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'other.
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
e. 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 wit
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
ing 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 o
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
Werewolf
Romance
Romance
Romance
Billionaires
Billionaires