A Prisoner in Fairyland

fairer than t

eauty of a th

us, CHRISTO

garden in the middle of the lawn brought him back to earth,

s. He gave one long, yearning glance at the spangled sky where an inquisitive bat darted zigzag several times bet

my supper and bed

dow, beautifully poised. Like stately dowagers in voluminous skirts of velvet they seemed to curtsey to him as he passed. Stars like clusters of sprinkled blossoms hung upon their dignified old heads. The whole place seemed aware of him. Glancing a moment at the upper nursery windows, he could just distinguish the bars through which hi

the golden nails, surely. It would hardly have surprised him next to see the Starlight Express he had been dreaming about dart across the heavens overhead. That c

sense of reality! How carefully I must have thought these creatures as a boy! How thoroughly! And what a good id

idly indeed. His imagination lingered

elf with, and the Vicar's invitation was not one he desired to trifle with. He made his peace, indeed, easily enough, although the excuses sounded a little thin. It was something of a shock

of his poems, to describe a state of mind he, however, had never experienced himself. And he would have chosen it in

re ado, although mind, imagination, memory all hummed an

'and a reverie is a reverie; but that, I'd swear, went a bit further than either one or t'othe

re certainly quite as real as the sleek Directors who sat round the long Board Room table, fidgeting with fat quill pens and pewter ink-pots; more alive even t

onately, that he actually missed them. He felt that he had said good-bye to genuine people. He regretted their departure, and was keenly sorry he had not gone off with them-such a merry, wild, adventurous crew! He must find

ngers in the train. There was no confusion there. But this gentle married woman, who sang to her own accompaniment at her father's request, was not the mischievous, wilful creature who had teased and tortured his heart in years gone by, and had helped him construct th

self, was real? It was the Vicar's mistake, he learned later, for May was now a teacher in London; but the trivial incident s

se or mother, Rogers thought, whose children were-to her-unique and wonderful. For he had really loved this good-for-nothing pupil, loved him the more, as mothers and nurses do, because of the trouble he had given, and because of his busy and fertile imagination. It made Rogers feel ridiculously young again as he listened. He could almost have played a trick upon him then and there, merely to justify the tales. And once or twice he actually called him

after your family left did not encounter them sometimes upon the lawn or among the shrubberies in the dusk-those sprites of yours. Eh?' He passed a neatly pared walnut across the table to his guest. 'These ghosts that people nowadays explain scientifically-what are they but thoughts visualised by vivid thinking such as yours was-creative thinking? They may be jus

very keenly. How curious, he reflected, that the talk should lie

ur old Dustman and Sweep and Lamplighter, your Woman of the Haystack and your Net of Stars and Star Train-all these, f

ng a little over a nut he h

ly likely the family that succeeded y

'that's significant, yes-no children.

, I a

e away into the City. They wouldn't

ll be bound,' he added. 'They're only in hiding till his

an extraordinary idea you have there-

rt that sin is first real. The act is the least important end of it- grave only because it is the inevitable result of the thinking

that s

ided it be a real thought strongly fashioned, goes all over the world, and may reach any

t in his construing of Homer. 'I understand it perfectly. Only I put all those things-imaginat

oinder, as though he would fain

ecognition for his success. 'But you know why, don't you?' he added, ashamed the same moment. There

ans to carry it out, eh? You have indeed been truly blessed.' He eyed him again with uncommon keenness, though a smile ran from the eyes and mouth even up to the forehead and silvery hair.

e repeated almost shyly. 'The money I have made I regard as lent to me for inv

enthusiasm that had leaped into the other's

for others. It's a remarkable gift. You will never bury it, will you?' He spoke eagerly, passionately, leaning forward a little across the table. 'Few have it nowadays; it grows rarer with the luxury and self-seeking of the age. It

ng, any object of life worth following, unless as means to an end, and that end helping some one else. One's own little personal dreams became exhauste

e stars-'that I saw your Dustman scattering his golden powder as he came softly up the path, and that some of it reached my own eyes, too; or that your swift Lamplighter lent me a moment his gold-tipped rod of office so that I m

ut I've got a secretary now,' he continued hurriedly and in rather a louder voice,' a fe

hes,' and for May-or was it Joan? dear me, how I do forget names!-to have set it to music. She had a little g

ore his eyes, and in it he was seeing pictures. 'The Spell of Blue, wasn't it, or something like that?' he said

your adventures. Come now, if you won't have another glass of port, and we'll go into the drawing-room, and Joan, May I mean-no, Joan, of course, shall sing it to y

the two men in their corners listened. She knew it by heart, as though she often played it. The candles were not lit. Dusk caught the sound and muted it enchantingly. And

that hides in th

n who trea

ound hole where

s her mag

ll it

w can

of the Blue

eyes mus

eart must

must be bett

if you'l

cker th

ou forget tha

heavy and st

hild you should

uch a chi

w weary and

any tons

ly find that yo

ements are l

to be solemn an

ll of the Bl

told it

know it

ll of the Bl

that you cast about us as a boy, Henry Rogers, when you made that wonderful Net of Stars and fastened it with your comets' nails to the big and little

ntific. Perhaps it's only buried though. The two ought to run in harness really-opposite interpretations of the

a turn outside among the flower-beds and fruit-trees that formed the tangled Vicarage garden at the back. It

ur instead of asleep in bed. It was quite ridiculous-but he loved the feeling and let himself go with happy willin

digs were not intentional, really; it was merely that his listener, already prepared by his experience with

, stooping to sniff a lilac branch as they paused a moment. 'I thou

ngs,' laughed the other

' was the rejoinder; 'and do them wel

ps. I simply can

n to a teacher who hasn't got it. There are no great poets to-day, only great discoverers. The poets, the interpreters of discovery, are gone-starved out of life by ridicule,

was aware of something huge the words stirred in the depths of him, something far bigger than he yet ha

rlight in it-that gentle, steady brilliance that steals into people while they sleep and dream, tracing patterns of glory they may re

tillness sang a little burst of s

each may shape his fairyland as he

ce. There was a murmur and a stir among the fruit-trees too. The apple blossoms painted the darkness with their tiny fluttering dresses, while old Aldebaran trimmed them silently w

he whispered sadly, half to hims

sic so that it can hear. Belief inspires it always. And that Belief you have.' There was a

it came to me,

od beneath the lime trees. Their scent was po

earnestness, 'when you saw the lame boy on the vi

eing planted there were very tiny ones. But they would grow. A leaf from some far-off rocky mount of olive trees dropped fluttering through the air and marvellously took root and grew. He felt for a moment the breath

his pictured thought among the flowers. 'In your heart they lie all wa

y I kne

ough the fruit-trees; 'the world is a big child. And catch

me is s

ties ahead. You have learned already one foundation truth-the grandeur of toil and the insignificance of acquisition. The other foundation thing is even simpler-yo

ers under his breath. But the other hea

ge, and wherever y

in silence across the soaking lawn, ente

it his candle and led him to his room;

ly down the passage, shading the candle with one hand to pick his way, and Rogers watched him out

eansed and purified. And it humbled him at the same time. Dead leaves, dropped year by year in his City life, were cleared away as though a mighty wind had swept him. The Gardener was burning up dead leaves; the Sweep was cleaning out the flues;

ugh the open window, his thoughts followed strongly after that old Star Train that he used to

the feeling was always strong that these 'jolly thoughts,' as he called them, were put into him by some one else-some one who whispered to him-some one who lived close behind his ears. He had to listen very hard to catch them. It was not dreams, yet all night long, especially when he slept tightly,

he blue gaze of the guard-girl, who was out of his heart by this time, he had known a moment of thrilling wonder that was close to awe. He saw another pair of eyes gazing out at him They were ambery eyes, as he called them- just what was to be expected from a star. And, so great was the shock, that at first he stood dead

ing gaze. His own collie had it too! For years it was an obsession with him, haunting and wonderful-the knowledge that some one who watched close beside him, filling his mind with fairy thoughts, might any moment gaze into his face through a pair of ordi

fe,' he used to say, 'I'm done

his cousin but rarely in recent years; yet, it seemed, they came to meet the train up among the mountain forests somewhere. For in this village, where he had gone to study French, the moods of his own childhood had somehow known continuation and development. The place had once been very dear to him, and he had known delightful adventures there, many of them with this cousin. Now he took all his own childhood's sprites out in this Starlight Express and introduced them to these transplanted children who had never made acquaintance with the English breed. They had surprising, wild adventures all together, yet in the morning he could remember very little of it all. The interfering sun melted them all down in

her detail, the memory of what the old tutor had said about the living reality and per