that soul whose unuttered -prayers have thus created me afresh for your salvation.’ - -‘But it must be my own voice speaking,’ he cried inwardly, satisfied and -happy beyond belief. ‘It is the words of my own thoughts that I hear!’ - -‘Because I am your own thoughts speaking,’ she replied instantly, as -though he had uttered aloud. ‘I lie, you see, behind your inmost -thoughts!’ - - -They walked through sunny meadows, picking their way among islands of -wild flowers. There was no sound but the murmur of wind and river, and -the singing of birds. Fleecy clouds, here and there in the blue, hung -cool and white, watching them. The whole world, Paul felt, listened -without shyness. - -‘And so it is that you love me without shyness,’ she went on, -marvellously linking in with his thought; ‘I am intimate with you as -your own soul, and our relations are pure with the purity that was -before man. There can be no secrets between us, or possibility of -secrets, for your most hidden dreams are also mine. So mingled with your -ultimate being am I, in fact, that sometimes you dare not recognise me -as separate, and all that appears on the surface of your dear mind must -first filter through myself. Why!’ she cried, with a sudden rush of -mischievous laughter, ‘I even know what you are made of; why your queer -heart has never been able to satisfy itself—to “grow up,” as you call -it; and all about this endless desire you have to find God, which is -really nothing but the search to find your true inner Self.’ - -‘Tell me! tell me!’ he cried. - -‘Besides the sun,’ she went on with a strange swiftness of words, -‘there’s the wind and the rain in you; yes, and moon and stars as well. -That’s why the fire and restlessness of the imagination for ever tear -you. No mere form of expression can ever satisfy _that_, but only -increase it; for it means your desire to know reality, to know beauty, -to know your own soul; to know—God! Your blood has kinship with those -tides that flow through all space, even to the gates of the stars; dawns -and sunsets, moonrise and meteors haunt your thoughts with their magic -lights; wild flowers of the fields and hillside nod beside you while you -sleep; and the winds, laughing and sighing, lift your dreams upon vast -wings and flash with them beyond the edges of the universe!’ - -‘Stop,’ he cried with passion, ‘you are telling all my secrets.’ - -‘I am telling them only to myself,’ she laughed, ‘and therefore to you. -For I know all the fevers of your soul. The wilderness calls you and the -great woods. You are haunted by the faces of the world’s forgotten -places. Your imagination plays with the lightning about the mountain -tops, and seeks primeval forests and the shores of desolate seas....’ - -Paul listened spellbound while she put some of the most intangible of -his fancies into the language of poetry. Yet she spoke with the quiet -simplicity of true things. The man felt his soul shake with delight to -hear her. Again and again, while she spoke, the feeling came to him that -in another moment her face must clear and he would know her; yet the -actual second of recognition never appeared. The girl’s true identity -continued to evade him. The enticing uncertainty added enormously to her -charm. It evoked in him even the sense of worship. - -‘And this shall be the earnest of our ideal companionship,’ she -whispered, holding up a spray of leaves which she proceeded to fasten -into the buttonhole of his coat; ‘the symbol by which you shall always -know me—the sign of my presence in your heart.’ - -The top of her head, as she bent over the task, was on a level with his -lips, and when he stooped to kiss it the perfumes of the earth—flowers, -trees, wind, water—rose about her like a cloud. Her hair was hot with -sunshine, all silken with the air of summer. They were one being, -growing out of the earth that he loved—the old, magical, beautiful earth -that fed so great a part of his secret life from perennial springs. - -As she drew away again from his caress he glanced down and saw that what -she had pinned into his coat was a little cluster of leaves from the -branch of a silver birch tree. - -‘Then I, too, shall give you a sign,’ he said, ‘that shall mean the same -as yours.’ And he picked a twig of pine needles from a tree beside them -and twined it through a coil of her hair. Then, seizing her hands, he -swung her round in a dance till they fell upon the river bank at last, -tired out, and slept the sleep of children. - -And after that, for a whole day it seemed, they wandered through this -summer landscape, following the river to its source in the mountains, -and then descending on the farther side to the shores of a blue-rimmed -sea. - -‘There are the ships,’ she cried, pointing to the shining expanse of -water; ‘and, see, there is _our_ ship coming for us.’ - -And as she stood there, laughing with excitement like a child, a barque -with painted figure-head and brown sails yielding to the wind, came -towards them over the waves, the bales of fruit upon her decks scenting -the air, the smell of rope and tar and salty wood enticing them to -distance and adventure. Through the cordage the very sound of the wind -called to them to be off. - -‘So at last we start upon our long, long voyage together,’ she said -mysteriously, blushing with pleasure, and leading him down towards the -ship. - -‘And where are we to sail to?’ he asked; for the flap of the sails and -the waves beating against the sides made resistance impossible. The -sea-smells were in his nostrils. He glanced down at the veiled face -beside him. - -‘First to the Islands of the Night,’ she whispered so low that not even -the wind could carry it away; ‘for there we shall be alone.’ - -‘And then——?’ - -‘And then to the Islands of Delight,’ she murmured more softly still; -‘for there we shall find the lost children of the world—_our_ children, -and so be happy with them ever after, like the people in the fairy -tales.’ - - -With something like a shock he realised that some one else was walking -beside him, talking of things that were real in a very different sense. -He had been out walking longer than he knew, and had reached the house -again. The autumnal mist already drew its gauze curtains about the old -building. The smoke rose in straight lines from the chimneys, melting -into dusk. That other place of sunshine and flowers had faded—sea, ship, -islands, had all sunk beneath the depths within him. And this other -person had been saying things for some minutes.... - -‘I don’t believe you’ve been listening to a single word, Paul. You stand -there with your eyes fixed on vacancy, and only nod your head and -grunt.’ - -‘I assure you, Margaret, dear,’ he stammered, coming to the surface as -from a long swim under water, ‘I rarely miss anything you say. Only the -Crack came so very suddenly. You were saying that Dick’s niece was -coming to us—Joan—er—Thingumybob, and——’ - -‘So you heard some of it,’ she laughed quietly, relenting. ‘And I hope -the Crack you speak about is in your head, not in mine.’ - -‘It’s everywhere,’ he said with his grave humour. ‘That’s the trouble, -you see; one never knows——’ Then, seeing that she was looking anxiously -at the walls of the house and at the roof, he dropped his teasing and -came back to solid earth again. ‘And how soon do you expect her?’ he -asked in his most practical voice. ‘When does she arrive upon the -scene?’ - -‘Why, Paul, I’ve already told you twice! You really are getting more -absent-minded every day. Joan comes to-morrow, or the day after—she’s to -telegraph which—and stays here for as long as she can manage—a fortnight -or so, I expect. She works herself to death, I believe, in town with -those poor children, and I want her to get a real rest before she goes -back.’ - -‘Waifs, aren’t they?’ he asked, picking up the thread of the discourse -like a thing heard in a dream, ‘lost children of the slums?’ - -‘Yes. You’ll see them for yourself probably, as she has some of them -down usually for a day in the country. One can be of use in that way—and -it’s so nice to help. Dick, you know, was absorbed in the scheme. You -will help, won’t you, when the time comes?’ - -He promised; and they went in together to tea. - - - - - CHAPTER XX - - -‘This is him,’ cried Jonah breathlessly, pointing with a hand that wore -ink like a funeral glove. ‘I’ve got him this time. Look!’ And he waved a -half-sheet of paper in his uncle’s face. - -‘I’ve made one too—oh, a beauty!’ echoed Toby; ‘and I haven’t made half -such a mess as you.’ Three of her fingers were in mourning. A crape-like -line running from the nose to the corner of the mouth, lent her a -certain distinction. She, too, waved a bit of paper in the air. - -‘Mine’s the real Jack-of-the-Inkpot though, isn’t he, Uncle Paul?’ -exclaimed the boy, leaving the schoolroom table, and running up to show -it. - -‘They’re all real—as real as your awful fingers,’ decreed Paul. - -He had been explaining how to make the figure of the Ink Sprite that -leaves blots wherever he goes, blackens penholders and fingers, and -leaves his crawly marks across even the neatest page of writing. Two -blots and a line-then fold the paper. Open it again and the ink has run -into the semblance of an outlandish figure with countless legs and arms, -and a fantastic head; something between a spider, a centipede, and a -sprite. - -‘It’s Jack-of-the-Inkpot,’ he told them. ‘Half the time he does his -dirty work invisibly, and if he touches blotting-paper—he vanishes -altogether.’ - -Jonah skipped about the room, waving his hideous creation in the air. -Toby, in her efforts to make a still better one, almost climbed into the -ink-stand. Nixie sat on the window-sill, dangling her legs and looking -on. - -‘Very little ink does it,’ explained Paul, frightened at the results of -his instruction. ‘You needn’t pour it on! He works with the smallest -possible material, remember!’ His own fingers were no longer as spotless -as they might have been. - -‘Look!’ shouted Jonah, standing on a chair and ignoring the rebuke. -‘There he goes—just like a black spider flying!’ He let his half-sheet -drop through the air, ink running down its side as it fell, while Toby -watched with the envy of despair. - -Paul pounced upon the wriggling figure just in time to prevent further -funeral trappings. He turned it face downwards upon the blotting-paper. - -‘Oh, oh!’ cried the children in the same breath; ‘it’s drank him up!’ - -‘Drunk him up,’ corrected Paul, relieved by the success of his manœuvre. -‘His feet touched the blotting-paper, you see.’ - -A pause followed. - -‘You promised to tell us his song, please,’ observed Nixie from her -perch on the window-sill. - -‘This is it, then,’ he answered, looking round at the smudged and solemn -faces, instantly grown still. ‘To judge by appearances you know this -Sprite better than I do! - - I dance on your paper, - I hide in your pen, - I make in your ink-stand - My black little den; - And when you’re not looking - I hop on your nose, - And leave on your forehead - The marks of my toes. - - When you’re trying to finish - Your “i” with a dot, - I slip down your finger - And make it a blot; - And when you’re so busy - To cross a big “T,” - I make on the paper - A little Black Sea. - - I drink blotting-paper, - Eat penwiper-pie, - You never can catch me, - You never need try! - I hop _any_ distance, - I use _any_ ink! - I’m on to your fingers - Before you can wink.’ - -Paul’s back was to the door. He was in the act of making up a new verse, -and declaiming it, when he was aware that a change had come suddenly -over the room. It was manifest from the faces of the children. Their -attention had wandered; they were looking past him—beyond him. - -And when he turned to discover the cause of the distraction he looked -straight into the grey eyes of a woman—grave-faced, with an expression -of strength and sweetness. As he did so the opening words of verse four -slipped out in spite of themselves:— - - ‘I’m the blackest of goblins, - I revel in smears—’ - -He smothered the accusing statement with a cough that was too late to -disguise it, while the grey eyes looked steadily into his with a twinkle -their owner made no attempt to conceal. The same instant the children -rushed past him to welcome her. - -‘It’s Cousin Joan!’ they cried with one voice, and dragged her into the -room. - -‘And this is Uncle Paul from America——’ began Nixie. - -‘And he’s crammed full of sprites and things, and sees the wind and gets -through our Crack, and—and climbs up the rigging of the Night——’ cried -Jonah, striving to say everything at once before his sisters. - -‘And writes the aventures of our Secret S’iety,’ Toby managed to -interpolate by speaking very fast indeed. - -‘He’s Recording Secre’ry, you see,’ explained Nixie in a tone of gentle -authority that brought order into the scene. ‘Cousin Joan, you know,’ -she added, turning gravely to her uncle, ‘is Visiting I’spector.’ - -‘Whose visits, however, are somewhat rare, I fear,’ said the new -arrival, with a smile. Her voice was quiet and very pleasant. ‘I hope, -Mr. Rivers, you are able to keep the Society in better order than I ever -could.’ - -The introduction seemed adequate. They shook hands. Paul somehow forgot -the signs of mourning he wore in common with the rest. - -‘Cousin Joan has a _real_ Society in London, of course,’ Nixie explained -gravely, ‘a Society that picks up _real_ lost children.’ - -‘A-filleted with ours, though,’ cried Jonah proudly. - -‘’ffiliated, he means,’ explained Nixie, while everybody laughed, and -the boy looked uncertain whether to be proud, hurt, or puzzled, but in -the end laughing louder than the rest. - -When Paul was alone a few minutes later, the children having been -carried off shouting to receive the presents their ‘Cousin’ always -brought them on her rare visits from London, he was conscious first of a -curious sense of disappointment. That strong-faced woman, grave of -expression, with the low voice and the rather sad grey eyes, he divined -was the cause; though, for the moment, he could not trace the feeling to -any definite detail. In his mind he still saw her standing in the -doorway—a woman no longer in her first youth, yet comely with a -delicate, strong beauty that bore the indefinable touch of high living. -It was peculiar to his intuitive temperament to note the spirit before -he became aware of physical details; and this woman had left something -of her personality behind her. She had spoken little, and that little -ordinary; had done nothing in act or gesture that was striking. He did -not even remember how she was dressed, beyond that she looked neat, -soft, effective. Yet, there it was; something was in the room with him -that had not been there before she came. - -At first he felt vaguely that his sense of disappointment had to do with -herself. Not that he had expected anything dazzling, or indeed had given -her consciously any thought at all. The male creature, of course, -hearing the name of a girl he is about to meet, instinctively conjures -up a picture to suit her name. He cannot help himself. And Joan -Nicholson, apart from any deliberate process of thought or desire on his -part, hardly suited the picture that had thus spontaneously formed in -his mind. The woman seemed too big for the picture. He had seen her, -perhaps, hitherto, only through his sister’s eyes. It puzzled him. About -her, mysteriously as an invisible garment, was the atmosphere of things -bigger, grander, finer than he had expected; nobler than he quite -understood. - -Ah, now, at last, he was getting at it. The vague sense of -disappointment was not with her; it was _with himself_. Tested by some -new standard her mere presence had subtly introduced into the room—into -his intuitive mind—he had become suddenly dissatisfied with himself. His -play with the children, he remembered feeling, had seemed all at once -insignificant, unreal, almost unworthy—compared to another larger order -of things her presence had suggested, if not actually revealed. - -Thus, in a flash of vision, the truth came to him. It was with himself -and not with her that he was disappointed. He recalled scraps of the -conversation. It was, after all, nothing Joan Nicholson had said; it was -something Nixie had said. Nixie, his little blue-eyed guide and teacher, -had been up to her wizard tricks again, all unconsciously. - -‘Cousin Joan has a _real_ Society in London, you know—_a Society that -picks up real lost children_.’ - -That was the sentence that had done it. He felt certain. Combined with -the spiritual presentment of the woman, this apparently stray remark had -dropped down into his heart with almost startling effect—like the grain -of powder a chemist adds to his test tube that suddenly changes the -colour and nature of its contents. As yet he could not determine quite -what the change meant; he felt only that it was there—disappointment, -dissatisfaction with himself. - -‘Cousin Joan has a _real_ Society.’ She was in earnest. - -‘_Real_ lost children’—perhaps potential Nixies, Jonahs, Tobys, all -waiting to be ‘picked up.’ - -The thoughts ran to and fro in him like some one with a little torch, -lighting up corners and recesses of his soul he had so far never -visited. For thus it sometimes is with the chemistry of growth. The -changes are prepared subconsciously for a long while, and then comes -some trivial little incident—a chance remark, a casual action—and a -match is set to the bonfire. It flames out with a sudden rush. The -character develops with a leap; the soul has become wiser, advanced, -possessed of longer, clearer sight. - -Paul was certainly aware of a new standard by which he must judge -himself; and, for all the apparent slightness of its cause, a little -reflection will persuade of its truth. Real, inner crises of a soul are -often produced by causes even more negligible. - -The desire, always latent in him, to be of some use in the world, and to -find the things he sought by losing himself in some Cause bigger than -personal ends, had been definitely touched. It now rose to the surface -and claimed deliberate attention. - -What in the world did it matter—thus he reflected while dressing for -dinner—whether his own personal sense of beauty found expression or not? -Of what account was it to the world at large, the world, for instance, -that included those ‘lost children’ who needed to be ‘picked up’? To -what use did he put it, except to his own gratification, and the passing -pleasure of the children he played with? Were there no bigger uses, -then, for his imagination, uses nobler and less personal?... - -The thoughts chased one another through his mind in some confusion. He -felt more and more dissatisfied with himself. He must set his house in -order. He really must get to work at something _real_! - -Other thoughts, too, played with him while he struggled with his studs -and tie. For he noticed suddenly with surprise that he was taking more -trouble with his appearance than usual. That black tie always bothered -him when he could not get the help of Nixie’s fingers, and usually he -appeared at the table with the results of carelessness and despair -plainly visible in its outlandish shape. But to-night he tied and -re-tied, determined to get it right. He meant to look his best. - -Yet this process of beautifying himself was instinctive, not deliberate. -It was unconscious; he did not realise what he had been about until he -was half-way downstairs. And then came another of those swift, subtle -flashes by which the soul reveals herself—to herself. This ‘dressing -up,’ what was it for? For whom? Certainly, he did not care a button what -Joan Nicholson thought of his personal appearance. That was positive. -Then, for whom, and for what, was it? Was it for some one else? Had the -arrival of this ‘woman’ upon the scene somehow brought the truth into -sudden relief?... - -A delightful, fairy thought sped across his mind with wings of gold, -waving through the dusk of his soul a spray of leaves from a silver -birch tree that he knew, and disappearing into those depths of -consciousness where feelings never clothe themselves in precise -language. A line of poetry swam up and took its place mysteriously— - - My heart has thoughts, which, though thine eyes hold mine, - Flit to the silent world and other summers, - With wings that dip beyond the silver seas. - -Could it be, then, that he had given his heart so utterly, so -exquisitely, into the keeping of a little child?... - -At any rate, before he reached the drawing-room, he understood that what -he had been so busy dressing up was not anything half so trumpery as his -mere external body and appearance. It was his interior person. That -black tie, properly made for once, was an outward and visible sign of an -inward and spiritual grace; only, having forgotten, or possibly never -heard the phrase, he could not make use of it! - -‘It’s that little, sandy-haired witch after all!’ he thought to himself. -‘Joan’s coming—a woman’s coming—has made me realise it. I must behave my -best, and look my best. It’s my soul dressing up for Nixie, I do -declare!’ - - - - - CHAPTER XXI - - -Persons with real force of purpose carry about with them something that -charges unconsciously the atmosphere of others. Paul ‘felt’ this woman. -The first impact of her presence, as has been seen, came almost as a -shock. The ‘shocks,’ however, did not continue—as such. Her influence -worked in him underground, as it were. - -She slipped easily and naturally into the quiet routine of the little -household in the Grey House under the hill, till it seemed as if she had -been there always. Margaret had insisted at once that there could be no -‘Missing’ and ‘Mistering’; Dick’s niece must be Joan, and her brother -Paul; and the more familiar terms of address were adopted without effort -on both sides. - -The children helped, too. They were all in the same Society, and before -a week had passed she had heard all the ‘aventures,’ and entered into -the discovery of new ones, even contributing some herself with a zest -that delighted Paul, and made him feel wholly at his ease with her. It -was all real to her; she could not otherwise have shown an interest; for -sham had no part in her nature, and her love for these fatherless -children was as great as his own, and similar in kind. - -‘You have given their “Society” a new lease of life,’ she told him; ‘you -are an enormous addition to it.’ - -‘Enormous—yes!’ he laughed. - -‘Enormously useful at the same time,’ she laughed in return, ‘because -you not only increase their imagination; you train it, and show them how -to use it.’ - -‘To say nothing of the indirect benefits I receive myself,’ he added. - -And, after a pause, she said: ‘For myself, too, it’s the best kind of -holiday I could possibly have. To come down here into all this, straight -from my waifs in London, is like coming into that Crack-land you have -shown them. I wish—I wish I could introduce it all to my big sad world -of unwashed urchins. They have so few chances.’ A sudden flash of -enthusiasm ran over her face like sunlight. ‘Perhaps, when they come -down here next week for a day’s outing, we might try!—if you will help -me, that is?’ She looked up. Something in the simple words touched him; -her singleness of aim stirred the depths in him. - -He promised eagerly. - -‘When it’s out,’ she added presently, ‘I’m going to give copies of your -book of aventures to some of them. A good many will understand——’ - -‘You shall have as many as you can use,’ he put in quickly, with a -thrill of pleasure he hardly understood. ‘I’m only too delighted to -think they could be of any use—any _real_ use, I mean.’ - -There was something in the simple earnestness of this woman, in the -devotion of her life to an unselfish Cause, that increased daily his -dissatisfaction with himself. She never said a word that suggested -self-sacrifice. A call had come to her, turning her entire life into an -instrument for helping others—others who might never realise enough to -say, ‘Thank you’—and she had accepted it. Now she lived it, that was -all. The Scheme that had provided the call, too, was Dick’s. It was all -conceived originally in that big practical, imaginative heart of the one -intimate friendship he had known. Moreover, it concerned children, lost -children. The appeal to the deepest in himself was thus reinforced in -several ways. More and more, beside this quiet, determined woman, with -her singleness of aim and her practical idealism, his own life seemed -trivial, cheap, selfish. She had found a medium of expression, -self-expression, compared to which his own mind was insignificant. - -From the ‘Man who splashed on the Deck’ to Joan Nicholson was a far cry; -as far almost as from the amœba to the dog—yet both the man and the -woman knew the relief of Outlet. And, now, he too was learning in his -own time and place the same truth. Nixie had brought him far. Joan, -perhaps, was to bring him farther still. - -Yet there was nothing about her that was very unusual. There are scores -and scores of unmarried women like her sprinkled all along the quiet -ways of life, noble, unselfish, unrecognised, often, no doubt, utterly -unappreciated, turning the whole current of their lives into work for -others—the best they can find. The ordinary man who, for the mother of -his children seeks first of all physical beauty, or perhaps some worldly -standard of attractiveness, passes them by. Their great force, thus -apparently neglected by Nature for her more obvious purposes, runs along -through more hidden channels, achieving great things with but little -glory or reward. To Paul, who knew nothing of modern types, and whose -knowledge of women was abstract rather than concrete, she appeared, of -course, simply normal. For all women he conceived as noble and -unselfish, capable naturally of sacrifice and devotion. To him they were -all saints, more or less, and Joan Nicholson came upon the scene of his -life merely as an ordinarily presentable specimen of the great species -he had always dreamt about. - -But it was the first time he had come into close contact with a living -example of the type he had always believed in. Here was a woman whose -interests were all outside herself. The fact thrilled and electrified -him, just as the peculiar nature of her work made a powerful and -intimate appeal to his heart. - -As the days passed, and they came to know one another better, she told -him frankly about the small beginnings of her work, and then how Dick’s -idea had caught her up and carried her away to where she now was. - -‘There was so much to be done, and so much help needed, that at first,’ -she admitted, ‘my own little efforts seemed absurd; and then he showed -me that if everybody talked like that nothing would ever be -accomplished. So I got up and tried. It was something definite and -practical. I let my bigger dreams go——’ - -‘Well done,’ he interrupted, wondering for a moment what those ‘bigger -dreams’ could have been. - -‘——and chose the certainty. And I have never regretted it, though -sometimes, of course, I am still tempted——’ - -‘That was fine of you,’ he said. He realised vaguely that she would -gladly, perhaps, have spoken to him of those ‘other dreams,’ but it was -not quite clear to him that his sympathy could be of any avail, and he -did not know how to offer it either. To ask direct questions of such a -woman savoured to his delicate mind of impertinence. - -‘There was nothing “fine” about it,’ she laughed, after an imperceptible -pause; ‘it was natural, that’s all. I couldn’t help myself really. Human -suffering has always called to me very searchingly. _Au fond_, you see, -it was almost selfishness.’ - -He suddenly felt unaccountably small with this slip of a woman at his -side, tired, overworked, giving all her best years so gladly away, and -even in her ‘holidays’ thinking of her work more than of herself. He -noticed, too, the passing flames that lit fires in her eyes and -illumined her entire face sometimes when she spoke of her London waifs. -Pity and admiration ran together in his thoughts, the latter easily -predominating. - -‘But you must make the most of your holiday,’ he said presently; ‘you -will use up your forces too soon——’ - -‘Perhaps,’ she laughed, ‘perhaps. Only I get restless with the feeling -that I’m wanted elsewhere. There’s so little time to do anything. The -years pass so quickly—after thirty; and if you always wait till you’re -“quite fit,” you wait for ever, and nothing gets done.’ - -Paul turned and looked steadily at her for a moment. A sudden beauty, -like a white and shining fire, leaped into her face, flashed about the -eyes and mouth, and was gone. Paul never forgot that look to the end of -his days. - -‘By Jove,’ he said, ‘you _are_ in earnest!’ - -‘Not more than others,’ she said simply; ‘not as much as many, even, I’m -afraid. A good soldier goes on fighting whether he’s “fit” or not, -doesn’t he?’ - -‘He ought to,’ said Paul—humbly, for some reason he could hardly -explain. - -They had many similar talks. She told him a great deal about her rescue -work in London, and he, for his part, became more and more interested. -From a distance, meanwhile, his sister observed them curiously,—though -nothing that was in Margaret’s thoughts ever for a single instant found -its way either into his mind or Joan’s. It was natural, of course, that -Margaret, the reader of modern novels, should have formed certain -conclusions, and perhaps it would have been the obvious and natural -thing for Joan and Paul to have fallen in love and been happy ever -afterwards with children of their own. It would also, no doubt, have -been ‘artistic,’ and the way things are made to happen in novels. - -But in real life things are not cut always so neatly to measure, and -whether real life is artistic or not as a whole cannot be judged until -the true, far end is known. For the perspective is wanting; the scale is -on a vaster loom; and of the threads that weave into the pattern and out -again, neither end nor beginning are open to inspection. - -The novels Margaret delighted in, with their hotch-potch of duchesses -and valets, Ministers of State and footmen, libertines and snobs, while -doubtless portraying certain phases of modern life with accuracy, could -in no way prepare her for the Pattern that was being woven beneath her -eyes by the few and simple characters in this entirely veracious -history. And it may be assumed, therefore, that Joan had come into the -scenery of Paul’s life with no such commonplace motive—since the high -Gods held the threads and wove them to their own satisfaction—as merely -to marry off the hero. - -And if Paul did not fall in love with Joan Nicholson, as he might, or -ought, to have done, he at least did the next best thing to it. He fell -head over ears in love with her work. And since love seeks ever to -imitate and to possess, he cast about in his heart for means by which he -might accomplish these ends. Already he possessed her secret. Now he had -only to imitate her methods. - -He was finding his way to a bigger and better means of self-expression -than he had yet dreamed of; while Nixie, the _dea ex machina_, for ever -flitted on ahead and showed the way. - -It remained a fairy tale of the most delightful kind. _That_, at least, -he realised clearly. - - - - - CHAPTER XXII - - -Among the branches of the ilex tree, whose thick foliage rose like a -giant swarm of bees at the end of the lawn, there were three dark spots -visible that might have puzzled the most expert botanist until he came -close enough to examine them in detail. The fact that the birds avoided -the tree at this particular hour of the evening, when they might -otherwise have loved to perch and sing, hidden among the dense shiny -leaves, would very likely have furnished a clue, and have suggested to -him—if he were a really intelligent man of science—that these dark spots -were of human origin. - -In the order in which they rose from the ground towards the top they -were, in fact, Toby, Joan Nicholson, Paul, Nixie and, highest of all, -Jonah. Paul felt safer in the big fork, Joan in the wide seat with the -back. In the upper branches Jonah perched, singing and chattering. Toby -hummed to herself happily nearer the ground, and Nixie, her legs -swinging dizzily over a serpentine branch immediately above Paul’s head, -was really the safest of the lot, though she looked ready to drop at any -moment. - -They were all at rest, these wingless human birds, in the tree where -Paul had long ago made seats and staircases and bell-ropes. - -‘I wish the wind would come,’ said Nixie. ‘It would make us all swing -about.’ - -‘And Jonah would lose his balance and bring the lot of us down like ripe -fruit,’ said Paul. - -‘On the top of Toby at the bottom,’ added Joan. - -‘But my house is well built,’ Paul objected, ‘or it would never have -held such a lot of visitors as it did yesterday.’ - -‘Look out! I’m slipping!’ cried Jonah suddenly overhead. ‘No! I’m all -right again now,’ he added a second later, having thoroughly alarmed the -lodgers on the lower floors, and sent down a shower of bark and twigs. - -‘It’s certainly more solid than your “Scaffolding of Night,”’ Joan -observed mischievously as soon as the shower was past; ‘though, perhaps, -not quite as beautiful.’ And presently she added, ‘I think I never saw -boys enjoy themselves so much in my life. They’ll remember it as long as -they live.’ - -‘It was your idea,’ he said. - -‘But you carried it out for me!’ - -They were resting after prolonged labours that had been, at the same -time, a prolonged delight. At three o’clock that afternoon, after -twenty-four hours of sunshine among woods and fields, the party of -twenty urchins had been seen safely off the premises into the London -train. Two large brakes had carried them to the station, and the gardens -of the grey house under the hill were dropping back again into their -wonted peace and quiet. - -There is nothing unusual—happily—in the sight of poor town-children -enjoying an afternoon in the country; but there was something about this -particular outing that singled it out from the majority of its kind. -Paul had entered heart and soul into it, and the combination of woods, -fields, and running water had made possible certain details that are not -usually feasible. - -Margaret had given Paul and her cousin _carte blanche_. They had planned -the whole affair as generals plan a battle. The children had proved able -lieutenants; and the weather had furnished the sun by day and the moon -by night, to show that it thoroughly approved. For it was Paul’s idea -that the entire company of boys should camp out, cook their meals over -wood fires in the open, bathe in the pools he had contrived long ago by -damming up the stream, and that not a single minute of the twenty-four -hours should they be indoors or under cover. - -With a big barn close at hand in case of necessity, and with four tents -large enough to hold five apiece, erected at the far end of the Gwyle -woods, where the stream ran wide and full, he had no difficulty in -providing for all contingencies. Each boy had brought a little parcel -with his things for the night; and blankets, bedding of hay and pillows -of selected pine branches—oh, he knew all the tricks for making -comfortable sleeping-quarters in the woods!—were ready and waiting when -the party of urchins came upon the scene. - -And every astonished ragamuffin had a number pinned on to his coat the -moment he arrived, and the same number was to be found at the head of -his place in the tent. Each tent, moreover, was under the care of a -particular boy who was responsible for order; while, midway in the camp, -by the ashes of the fire where they had roasted potatoes and told -stories till the moonlight shamed them into sleep, Paul himself lay all -night in his sleeping-bag, the happiest of the lot, sentinel and -guardian of the troop. - -The place for the main fire, where meals were cooked, had been carefully -chosen beforehand, and wood collected by the busy hands of Nixie & Co. -The boys sat round it in a large ring; and Paul in the middle, stirring -the stew he had learned to make most deliciously in his backwoods life, -ladled it out into the tin plates of each in turn, while Joan saw to the -bread and cake, and watched the huge kettle of boiling water for tea -that swung slowly from the iron tripod near by. - -And that circle of happy urchin faces, seen through the blue smoke -against the background of crowding tree stems, flushed with the hours of -sunshine, the mystery of happiness in all their eyes, remained a picture -in Paul’s memory to the end of his life. The boys, certainly, were not -all good, but they were at least all merry. They forgot for the time the -heat of airless brick lanes and the clatter of noisy traffic. The -perfumes of the wood banished the odour of ill-ventilated rooms. Dark -shadows of the streets gave place to veils of a very different kind, as -the rising moon dropped upon their faces the tracery of pine branches. -And, instead of the roar of a city that for them meant hardship, often -cruelty, they heard the singing of birds, the rustle of trees, and the -murmur of the stream at their very feet. - -And Paul, as he paced to and fro softly between the sleeping crew, the -tents all ghostly among the trees, had long, long thoughts that went -with him into his sleeping-bag later and mingled with dreams that were -more inspired than he knew, and destined to bear a great harvest in due -course.... - -The branches of big forest trees shifted noiselessly forwards from the -scenery that lay ever in the background of his mind, and pressed his -eyelids gently into sleep. With feathery dark fingers they brushed the -surface of his thoughts, leaving the perfume of their own large dreams -about his pillow. The shadowy figures that haunt all ancient woods -peered at him from behind a million stems and, while they peered, -beckoned; whispering to his soul the secrets of the wilderness, and -renewing in him the sources of strength, simplicity, and joy they had -erstwhile taught him. - -All that afternoon he had spent with the romping boys, organising their -play, seeing to it that they enjoyed utter freedom, yet did no mischief. -Joan seconded him everywhere, and Nixie flitted constantly between the -camp and the source of supplies in the kitchen. And, to see their play, -came as a revelation to him in many ways. While the majority were -content to shout and tumble headlong with excess of animal spirits let -loose, here and there he watched one or two apart, all aghast at the -beauty they saw at close quarters for the first time; dreaming; -apparently stunned; drinking it all in with eyes and ears and lips; -feeling the moss and branches as others feel jewels and costly lace; and -on some of the little faces an expression of grave wonder, and of joy -too deep for laughter. - -‘This ain’t always ’ere, is it, Guv’nor?’ one had asked. And another, -whom Paul watched fingering a common fern for a long time, looked up -presently and inquired if it was real—‘because it isn’t ’arf as pretty -as what _we_ use!’ He was the son of a sceneshifter at an East End -theatre. - -And a detail that made peculiarly keen appeal to his heart, a detail not -witnessed by Joan or the children, was the morning ablutions in the -stream, when the occupants of each tent in turn, went into the water -soon after sunrise, their pinched bodies streaked by the shadow and -sunlight of the dawn, their laughter and splashing filling the wood with -unwonted sounds. Soap, towels, and water in plenty! Water perfumed from -the hills! Faces flushed and almost rosy after the sleep in the open, -and the inexhaustible draughts of air to fan them dry again! - -And then the eager circle for breakfast, hatless, eyes all fixed upon -the great stew-pot where he mixed the jorum of porridge! And the -noise—for noise, it must be confessed, there was—as they smothered it in -their tin plates with quarts of milk hot from the cow, and busily -swallowed it. - -‘You took them straight into the Crack, you know,’ Joan said from her -seat below. - -‘Everything came true,’ Nixie’s voice was heard overhead among the -branches. - -Jonah clattered down past them and scampered across the lawn with Toby -at his heels, for their bedtime was close at hand. The other three lay -there, half hidden, a little longer, while the shadows crept down from -the hills and gathered underneath. They could no longer see each other -properly. For a time there was silence, stirred only by the faint rustle -of the ilex leaves. Each was thinking long, deep thoughts. - -‘Next week,’ said Joan quietly, as though to herself, ‘the other lot -will come. Your sister’s as good as gold about it all.’ - -Then, after a pause, Nixie’s voice dropped down to them again: - -‘And had some of them really never seen a wood before?’ she asked. -‘Fancy that! When I grow up I shall have a big wood made specially for -them—the “Wood for Lost Children” I shall call it. And you’ll see about -the tents and cooking, won’t you, Uncle Paul? Or, perhaps,’ she added, -‘by that time I shall know how to make a real proper stew and porridge, -and be able to tell them stories round the fire as you did. Don’t you -think so?’ - -‘I think you know most of it already,’ he answered gently. ‘It seems to -me somehow that you have always known all the important things like -that.’ - -‘Oh, do you really? How splendid if I really did!’ There was a slight -break in her voice—ever so slight. ‘I should so dreadfully like to -help—if I could. It’s so slow getting old enough to do anything.’ - -Paul turned his head up to her. It was too dim to see her body lying -along the bough, but he could just make out her eyes peering down -between the dark of the leaves, a yellow mist where her hair was, and -all the rest hidden. Very eerie, very suggestive it was, to hear this -little voice amid the dusk of the branches, putting his own thoughts -into words. Were those tears that glistened in the round pools of blue, -or was it the reflection of sunset and the coming stars that filtered -past her through the thinning tree-top? Again he thought of that silver -birch standing under the protection of the shaggy pine. - -‘Sing us something, Nixie,’ rose the voice of Joan from below. - -‘What shall I sing?’ - -‘That thing about the two trees Uncle Paul made up.’ - -‘But he hasn’t given me the tune yet!’ - -‘The tune’s still lost,’ murmured the deep voice from the shadows of the -big fork. ‘I must go into the Crack and find it. That’s where I found -the words, at least——’ The sound of his voice melted away. - -‘Of course,’ Joan was heard to say faintly, ‘all lost things are in -there, aren’t they?’ - -And then something queer happened that was never explained. Perhaps they -all slipped through the Crack together; or perhaps Nixie’s funny little -singing voice floated down to them through such a filter of listening -leaves that both words and tune were changed on the way into something -sweeter than they actually were in themselves. - - Who told the Silver Birch tree - The stories that we made? - And how can she remember - The very games we played? - - Who told her heart of silver - That, almost from her birth, - The roots of that old Pine tree - Had sought hers under earth? - - For always when the wind blows - Her hair about the wood, - It blows across my eyes too - Her pictured solitude. - - And then Aventures gather - On little hidden feet, - And mystery and laughter - The magic things repeat. - - For, O my Silver Birch tree, - Full half the ‘things’ we do, - We did—or e’er you sweetened - The starlight and the dew! - - They stood there, all in order, - Ready and waiting even, - Before the sunlight kissed you, - Or you, the winds of heaven. - - Who told you, then, O Birch Tree, - The ’Ventures that we play? - And how can you remember - The wonder—and the Way? - - - - - CHAPTER XXIII - - PANTHEA. Look, sister, where a troop of spirits gather - Like flocks of cloud in spring’s delightful weather, - Thronging in the blue air! - - IONE. And see! More come. - Like fountain-vapours when the winds are dumb, - That climb up the ravines in scattered lines. - And hark! Is it the music of the pines? - Is it the lake? Is it the waterfall? - - PANTHEA. ’Tis something sadder, sweeter far than all. - _Prometheus Unbound._ - - -‘It’s all very well for you two to play at being trees,’ the voice of -Joan was heard to object, ‘but I should like to know what part I——’ - -‘Hush! Hush! I hear them coming,’ Nixie said quickly with a new -excitement. - -She had apparently floated up higher into the ilex to the place vacated -by Jonah. Her voice had a ring of the sky in it. - -‘Come up to where I am, and we can _all_ see. They’re rising already——’ - -‘Who—what’s rising?’ called Joan from below; ‘I’m not!’ - -‘There’s something up, I expect,’ said Paul quickly. ‘I’ll help you.’ He -knew by the child’s voice there was aventure afoot. ‘Give me your hand, -Joan. And put your feet where I tell you. We’re all in the Crack, -remember, so everything’s possible.’ - -‘Undoubtedly something’s up, but it’s not _me_, I’m afraid,’ she -laughed. - -‘Hush! Hush! Hush!’ Nixie’s voice reached them from the higher branches. -‘Talk in whispers, please, or you’ll frighten them. And be quick. -They’re rising everywhere. Any minute now they may be off and you’ll -miss them——’ - -Joan and Paul obeyed; though in his record of the aventure he never -described the details of their ascent. A few minutes later they were -perched beside the child near the rounded top of the ilex. - -‘It’s fearfully rickety,’ Joan said breathlessly. - -‘But there’s no danger,’ whispered Nixie, ‘because this is an evergreen -tree, and it doesn’t go with the others.’ - -‘How—“Go with the others?”’ asked the two in the same breath. - -‘Trees,’ answered the child. ‘They’re emigrating. Look! Listen!’ - -‘Migrating,’ suggested Paul. - -‘Of course,’ Nixie said, poking her head higher to see into the sky. -‘Trees go away south in the autumn just like birds—the real trees; their -insides, I mean——’ - -‘Their spirits,’ Paul explained in his lowest whisper to Joan. - -‘That’s why they lose their leaves. And in the spring they come back -with all their new blossoms and things. If they find nicer places in the -south, they stay, that’s all. They—die. Listen—you can hear them going!’ - -High up in that still autumn sky there ran a sweet and curious sound, -difficult to describe. Joan thought it was like the rustle of countless -leaves falling: the tiny tapping noise made by a dying leaf as it -settles on the ground—multiplied enormously; but to Paul it seemed that -sudden, dream-like whirr of a host of birds when they wheel sharply in -mid-air—heard at a distance. There was no question about the distance at -any rate. - -‘Are they just the trees of our woods, then?’ asked Joan in a whisper -that held delight and awe, ‘or——’ - -The child laughed under her breath. ‘Oh, no,’ was the reply, ‘all the -South of England below a certain line meets here. This is one of the -great starting-places. It’s just like swallows collecting on the wires. -Some big tree, higher than the rest, gives a sign one night—and then all -the other woods flock in by thousands. Uncle Paul knew _that_!’ There -was a touch in her voice of something between scorn and surprise. - -‘Did you, Uncle Paul?’ Joan asked. - -He fidgeted in his precarious perch. ‘I write the Record of it all, so I -ought to,’ he answered evasively. - -And high up in the autumn sky, now darkening, ran on that curious sweet -sound. Across the heavens, silvery in the coming moonlight, they saw -long feathery clouds drawn thinly from north to south, known commonly as -mares’ tails. - -‘Those are the tracks they follow,’ whispered Nixie. ‘Look! Now you can -see them—some of them!’ - -Her voice was so thrilled that it startled them. But for the fact that -they were in the Crack where nothing can be ever ‘lost,’ both Paul and -Joan might have lost their hold and their seats—to say nothing of their -lives—and crashed downwards through the branches of that astonished ilex -tree. Instead, they turned their eyes upwards and stared. - -They looked out over the world of tree-tops. On all sides rose Something -in a silent tempest, almost too delicate for words—something that -touched the air with a Presence, swift and wonderful—then was gone. With -it went the faint music as of myriad wheeling birds, too small for -sight. And through the sky ran a vast fluttering of green. They saw the -coming stars, as it were, through immense transparencies of green, -stained here and there with the washed splendours of wet and dying -leaves—the greens, yellows, aye, and the reds too, of autumn. For a few -passing seconds the night was positively robed with the spirit-hues of -the dying year, rising rapidly in the sheets of their dim glory. - -‘They’re off!’ murmured Nixie. ‘It’s the first flight. We _are_ lucky!’ - -Far overhead the pathways of fleecy cloud were tinged with pale yellow -as when the moon looks sometimes mistily upon the earth—tinged, then -suddenly white and silvery as before. - -They collect—Paul drew upon the child’s account for his Record—far -over-seas upon some lonely strand or headland, and then swarm inland, -sometimes following their companions, the birds, sometimes leading them. -In countless thousands they go, yet for all their numbers never causing -more than a passing tremble of the air. Their armies add, perhaps, a -shadow to the night, a new tint to the clouds that veil the moon; or, if -owing to stress of autumn weather, they start with the daylight, then -the sunset gains a strange new wonder that puzzles the heart with its -beauty, and makes unimaginative people write foolish letters to the -newspapers. Their speed makes it difficult to catch even the slightest -indication of their flight; the sky is touched with glory, there is a -reflection in the river or the sea—and they are gone! Or, perhaps, from -the evergreens that stay behind, often fringing the coast, the wind -bears a message of farewell, wondrous sweet; or some late birds, -delaying their own departure, wake in the branches and sing in little -bursts of passion the joy of their own approaching escape. - -And when they return, each tree in the order of its leaving, and -according to its times and needs, they bring with them all the essential -glory of southern climes, and the magic of spring is due as much to the -tales and memories they have collected to talk about, as to the clear -brilliance of the new dresses with which they come to clothe their old -bodies at home. - -The Record of the Aventure, as Paul wrote it faithfully from the child’s -description, makes curious and instructive reading, and the loneliness -of the stalwart evergreens who remain behind to face the winter brought -a pathos into the tale that all lovers of trees will readily appreciate, -and may be read by them in the published account. - -Yet to Paul and Joan, to each according to temperament and cast of mind, -the little Aventure brought thoughts of a more practical bearing. To -him, especially, in the escape of the tree-spirits—of their ‘insides,’ -as Nixie intuitively phrased it—he divined an allegory of the temporary -escape of the little army of city waifs. Those boys, old in face as they -were cramped in body, had enjoyed, too, a migration that clothed them -for a time, outwardly and inwardly, with some passing beauty which they -could take back to London with them just as the trees come back with the -freshness of the spring. - -And this thought led necessarily to others. The little migration of -their bodies from town was important enough; but what of their minds and -souls? What chance of escape was there for these? - -The conclusions are obvious enough; they need no elaboration. He had -already learned from Joan of their sufferings. His heart burned within -him. It was all mixed up in his queer poetic mind with the swift vision -of the Tree-Spirits, and with the picture of Joan, Nixie, and the other -children perched like big berries in that astonished ilex tree. In due -season both berries and dreams must ripen. He was beginning to see the -way. - -‘They’re gone already,’ Nixie interrupted his long reverie in a whisper; -‘and to-night there’ll be great rains to wash away all the signs. -To-morrow morning, you’ll see, half the trees will be bare.’ - -And high in the heavens, incredibly high and faint it seemed, ran the -curious sweet sound, driven farther and farther into the reaches of the -night, till at last it died away altogether. - -‘Gone,’ murmured Joan, ‘gone!’ The beauty of it touched her voice with -sadness. ‘I wish we could go like that—as beautifully, as quietly, as -easily!’ - -‘Perhaps we do,’ Paul thought to himself. - -‘I think we do,’ Nixie said aloud. ‘Daddy did, I’m sure. I shall, too, I -think—and then come back in the spring, p’rhaps.’ - - - - - CHAPTER XXIV - - See where the child of heaven, with wingéd feet, - Runs down the slanted sunlight of the dawn. - _Prometheus Unbound._ - - -Very often in life, when the way seems all prepared for joy, there comes -instead an unexpected time of sadness that makes all the preparation -seem useless and of no purpose. Those coloured threads, whose ends and -beginnings are not seen, weave this unexpected twist in the pattern, and -one knows the bitterness that asks secretly, What can be the use of -efforts thus rendered apparently null and void at a single stroke? -forgetting the roots of faith that are thereby strengthened, and -shutting the eyes to the glory of the whole pattern, which it is always -the endeavour of the imagination to body forth. - -And so it seemed to Paul a few weeks later when he returned to England -from America, where he had been to settle up his affairs. For he had -decided to sever his connection with the Lumber Company, and to devote -his life henceforward to battling against the wrongs and sufferings of -childhood. The call had come to him with no uncertain voice. Nixie had -unintentionally sown the seeds; Joan had deliberately watered them; his -own liberated imagination girded its loins to go forth as a labourer to -the harvest. - -Then, coming back with the joy of this approaching labour in his heart, -the veil of great sadness descended upon his newly-opening life and set -him in the midst of a dreadful void, a blank of pain and loneliness that -nothing seemed able to fill. Nixie went from him. The Hand that gilds -the stars, and touched her hair with the yellow of the sands, drew her -also away. Just when her gentle companionship had justified itself for -him as something ideally charming that should last always, a breath of -wintry wind passed down upon that grey house under the hill, and, lo, -she was gone—gone like the spirit of her little birch tree from the -cruelties of December. - -He was in time to say good-bye—nothing more; in time to see the awful -shadow fall silently upon the wasted little face, and to feel the cold -of eternal winter creep into the thin hand that lay to the last within -his own. Not a single word did he utter as he sat there beside the bed, -choked to the brim with feelings that never yet have known the words to -clothe them. That cold entered his own heart too, and numbed it. - -Nixie it was that spoke, though she, too, said little enough. The lips -moved feebly. He lowered his head to catch the last breath. - -‘I shall come back,’ he heard faintly, ‘just as the trees do in the -spring!’ - -The voice was in his ear. It sank down inside him, entering his very -soul. For a moment it sang there—then ceased for ever. With eyes dry and -burning, he buried his head in the tangle of yellow hair upon the -pillow, and when a moment later he raised them again to speak the words -of comfort to his weeping sister, Nixie was no longer there to hear him -or to see. - -‘I shall come back in the spring—just as the trees do.’ - -And so she died, leaving Paul behind in that sea of loneliness whose -waves drown year by year their thousands and tens of thousands—the vast -army that know not Faith. Her blue eyes, so swiftly fading, were on his -to the last. It seemed to him that for a moment he had seen God. And -perhaps he had; for Nixie assuredly was close to divine things, and he -most certainly was pure. - - * * * * * - -Sad things are best faced squarely, very squarely indeed; dealt with; -and then—deliberately forgotten. In this way their strength, and the -beauty that invariably lies within like a hidden kernel, may be -appropriated and their bitterness destroyed. But such platitudes are -easily said or written, and at first, when Nixie left him, Paul felt as -though the world lay for ever broken at his feet. - -What this elfin child had done for him must appear to some exaggerated, -to many, incredible; for the relationship between them had somehow been -touched with the splendour and tenderness of a world unknown to the -majority. The delicate intimacy between their souls, as between souls of -a like age, is difficult to realise outside the region of fantasy. Yet -it had existed: in her with a simple, childlike joy that asked no -questions; in him, with an attempt at analysis that only made it closer -and more dear. What Paul had been to her was a secret she had taken away -with her; what she had been to him, however, was to remain a most -precious memory, and at the same time a source of strength and happiness -that was to prove eternal. - -Not, however, in the manner that actually came about—and, at first, not -realised by him in any manner whatsoever. - -For, at first, he found himself alone, horribly alone. What her little -mystical heart of poetry had taught him is hard to name. Expression, of -course, in its simpler form, and the joy of a sympathetic audience; but -more than that. In all fine women lies hidden ‘the child’—the simple -vision that pierces—and perhaps in Nixie he had divined, and ideally -reconstructed for himself, the ‘fine woman’! Who can say? A dream so -rich and tender can never be caught in a mere net of words. The truth -lay buried in the depths of his being, to strengthen and to bless; and -some few others may divine its presence there as well as himself -perhaps. The only thing he understood clearly at the moment was that he -had been robbed of an intimate little friend who had crept into every -corner of his heart, and that—he was most terribly alone. - - - - - CHAPTER XXV - - Donnez vos yeux, donnez vos mains, - Donnez vos mains magiciennes; - Pour me guider par les chemins - Donnez vos yeux, donnez vos mains, - Vos mains d’Infante dans les miennes. - From _Les Unes et les Autres_. - - -There is nothing to be gained by dwelling upon sadness; the details of -Paul’s suffering may be left to the imagination. It was characteristic -of him that he sought instinctively, and without cant, for the Reality -that lay behind his pain; and Reality—though seas of grief may first be -plunged through to find it—is always Joy. For love is joy, and joy is -strength, and both are aspects of the great central Reality of the life -of the soul. The child was so woven into the strands of his inmost being -that her going seemed, as it were, to draw out with her these very -strands—drew them out away from himself towards—towards what? He hardly -knew how to name it. The word ‘God’ rarely passed his lips: towards -‘Reality,’ then; towards the deep things he had sought all his life. - -Part of himself, however, the child had taken away with her. He passed -more and more away from the things of the world, though these had never -yet held him with any security in their mesh. Nixie had gone ahead, that -was all. Before long, as years measure time at least, he would follow -her. She might even come back, ‘like the trees in the spring,’ to tell -him of the way. - -His great longing, unexpressed, had always been to know something of the -Beyond—to see into the heart of things; not by the uninspired methods of -an unsavoury spiritualism, or the artificial forcing-house of an -audacious Magic; but by some inner, as yet undetermined, way in his own -heart. For he had always clung to the secret belief that there must be -some interior way of finding ‘Reality,’ some process, simple, piercing, -profound, that would have authority for himself, if not for all the -world. In the heart of all true mystics some such Faith is ingrained. -They are born with it. It is ineradicable—lived, but rarely spoken. - -And the root of this belief it was that Nixie had unknowingly watered -and fed. Her going seemed suddenly to have coaxed it almost into flower. -His need of the great, satisfying Companion that knows no shadow of -turning was incalculably quickened thereby. Love and Nature were the -veils that screened the Beyond so thinly that he could almost see -through them; and to both these mysteries the child had led him better -than she knew. - -The energy of his mystical yearnings suddenly increased a hundredfold. -Whether these remain within to poison, or go out to bless, depends, of -course, upon the nature of the heart that feels them. Paul, fortunately -for himself, had found ways of expression; he was always provided now -with the safety of an outlet. And, for the immediate moment, the path -was clear enough, and very simple. He was to comfort the mother that -mourned her; himself that mourned her; the puzzled little brother and -sister, and even the army of more or less disconsolate four-footed -friends that missed her presence vaguely, and haunted the door of her -room with the strange instinct that there must still be caresses for -them within, and that for the moment she was merely hiding. - -It was Smoke, the furry black fellow, however, always her favourite and -his own, participant in all their old Aventures, who brought him a -strange comfort by secret ways that no man understands. For Smoke asked -no questions. He knew; and though he missed her in all their games, and -meals, and undertakings of every kind, in house or garden, he showed no -obvious symptoms of grief as a dog might have shown. And sometimes he -was positively uncanny: he behaved almost as though he still saw her. - -The others, however,——! With most of them out of sight was out of mind. -The kittens, now growing up, purred and played as of old in the -schoolroom, and the Chow puppies, China and Japan, more like yellow -puddings than ever, tore about the house, tumbling and thudding, as -though they had never known their little two-legged elfin playmate. The -household dropped back into the old routine; Margaret, sadder, less -alive than before, pressed down by her new grief into the semblance of a -vision; and the children, hushed and pale, but gradually yielding to the -stress of bursting life which at that age has no long acquaintance with -grief. - -It was winter, and the woods and gardens were so altered that the usual -corners of play and mischief were unrecognisable. ‘Out-ov-doors’ was -dead, the sunshine unreal, the darkness hovering close even on the -clearest day. The haunts that Paul and Nixie knew were too much changed, -mercifully for him, who often sought them none the less, to remind him -keenly. The little silver birch tree that danced in summer before the -skirts of the fir wood was bare and shivering in the winds. Behind it, -however, unchanged and shaggy, still stood the dark sheltering pine, -steady among the blasts. - -And Paul, meanwhile, beyond the smaller sphere of his immediate duties -in the grey house under the hill, took up with all the enthusiasm he -could spare from sorrow the work among the lost waifs. As has been seen, -he found the complete organisation ready to hand. And, to his great -satisfaction, he found, as he became familiar with the detail, that it -was work suited to the best that was in him. He was the right man in the -right place. - -Moreover, it was Dick’s scheme, and to lose himself in it was to get -into touch again delightfully with the great friendship of his youth. -Nixie, too, who had meant when she grew up to provide a Wood for Lost -Children, seemed ever pushing him forward from behind. Thus his zeal -never lessened, and he lost himself in others to some purpose. - -The test of time, of course, proved this. At the moment, however, it can -only be known by the trick of ‘looking at the last chapter’—which is -unlawful, as well as logically impossible. And, before he got so far, he -had first learned another profound truth: that only he who carries in -his heart a great sorrow, borne alone, can know the mystery of interior -Vision, inspiring and truly marvellous, which comes from a blessing so -singularly disguised as pain. - - - - - CHAPTER XXVI - - I feel, I see - Those eyes which burn through smiles that fade in tears, - Like stars half quenched in mists of silver dew. - _Prometheus Unbound._ - - -The readjustment of self—the renewal—that follows upon great bereavement -having thus been faced courageously, Paul threw himself into his work -with energy. Every Friday night he came down to the house under the -hill, and every Monday morning he returned to London. But the details of -the work, beyond the fact that their fulfilment blessed both himself and -those for whom he laboured, are not essential to the story of what -followed. For the history of Paul’s education is more than anything else -a history of Aventures of the inner life. Outwardly, his existence was -quiet and uneventful. - -Almost immediately with the disappearance of his little friend, for -instance, he discovered that the region through the Crack—the land -betweenyesserdayandtomorrow—became more real, more extraordinarily real, -than ever before. The entrances now seemed everywhere and always close; -it was the ways of exit that were difficult to find. He lived in it. -Even in London he moved among those fields of flowers, and the winter -gloom that depressed the majority only enhanced the bright sunshine that -lay about his path. His thoughts were continually following the windings -of the river to the far horizon; and the horizon, too, was wider, more -enticing and mysterious, more suggestive than ever of that blue sea -beyond where he had sailed with that other Companion. - -The land became mapped out and known with an intimacy that must seem -little short of marvellous to those who have never even dreamed of the -existence of so fair a country. For, the truth was, his Companion, who -was now his guide and leader, had suddenly revealed herself. - -It came about a few days after the funeral—when the emptiness and hush -of sorrow that lay over the house found its exact spiritual -correspondence in the silence and sense of desolation that filled his -own heart. He was in his bedroom, battling with that loneliness in -loneliness which at the first had threatened to overwhelm him. He had -just left his sister’s side, having soothed her with what comfort he -could into the sleep of weariness and exhaustion. By the open window, as -so often before, he stood, staring into the damp winter night. Smoke -moved restlessly to and fro behind him, sometimes sitting down to wash, -sometimes jumping on the bed and sofa as though to search for something -it could never find. Mrs. Tompkyns, who had scratched at the door a few -minutes before, for the first time in her life, and for reasons known to -none but herself and her black companion, lay at last curled up before -the fire. - -The room was filled with a soft presence, once silvery and fragrant, but -now draped with the newly woven shadows that rendered it invisible. The -invasion was irresistible. His heart ached. He knew quite well that his -own soul, too, was being measured for its garment of shadow—garment -that, unlike ordinary clothes, fits better and closer with every year. -He was in that dangerous mood when such measurements are made only too -easily, and the lassitude of grief accepts the trying-on with a kind of -soft, almost pleasurable, acquiescence—when, sharply and suddenly, a -sound was audible outside the window that instantly galvanised him into -a state of resistance. The night, hitherto still as the grave, sighed in -response to a rising wind. And through his being at the same moment ran -the answering little Wind of Inspiration some one had taught him to find -always when he sought it. - -And the sound brought comfort. It was as though an invisible hand had -reached down inside him and touched the source of joy! - -Paul turned quickly. Mrs. Tompkyns was awake on the mat. Smoke rubbed -against his legs. On the table, where he had spread them a few minutes -before, were the black tie, the mended socks, the unused bottle for -nettle stings and scratches, and beside them the faded spray of birch -leaves, now withered and shrivelled. And, as he looked, the wind entered -the room behind him, and he saw that the brown branch turned half over -towards him. It rattled faintly as it moved. He was just in time to -rescue it from Smoke, who saw in the sound and movement an invitation to -play. He pinned it out of reach upon the wall over the mantelpiece. - -And it was just as he finished, that this sound of wind sighing through -the dripping and leafless trees outside was followed by another -sound—one that he recognised.... There was a rush and a leap, a swift, -whistling roar—and the next second he found himself among the sunny -fields of flowers that he knew, and heard the water lapping at his -feet ... through the Crack! - -‘Everybody’s thin _somewhere_,’ was what he almost expected to hear; but -what he did hear was another sentence, followed by merry and delicious -laughter: ‘Everybody can be happy somewhere!’ - -And close in front of him, rising, it seemed, out of the reeds and waves -and yellow sands, stood—that veiled Companion whom he knew to be a part -of himself. - -She was turned away from him so that he could not see her face, yet he -instantly divined a movement of her whole body towards him. Something -within himself rushed out to meet her half-way. His life stirred -mightily. The thrill of discovery came close. The next second his arms -were about her and she was looking straight into his eyes. - -But her own eyes were no longer veiled; her laughing face was clear as -the day; the figure that he held so close was Nixie, child and woman. If -ever it can be possible for two beings to melt into one, it was possible -then. Each possessed the other; each slipped into the other. - -‘Face to face at last!’ he heard himself cry. ‘Bless your little fairy -heart! Why in the world didn’t I guess you sooner?’ - -A flame of happiness sped through him, and grief ran away utterly. The -sense of loss that had numbed his soul vanished. And when she only -answered him by the old mischievous laughter, he asked again: ‘But how -did you disguise yourself so well—your voice, and everything——? Even if -your face _was_ veiled I ought to have recognised you! It’s too -wonderful!’ - -‘It was you who disguised me!’ she replied, standing up close in front -of him, and playing with his waistcoat buttons as of old. ‘Your thoughts -about me got twisted—sometimes. You thought too much. You should have -_felt_ only.’ - -‘They never shall again,’ he exclaimed. - -‘They never can. We are face to face now.’ - -Paul turned to look again more closely. He saw her with extraordinary -detail and vividness. It was indeed Nixie, but Nixie exactly as he had -always wanted her, without quite knowing it himself; at least, without -acknowledging it. No gulf of age was there to separate them now. She was -the perfect Companion, for he had made her so. He smoothed her hair as -they turned to walk by the river, and he caught the old childish perfume -of it as it spread untidily over his shoulder, her eyes like dropped -stars shining through it. - -‘Isn’t it awfully jolly?’ she whispered: ‘we can have twice as many -aventures now, and you can go on writing them for Jonah and Toby just -the same as before, only faster.’ - -He felt her hand steal into his; his heart became most strangely merged -with hers. He had known a similar experience in Canadian forests, when -the beauty of Nature had sometimes caught him up till he scarcely felt -himself distinct enough from it to realise that he was separate. He now -knew himself as close to her as that. It was exquisite and yet so simple -that a little child might have felt it—without perplexity. Perhaps it -was precisely what children always _did_ feel towards what they loved, -animate or inanimate. - -‘But how is it you can come so close?’ he asked, though he fancied that -he thought, rather than spoke, the question. - -‘Because, in the important sense, you are still a child,’ he caught the -answer, ‘and always have been, and always will be.’ - -The whole world belonged to him. In the midst of the sea of sorrow he -had discovered the little island of happiness. - -‘We never can lose each other—_now_!’ he said. - -‘As long as you think about me,’ she answered. ‘Please always think -hard, veryhardindeed thoughts. Through the Crack you can find everything -that’s lost——.’ - -‘And we’re through the Crack now.’ - -‘Rather!’ - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XXVII - - ... Straightway I was ’ware, - So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move - Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair; - And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, - ‘Guess now who holds thee?’—‘Death,’ I said. But there - The silver answer rang—‘Not Death, but Love.’ - E. B. B. - - -... It was only when the sky grew dark and the shadow of clouds fell -over that sunny landscape that he realised he was still standing half -dressed beside a dying fire, and that through the open window behind him -the cold night air brought discomfort that made him shiver. He drew the -curtains, lit a candle, spoke a soft word or two to the curled—up forms -of Mrs. Tompkyns and Smoke, who were far too busy in their own -Crack-land to trouble about replying, and so finally got into bed. - -He felt happier, strangely comforted. The wings of memory and phantasy, -withdrawing softly, left a soothed feeling in his heart. In that region -of creative imagination known as the ‘Crack’ he always found peace and -at least a measure of joy. Until sleep should come to captain his -forces, he deliberately turned the current of his thoughts to the work -he was about to take up in London. Nixie, Joan, Dick—all helped him. His -will erected an iron barrier against the insidious attacks of -sadness—the disease which strikes at the roots of effort. He would dream -his dreams, but also, he would do his work.... - -The shadows thickened about the house, crowding from the heart of -winter. The fire died down. The room lay still. It was between one and -two o’clock in the morning, when silence in the country is a real -silence, and the darkness weighs. Chasing Smoke and Mrs. Tompkyns down -the winding corridors of dream—Paul slept. - - -A faint sound in the room a little later made him stir in his sleep and -smile. His lips moved, as though in that land of dreams where he -wandered some one spoke to him and he answered. Then the sound was -repeated, and he woke with a start, sat up in bed, and stared hard into -the darkness. - -The fire was quite out; nothing was visible but the dim frame of the -window on his right where he had forgotten to draw the curtains. A -glimmer of light revealed the sash. Thinking it must be the winter dawn, -he was about to lie down again and resume his slumbers, when the sound -that had first wakened him again made itself audible. - -A slight shiver ran down his spine, for the sound seemed to bring over -some of the wonder of his dreams into that dark and empty room. Then, -with a tiny revelation of certainty, the knowledge came that he was wide -awake, and that the sound was close in front of him. Moreover, he knew -at once that it was neither Smoke nor Mrs. Tompkyns. It was a sound, -deliberately produced, with conscious intelligence behind it. And it -shot through him with the sweetness of music. It was like a breath of -wind that rustled through a swinging branch—of a birch tree; as though -such a branch waved to and fro softly above his head. - -His first idea was that some one was in the room, and had taken down the -spray of withered leaves from the wall; and he strained his eyes in the -direction of the mantelpiece, trying to pierce the darkness. In vain, of -course. All he could distinguish was that something moved gently to and -fro like a spot of light—almost like a fire-fly, yet white—about the -room. - -From some deep region of sleep where he had just been, the atmosphere of -dream was still, perhaps, about him. Yet this was no dream. There _was_ -somebody in the room with him, somebody alive, somebody who wished to -claim his attention—who had already spoken to him before he woke. He -knew it unmistakably; he even remembered what had been said to him while -yet asleep! ‘How _can_ you go on sleeping when I am here, trying to get -at you?’ - -It was just as if the words still trembled on the air. Confusedly, -scarcely aware what he did, yet already thrilling with happiness, his -lips formed an answer: - -‘Who are you? What is it you want?’ - -There was a pause of intense silence, during which his heart hammered in -his temples. Then a very faint whisper gathered through the darkness: - -‘I promised....’ - -The point of light wavered a little in the air, then came low and seemed -to settle on the end of the bed. Into the clear and silent spaces of his -lonely soul there swam with it the presence of some one who had never -died, and who could never die. - -‘Is that _you_——?’ The name seemed incredible, for this was no Aventure -through the Crack, yet he uttered it after an imperceptible moment of -hesitation——‘_Nixie?_’ - -Even then he could not believe an answer would be forthcoming. The -light, however, moved slightly, and again came the faint tones of a -voice, a singing voice: - -‘Of course it is!’ There was a curious suggestion of huge distance about -it, as though it travelled like an echo across vast spaces. ‘I’m here, -close beside you; closer than ever before.’ - -He heard the words with what can only be described as a spiritual -sensation—the peace and gratitude that follow the passion of strong -prayer, of prayer that believes it will be heard and answered. - -‘You know _now_—don’t you?’ continued the tiny singing voice, ‘because -I’ve told you.’ - -‘Yes,’ he answered, also very low, ‘I know now.’ For at first he could -think of nothing else to say. A huge excitement moved in him. Those -invisible links of pure aspiration by which the soul knits herself -inwardly to God seemed suddenly tightened in the depths of his being. He -understood that this was a true thing, and possible. - -‘You’ve come back—like the trees in the spring,’ he whispered -stammeringly, after another pause, gazing as steadily as he could at the -point of clear light so close in front of him. - -‘The real part of me,’ she explained; ‘the real part of me has come -back.’ - -‘The real part,’ he echoed in his bewilderment. He began to understand. - -But even then it all seemed too utterly strange and wonderful to be -true; and a subtle confirmation of the child’s presence that followed -immediately only added at first to his increasing amazement. For both -Smoke and Mrs. Tompkyns, he became aware, had jumped up softly upon the -foot of the bed, and were sitting there, purring loudly with pleasure, -close beneath the fleck of light. And their action made him seek the -further confirmation of his own senses. He leaned forwards, hesitating -in his bewilderment between the desire to find the matches and the -desire to touch the speaker with his hands. - -But even in that darkness his intention was divined instantly. The light -slid away like a wee torch carried on wings. - -‘No, Uncle Paul,’ whispered the voice farther off, ‘not the matches. -Light makes it more difficult for me.’ He sank back against the pillows, -frightened at the reality of it all. The old familiar name, too, ‘Uncle -Paul,’ was almost more than he could bear. - -‘Nixie——!’ he stammered, and then found it impossible to finish the -sentence. - -Then she laughed. He heard her silvery laughter in the room, exactly as -he had heard it a hundred times before, spontaneous, mischievous, and -absolutely natural. She was amused at his perplexity, at his want of -faith; at the absurd difficulty he found in believing. He lay quite -still, breathing hard, wondering what would come next; still trying to -persuade himself it was all a dream, yet growing gradually convinced in -spite of himself that it was not. - -‘And don’t come too near me,’ he heard her voice across the room. ‘Never -try and touch me, I mean. _Think of me at your centre._ That’s the real -way to get near.’ - -Very slowly then, after that, he began to accept the Supreme Aventure. -He talked. He asked questions, though never the obvious and detailed -sort of questions it might have been expected he would ask. For it was -now borne in upon him, as she said, that only her _real_ part had come -back, and that only _his_ real part, therefore, was in touch with her. -It was, so to speak, a colloquy of souls in which physical and material -things had no interest. His very first question brought the truth of -this home to him with singular directness. He asked her what the tiny -light was that he saw moving to and fro like a little torch. - -‘But I didn’t know there was a light,’ she answered. ‘Where I am it is -all light! I see you perfectly. Only—you look so young, Uncle Paul! Just -like a boy! About my own age, I mean.’ - -And it is impossible to describe the delight, the mystical rapture that -came to him as he heard her. The words, ‘Where I am it is all light,’ -brought with them a sudden sense of reality that was too convincing for -him to doubt any longer. From her simple description he recognised a -place that he knew. But, at the same time, he understood that it was no -_place_ in the ordinary sense of the word, but rather a _state_ and a -_condition_. He himself in his deepest dreams had been there too. That -light had sometimes in brief moments of aspiration shone for him. And -the curious sense of immense distance that came so curiously with her -tiny voice came because there was really no distance at all. She was no -longer conditioned by space or time. Those were limitations of life in -the body, temporary scales of measurement adopted by the soul when -dealing with temporary things. Whereas Nixie was free. - -A sense of happiness deep as the sea, of peace, bliss, and perfect rest -that could never know hurry or alarm, surged through him in a tide. He -thought, with a thrill of anticipation, of the time when his own eyes -would be opened, and he should see as clearly as she did. But instantly -the rebuke came. - -‘Oh! You must not think about that,’ she said with a laugh; ‘you have a -lot to do first, a lot more aventures to go through!’ - -As she spoke the light slid nearer again and settled upon the foot of -the bed. His thoughts were evidently the same as spoken words to her. -She knew all that passed in his mind, the very feelings of his heart as -well. This was indeed companionship and intimacy. He remembered how she -had told him all about it in the Crack weeks ago, before he realised who -she was, and before he knew her face to face. And at the same moment he -noticed another curious detail of her presence, namely, that the little -torch—for so he now called it to himself—in passing before the mirror -produced no reflection in the glass. Yet, if his eyes could perceive it, -there ought to have been a refraction from the mirror as well—a -reflection! Did he then only perceive it with his interior vision? Was -his spiritual sight already partially opened? - -‘That’s your ’terpretation of me—inside yourself,’ he caught her swift -whisper in reply, for again she _heard_ his thought; and he almost -laughed out aloud with pleasure to notice the long word decapitated as -her habit always was on earth. ‘In your thoughts I’m a sort of light, -you see.’ - -The explanation was delightful. He understood perfectly. The thought of -Nixie had always come to him, even in earthly life, in the terms of -brightness. And his love marvelled to notice, too, that she still had -the old piercing vision into the heart of things, and the -characteristically graphic way of expressing her meaning. - -The purring of the cats made itself audible. They were both ‘kneading’ -the bed-clothes by his feet, as happy as though being stroked. - -‘No, they don’t see,’ she explained the moment the thought entered his -mind; ‘they only feel that I’m here. Lots of animals are like that. It’s -the way dogs know ’sti’ctively if a person’s good or bad.’ - -Oh, how the animals after this would knit him to her presence! No wonder -he had already found comfort with them that no human being could -give.... The thought of his sister flashed next into his brain—the -difficulty of helping her—— - -‘I tried to get at her before I came here to you,’ he heard, ‘but her -room was all dark. It was like trying to get inside a cloud. She’s cold -and shadowy—and ever such a long way off. It’s difficult to explain.’ - -‘I think I understand,’ he whispered. - -‘You can get closer than I can.’ - -‘I’ll try.’ - -‘Of course. You must.’ - -It was Nixie’s happiness that seemed so wonderful and splendid to him. -Her voice almost sang; and laughter slipped in between the shortest -sentences even. Brightness, music, and pure joy were about her like an -atmosphere. He was breathing a rarefied air, cool, scented, and -exhilarating. He had already known it when playing with the children and -enjoying their very-wonderful-indeed aventures; only now it was raised -to a still higher power. In its very essence he knew it. - -‘Toby and Jonah are with me the moment they sleep,’ she continued, ever -following his least thought. ‘The instant their bodies fold up they -shoot across here to me. Toby comes easiest. She’s a girl, you see. And -Daddy’s here too——’ - -‘Dick?’ he cried, memory and affection surging through him with a sudden -passion. - -‘Of course. You’ve thought about him so much. He says you’ve always been -close to each other——’ - -The voice broke off suddenly, and the torch of light moved to and fro as -though agitated. Paul heard no sound, and saw no sign, but again, into -the clear and silent spaces of his soul, now opened so marvellously, so -blessedly to receive, there swam the consciousness of another -Presence.... - -There was a long pause, while memory annihilated all the intervening -years at a single stroke.... - -His mind was growing slightly confused with it all. His mortal -intelligence wearied and faltered a little with the effort to understand -how time and distance could be thus destroyed. He was not yet free as -these others were free. - -‘How is it, then, that you can stay?’ he asked presently, when the light -held steady again. By ‘you’ he meant ‘both of you.’ Yet he did not say -it. This was what seemed so wonderful in their perfect communion; words -really were not necessary. Afterwards, indeed, he sometimes wondered -whether he actually spoke at all. - -‘I was going on—at first,’ came the soft answer, ‘when I heard something -calling me, and found I couldn’t. I had something to do here.’ - -‘What?’ he ventured under his breath. - -‘_You!_’ She laughed in his face, so to speak. ‘You, of course. Part of -you is in me, so I couldn’t go on without you. But when you are ready, -and have done your work, we’ll go on together. Daddy is waiting, too. -Oh, it’s simply splendid—a very-splendid-indeed aventure, you see!’ -Again she laughed through that darkened room till it seemed filled with -white light, and the light flooded his very soul as he heard her. - -‘You _will_ wait, Nixie?’ he asked. - -‘I _must_ wait. Both of us must wait. We are all together, you see.’ - -And, after another long pause, he asked another question: - -‘This work, then, that keeps me here——?’ - -‘Your London boys, of course. There’s no one in the whole world who can -do it so well. You’ve been picked out for it; that’s what really brought -you home from America!’ And she burst out into such a peal of laughter -that Paul laughed with her. He simply couldn’t help himself. He felt -like singing at the same time. It was all so happy and reasonable and -perfect. - -‘You’ve got the money and the time and the ’thusiasm,’ she went on; ‘and -over here there are thousands and millions of children all watching you -and clapping their hands and dancing for joy. I’ve told them all the -Aventures you wrote, but they think this is the best of all—the -London-Boys-Aventure!’ - -He felt his heart swell within him. It seemed that the child’s hair was -again about his eyes, her slender arms clasping his neck, and her blue -eyes peering into his as when she begged him of old in the nursery or -schoolroom for an aventure, a story. - -‘So you’ll never give it up, will you, Uncle Paul?’ she sang, in that -tiny soft voice through the darkness. - -‘Never,’ he said. - -‘Promise?’ - -‘Promise,’ he replied. - -The thought of those ‘thousands and millions’ of children watching his -work from the other side of death was one that would come back to -strengthen him in the future hours of discouragement that he was sure to -know. - -And much more she told him besides. They talked, it seemed, for ever—yet -said so little. Into mere moments—such was the swift and concentrated -nature of their intimacy—they compressed hours of earthly conversation; -for his thoughts were heard and answered as soon as born within him, and -a whole train of ideas that the lips ordinarily stammer over in -difficult detail crowded easily into a single expression—a thought, a -desire, a question half uttered, and then a reply that comprehended all. -There was no labour or weariness, no sense of effort. - -Moreover, when at length he heard her faint whisper, ‘Now I must go,’ it -conveyed no sense of departure or loss. She did not leave him. It was -more as though he closed a much-loved book and replaced it in his -pocket. The pictures evoked do not leave the mind because the cover is -closed; they remain, on the contrary, to be absorbed by the heart. -Nixie’s silvery presence was _in him_; he would always feel her now, -even when his thoughts seemed busy with outer activities. - -The little torch flickered and was gone; but as Paul gazed into the -darkness of the room he knew that the light had merely slipped down deep -into himself to burn as an unfailing beacon at the centre of his soul. -And then it was that he realised other curious details for the first -time. Some of the more ordinary faculties of his mind, it seemed, had -been in suspension during the amazing experience, while others had been -exalted as in trance. For it now came to him that he had actually _seen_ -her—with a clearness that he had never known before. That torch lit up -her little form as a lantern lights up a person holding it in darkness. -Just as he had felt all the sweet and essential points of her -personality, so also he had been vividly aware of her figure in the -terms of sight—eyes, hair, sunburned little hands, and twinkling feet. -Her very breath and perfume even! - -If the working of his ordinary senses had been in abeyance so that he -hardly knew the hunger for common sight and touch, he now realised that -it was because they had been replaced by these higher senses with their -keener, closer satisfaction. And this intimate knowledge of her was as -superior to the ordinary methods as flying is to crawling—or, better -still, as a draught of water in the throat is to dipping the fingers in -the cup. - -For who, indeed, shall define the standard of reality? And who, when the -senses are such sorry reporters, shall declare with authority that one -thing is false and could not happen, and another is true and actually -did happen? - -Experiences of the transcendental order are, perhaps, beyond the power -of precise words to describe, for they are not common enough to have -become incorporated into the language of a race. And words are clumsy -and inadequate symbols at best. The deepest thoughts, as the deepest -experiences, ever evade them. It is difficult to convey the sense of -fierce reality the presence of Nixie brought to him. It flooded and -covered him; spread through and over him like light; entered into his -essential being to cherish and to feed, just as the body assimilates -earthly nourishment. He absorbed her. She nourished while she blessed -him. - -She had told him the secret: _to think centrally_. He now began to -understand how much nearer he could be to others by thinking strongly of -them than by walking at their side. Physical touch is distant compared -to the subtle intimacy of the desiring mind. The mystical conception of -union with God came home to him as something practically possible. - -Yet when he got up a few minutes later to write down the conversation as -he remembered it, the mere lighting of the candle, the noise of the -match, the dipping of his pen in the ink—all contrived somehow to bring -him down to a lower order of things that dimmed most strangely the -memory of what had just passed. Most of what he had heard escaped him. -He could not frame it into words. All he could recapture is what has -been here set down so briefly and baldly. - -It then seemed to him—the thought laboured to and fro in his mind as he -got back into bed and sleep came over him—that it was only the Higher -Self in him that had been in communication with the child. The eternal -part of him had talked with the eternal part of her. In the body, -however, this was commonly submerged. Her presence had temporarily -evoked it. It now had returned to its Throne at the core of his being. - -All that he remembered of the colloquy was the little portion that, as -it were, had filtered through into his normal self. The rest, the main -part, however, was not lost. He had absorbed it. If he could not recall -the actual words and language, he understood—it was his last thought -before sleep caught him—that its _results_ would remain for ever. - -And those who have known similar experiences will understand without -more words. The rest will never understand. Perhaps, after all, the best -and purest form of memory is—_results_. - - - - - CHAPTER XXVIII - - ... Ne son già morto; e ben ch’ albergo cangi, - resto in te vivo, ch’ or mi vedi e piangi, - se l’ un nell’altro amante si trasforma. - - -And one of the clearest impressions that remained next morning when he -woke was that he had actually _seen_ her. The reality of it increased -with the daylight instead of faded. While he dressed he sang to himself, -until it occurred to him that his signs of joy might be misunderstood by -any of the household who heard; and then he stopped singing and moved -about the room, smiling and contented. - -Something of the radiance of that little white torch still seemed in the -air. The heavy gloom of the chill December morning could not smother it. -Something of it remained too about him all day like a halo; looking out -of his eyes; communicable, as it were, from the very surface of his skin -to all with whom he came in contact. His sister, especially, and the -children felt the comfort of his presence. They followed him about from -room to room; they clung close; they were instinctively aware that peace -and strength emanated from him, though little guessing the real source -of his serene and tranquil atmosphere. - -For, of course, he told no one of what had happened. During the day, -indeed, it lay in him submerged and unassertive, like the presence of -some great glowing secret, feeding the sources of energy for all his -little outward duties and activities, yet never claiming individual -attention itself. Only with the fall of night, when the doings of the -day were instinctively laid aside like a garment no longer required, did -it again swim up upon him out of the depths, and speak. - -‘Now!’ he heard the tiny singing voice, ‘we can be alone. Your body’s -tired. I can get closer to you.’ - -‘I’ve felt you by me all day, though,’ he said, as though it were the -most natural thing in the world. - -‘Of course,’ came the answering whisper, soft as moonlight, ‘because I -never left you for a single moment. I was in everything you did—in your -very words. Once or twice, I even got into mother too, _through you_, -and made her feel better. Wasn’t that splendid?’ - -Paul longed to give the child one of his old hugs—to feel her little -warm and sunny body pressed against his own. Instead, her laughter -echoed suddenly all about the room. - -‘That’s impossible now!’ he heard. ‘I’m ever so much closer this way. -You’ll soon get used to it, you know!’ - -This spontaneous laughter was the music to which all their talks were -set. He laughed too, and blew the candles out. - -‘I tried very hard to say the true things,’ he murmured, referring to -her remark about comforting his sister. - -‘I know you did. That’s how I got into her—through you. You must go on -and on trying. In the end we’ll get her all soft and happy again. She’ll -feel me without knowing it.’ - -Suddenly it struck him that, although the room was dark, he did not see -the light of the little torch as before. He missed it. He was just going -to ask why it was absent when the child caught his thought and replied -of her own accord: - -‘Because it’s spread all over now, instead of being just a point. You -are in it, I mean. There’s light everywhere about you now, and I see you -much clearer than last time.’ - -The explanation described exactly what he felt himself. - -‘Let them in, please,’ Nixie suddenly interrupted his thoughts again. -‘They’re both coming up the stairs. It was very naughty of you to forget -them, you know.’ - -After a moment of puzzled hesitation he understood what she meant, and -was out of bed and across the floor. He did not wait to light a candle, -but opened the door and stood there waiting in the darkness. Almost at -once two soft, furry things brushed past his feet as Smoke, followed by -Mrs. Tompkyns, marched into the room, uttering that curious sharp sound -of pleasure which is something between a purr and a cry. They -disappeared among the shadows beyond the fireplace, and Paul sprang back -into bed again pleased that they were there, yet annoyed with himself -for having forgotten them. - -‘But it was my fault _really_,’ she laughed. ‘I’ve been with them out in -the garden, and they’ve only just got in through the pantry window. My -presence excites them awfully. Oh, it’s all right,’ she added quickly, -in reply to his further thought; ‘Barker’s very late to-night doing the -silver. But he’ll shut the window before he goes.’ - -It was his turn to laugh. She had caught his thought about the window -almost before it reached the surface of his mind. Moreover, he found -that both Mrs. Tompkyns and Smoke had very cold wet soles under their -padded little feet. - -In this way, most strangely, sweetly, naturally, even the trivial -details of their daily life as they had always known it together, -intermingled with the talk that was often very earnest, mystical, and -pregnant with meanings. It was in every sense a continuation of their -former relationship, touched on her side with a greater knowledge—almost -as though she had suddenly developed to the point she might have reached -in time upon the earth; on his side, with a delicate sense of accepting -guidance from some one with greater privileges than himself, who had -come back on purpose to help and inspire him. - -For more and more it seemed to partake of the nature of genuine -inspiration. Speech came direct and swift as thought, without hesitation -or stammering as in the flesh. She told him many things, often quaintly -enough expressed, but that yet seemed to hold the kernel of deep truths. -There had never been the least break in their companionship, it seemed. - -‘I knew all this before,’ she said, after a singular exchange of -questions and answers about the nature of communion with invisible -sources of mood and feeling, ‘only I suppose my brain had not got big -enough, or whatever it was, to tell it. Like your poets you used to tell -me about who couldn’t find their rhymes, perhaps.’ - -And her laughter flowed about him in a rippling flood that instantly -woke his own. They always laughed. They felt so happy. It was a -communion between old souls that surely had bathed deeply in the -experiences of life before they had become imprisoned in the particular -bodies known as Paul Rivers and Margaret Christina Messenger. - -He became convinced, too, more and more that she really did not speak at -all—that no actual sound set the waves of air in motion—but that she put -her words into him in the form of thoughts, and that he it was, in order -to grasp them clearly, who clothed them with the symbols of sound and -language. It was essentially of the nature of inspiration. She _blew_ -the ideas into his heart and mind. - -And many things that he asked her were undoubtedly little more than his -own thoughts, half-formed and vague, lying in the depths of him. - -‘Then, over there, where you now are, is it—more real? Are you, as it -were, one stage nearer to the great Reality? What’s it like——?’ - -‘It’s through the real “Crack,” I think,’ she answered. ‘Everything is -here that I imagined—but _really_ imagined—on earth. And people who -imagined nothing, or wanted only the world, find very little here.’ - -‘Then is the change very great——?’ - -‘It doesn’t seem to me like a change at all. I’ve been here before for -visits. Now I’ve come to stay, that’s all!’ - -‘You yourself have not changed?’ - -She roared with laughter, till he felt that his question was really -absurd. - -‘Of course not! How can I change? I’m always Nixie, wherever I am!’ - -‘But you feel different——?’ he insisted. - -‘I feel better,’ she answered, still laughing. ‘I feel awfully jolly.’ - -Then after a long pause he asked another question. It was really a -question he was always asking in one form or another, only he had never -yet put it so directly perhaps. He whispered it from a grave and solemn -heart: - -‘Are you nearer to—God, do you think?’ - -It was a word he rarely used. In his conversations with the child on -earth he had never once used it. She waited a long time before replying. -Instinctively, very subtly, it came to him that she did not know exactly -what he meant. - -‘I’m _in_ and _with_ Everything there is—Everywhere,’ she said softly. -‘And I couldn’t possibly be nearer to anything than I am.’ - -More than that she could not explain, and Paul never asked similar -questions again. He understood that they were really unanswerable. - -And it was the same with other thoughts, thoughts referring to the -fundamental conditions of temporal existence, that is. Nothing, for -instance, made time and space seem less real than the way she answered -questions involving one or other. Out of curiosity he had gone to the -trouble of reading up other records of spirit communion—the literature -(saving the mark) of Spiritualism brims over with them—and he had asked -her some question with regard to the detailed geography there given. - -‘But there’s no _place_ at all where I am,’ the child laughed. ‘I am -just _here_. There was no place really in our Aventures, was there? -Place is only with you on earth!’ - -And another time, talking of the ‘future’ when he should come to join -herself and Dick at the close of his earthly pilgrimage, she said -between bursts of the merriest laughter he had ever known: ‘But that’s -now! already! You come; you join us; we _are_ all together—always!’ - -And when he insisted that he could not possibly be in two places at -once, and reminded her that she had already told him she was ‘waiting’ -for his arrival, the only reply he could get was this jolly laughter, -and the assurance that he was ‘awfully muddled and c’fused’ and would -‘never understand it _that_ way!’ - - -The main thing these ‘silent’ conversations taught him seemed to be that -Death brings no revolutionary change as regards character; the soul does -not leap into a state much better or much worse than it knew before; the -opportunities for discipline and development continue gradually just as -they did in the body, only under different conditions; and there is no -abrupt change into perfection on the one hand, or into desolation on the -other. He gathered, too, that these ‘conditions’ depended very largely -upon the kind of life—especially the kind of thought—that the -personality had indulged on earth. The things that Nixie ‘imagined’ and -yearned for, she found. - -His communion with her became, as time passed, more frequent and more -real, and soon ceased to confine itself only to the quiet night hours. -She was with him all day long, whenever he needed her. She guided him in -a thousand unimportant details of his life, as well as in the bigger -interests of his work in London with his waifs. And in murky London she -was just as close to him as in the perfumed stillness of the Dorsetshire -garden, or in the retirement of his own chamber.... - -And one singular feature of their alliance was that it continued even in -sleep. For, sometimes, he would wake in the morning after what had been -apparently a dreamless night, yet later in the day there would steal -over him the memory of a long talk he had enjoyed with the child during -the hours of so-called unconsciousness. Dreams, forgotten in the -morning, often, of course, return in this fashion during the day. There -is nothing new or unusual in it. Only with him it became so frequent -that he now rose to the day’s work with a delightful sense of -anticipation: ‘Perhaps later in the day I shall remember! Perhaps we -have been together all night!’ - -And in this connection he came to notice two things: first, that after -these nights together, at first forgotten, he woke wonderfully -refreshed, blessed, peaceful in mind and body; and secondly, that what -recalled the conversation later was always contact with some object or -other that had been associated with the child. Thus—the -picturesquely-mended socks, the medicine bottle for scratches, or the -spray of birch leaves, now preserved between the pages of his Blake, -never failed in this latter respect. - -It was curious, too, how the alliance persisted and fortified itself -during the repose of the body; as though, during sleep, the eternal -portion of himself with which the child communed, enjoyed a greater -measure of freedom. It recalled the closing lines of a sonnet he had -always admired, though his own experience was true in a literal sense -hardly contained, probably, in the heart of the poetess: - - But when sleep comes to close each difficult day, - When night gives pause to the long watch I keep, - And all my bonds I needs must loose apart, - - Must doff my will as raiment laid away— - _With the first dream that comes with the first sleep - I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart._ - -He filled a book with these talks as the years passed, though to give -them in more detail could serve little purpose but to satisfy a possible -curiosity. They had value and authority for himself, but for the -majority might seem to contain little sense, or even coherence. They -expressed, of course, his own personal interpretation of life and the -universe. And this was quite possibly poetic, queer, fantastic—for -others. Yet it was his own. He had learned his own values in his own -way, and was now engaged in sorting them out with Nixie’s fairy help to -guide him. - -And all souls that find themselves probably do likewise. The strength -and blessing they shed about them as a result is beneficial, but the -close details of the process by which they have ‘arrived’ can only seem -to the world at large unintelligible, possibly even ridiculous; and this -late interior blossoming of Uncle Paul, though it actually happened, -must seem to many a tissue of dreams knit together with a strange -fantastic nonsense. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIX - - Donnez vos yeux, donnez vos mains, - Donnez vos mains surnaturelles; - Pour me conduire aux lendemains - Donnez vos yeux, donnez vos mains, - Vos mains comme deux roses frêles. - - -And thus, as the region where he met and held communion with the freed -child seemed to draw deeper and deeper into his interior being, the -reality and value of the experience increased. - -That there was some kind of definite external link, however, was equally -true; for the cats, as well as certain other of the animals, most -certainly were aware sometimes of her presence. They showed it in many -and curious ways. But it was distinctly a shock to Paul to learn one day -from his sister that queer stories were afoot concerning himself; that -some of the simple country folk declared they had seen ‘Mr Rivers -walking with a young lady that was jest like Miss Nixie, only taller,’ -who disappeared, however, the moment the observer approached. And the -way the household felt her presence was, perhaps, not less remarkable, -for more than one of the servants gave notice because the house had -become ‘haunted,’ and there had been seen a ‘smallish white figure, all -shiny and dancing,’ in his bedroom, or going down the corridor towards -his study. - -Perhaps the glamour of his vivid creative thought had cast its effect -upon these untrained imaginations, so that his vision was temporarily -communicated to them too. Or, perhaps, they had actually seen what they -described. But, whatever the explanation may be, the effect upon himself -was to increase, if that were possible, the reality of the whole -occurrence.... - -And when the spring came round again with its charged memories of -perfume, and sight, and the singing of its happy winds; when the -tree-spirits returned to their garden haunts, all flaming with the -beauty of new dresses gathered over-seas; when the silver birch tree -combed out her glittering hair to the sun and shook her leaves in the -very face of that old pine tree—then Paul felt in himself, too, the -rejuvenation that was going forward in all the world around him. He -tasted in his heart all the regenerative forces that were bursting into -form and energy with the spring, and knew that the pain and desolation -he had felt temporarily in the winter were only spiritual growing-pains -and the passing distress of a soul forging its way outwards through -development to the best possible Expression it could achieve. - -For Nixie came back, too, gay and glorious like the rest of the -world—sometimes dressed in blossoms of lilac or laburnum, sometimes with -skirts of daisies and feet resting upon the Little Winds, sometimes with -the soft hood of darkness over her head, the cloak of night about her -shoulders, the stars caught all shivering in her hair, and dusk in the -deeps of her eyes.... - -His life became ‘inner’ in the best sense—a Life within a Life; not -given over to useless dreaming, but ever drawing from the inner one the -sustenance that provided the driving force for the outer one: the mystic -as man of action! - -The Wind of Inspiration blew for him now always, and steadily; but it -was no longer the little wind that stirred the measure of his personal -emotion into stammering verse, but the big, eternal wind that ‘blew the -stars to flame,’ and at the same time impelled him irresistibly along -the path of High A’venture to the loss of Self in work for others.... - -‘Then why is it we are in the body—and spend so much time there?’ he -asked in one of those intimate and mysterious conversations he held with -the child to the very end of his life. ‘Why need the soul descend to -such clumsy confinings?’ - -For their talk was very close now about ‘real things,’ and neither found -any difficulty in the words of question or answer. - -‘To get experience that can only be got through the pains of -limitation,’ the answer sang within him, as he lay there upon the lawn -beneath the cedars, absorbing the spring beauty. ‘Everything is doing -the same thing everywhere—from Smoke, Mrs. Tompkyns and Madmerzelle, -right up to you, me, Daddy, and the waifs! They all have a bit of -Reality in them working upwards to God. Even stones and plants and trees -are learning experiences they could learn only in those particular -forms—’ - -‘I know it! Of course, I know it!’ Paul interrupted, with a rush of joy -in his heart he could not restrain; ‘but go on and tell me more, for I -love to hear your little voice say it all.’ - -‘It’s only, perhaps, that the stones are learning patience and -endurance; the flowers sweetness; the trees strength and comfort; and -the rivers joy. Later they change about, so that in the end each ‘Bit of -Reality’ has gathered all possible experiences in nature before it -passes on into men and women. - -‘Think, Uncle Paul, of the joy of a stone, who after centuries of -patience and endurance, cramped and pressed down, knows suddenly the -freedom of wind and sea! Of the restlessness of flame that, after ages -of leaping unsatisfied to the sky, learns the repose of a tree, moved -only by the outside forces of wind and rain! And think of the delight of -all these when they pass still further upwards and reach the stage of -consciousness in animals and men—and in time enter the region of -development where I—where you and I, and all we knew and loved, continue -together, ever climbing, fighting, learning——’ - -It was curious. Afterwards he could never remember the way she ended the -sentence. For the life of him he could not write it down. Definite -recollection failed him, together with the loss of the actual words. -Only the general sense remained in such a way as to open to his inner -eye a huge vista of spiritual endeavour and advance that left him -breathless and dizzy when he contemplated it, but at the same time -charged most splendidly with courage and with hope. - -‘Then the pains of limitation,’ he remembered asking, ‘the anguish of -impossible yearnings that vainly seek expression—these are symptoms of -growth that in the end may produce something higher and nobler?’ - -‘Must!’ he heard the answer amid a burst of happy laughter, as though -from where she stood it were possible to look back upon earthly pangs -and see them in the terms of joy; ‘just like any other suffering! Like -the stress of heat and pressure that turns common clay into gems——’ - -He interrupted her swiftly, high hopes crowding through his spirit like -the rush of an army. - -‘Then the life in us all—the “Bits of Reality” in you and me—have passed -through all possible forms in their huge upward journey to reach our -present stage——?’ He stammered amid a multitude of golden memories, half -captured. - -‘Of course, Uncle Paul, of course!’ he caught deep, deep within him the -silvery faint reply. ‘And your love and sympathy with trees, winds, -hills, with all Nature, even with animals’—again her laughter ran out to -him like a song—‘is because you passed long ago through them all, and -_half remember_. You still _feel with_ them, and your imagination for -ever strives to reconstruct the various beauty known in each stage. You -remember in the depths of you the longings of every particular -degree—even of the time when your soul was less advanced, and groping -upwards as your London waifs grope even now. This is why your sympathy -with them, too, is deep and true. You _half remember_.’ - -‘And Death,’ he whispered, trembling with the joy of infinite spiritual -desire. - -The answer sank down into him with the Little Wind that stirred the -cedars overhead, or else rose singing up from the uttermost depths of -his listening heart—to the end of his days he never could tell which. - -‘What you call Death is only slipping through the Crack to a great deal -more memory, and a great deal more power of seeing and telling—towards -the greatest Expression that ever can be known. It is, I promise you -faithfully, Uncle Paul, nothing but a very-wonderfulindeed Aventure, -after all!’ - - - _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - - - 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in - spelling. - 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. - 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EDUCATION OF UNCLE -PAUL *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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