Part 5 (2/2)

'It was charming enough for us all to have remembered it, anyhow,' the Vicar stopped him, smiling at his blushes,' and for May--or was it Joan? dear me, how I do forget names!--to have set it to music. She had a little gift that way, you may remember; and, before she took up teaching she wrote one or two little things like that.'

'Ah, did she really?' murmured the other. He scarcely knew what he was saying, for a mist of blue had risen before his eyes, and in it he was seeing pictures. 'The Spell of Blue, wasn't it, or something like that?' he said a moment later, 'blue, the colour of beauty in flowers, sea, sky, distance--the childhood colour par excellence?'

'But chiefly in the eyes of children, yes,' the Vicar helped him, rising at the same time from the table. 'It was the spell, the pa.s.sport, the open sesame to most of your adventures. Come now, if you won't have another gla.s.s of port, and we'll go into the drawing-room, and Joan, May I mean--no, Joan, of course, shall sing it to you. For this is a very special occasion for us, you know,' he added as they pa.s.sed across the threshold side by side. 'To see you is to go back with you to Fairyland.'

The piano was being idly strummed as they went in, and the player was easily persuaded to sing the little song. It floated through the open windows and across the lawn as 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 somehow the simple melody helped to conceal the meagreness of the childish words. Everywhere, from sky and lawn and solemn trees, the Past came softly in and listened too.

There's a Fairy that hides in the beautiful eyes Of children who treat her well; In the little round hole where the eyeball lies She weaves her magical spell.

Oh, tell it to me, Oh, how can it be, This Spell of the Blue-Eyes Fairy.

Well,--the eyes must be blue, And the heart must be true, And the child must be _better_ than gold; And then, if you'll let her, The quicker the better, She'll make you forget that you're old, That you're heavy and stupid, and--old!

So, if such a child you should chance to see, Or with such a child to play, No matter how weary and dull you be, Nor how many tons you weigh; You will suddenly find that you're young again, And your movements are light and airy, And you'll try to be solemn and stiff in vain-- It's the Spell of the Blue-Eyes Fairy!

Now I've told it to you, And you _know_ it is true-- It's the Spell of the Blue-Eyes Fairy!

'And it's the same spell,' said the old man in his corner as the last notes died away, and they sat on some minutes longer in the fragrant darkness, '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 cedars. The one catches your heart, you see, while the other gets your feet and head and arms till you're a hopeless prisoner--a prisoner in Fairyland.'

'Only the world to-day no longer believes in Fairyland,' was the reply, 'and even the children have become scientific. Perhaps it's only buried though. The two ought to run in harness really--opposite interpretations of the universe. One might revive it--here and there perhaps. Without it, all the tenderness seems leaking out of life--'

Joan presently said good-night, but the other two waited on a little longer; and before going to bed they took a turn outside among the flower-beds and fruit-trees that formed the tangled Vicarage garden at the back. It was uncommonly warm for a night in early spring. The lilacs were in bud, and the air most exquisitely scented.

Rogers felt himself swept back wonderfully among his early years. It seemed almost naughty to be out at such an hour instead of asleep in bed. It was quite ridiculous--but he loved the feeling and let himself go with happy willingness. The story of 'Vice Versa,' where a man really became a boy again, pa.s.sed through his mind and made him laugh.

And the old Vicar kept on feeding the semi-serious mood with what seemed almost intentional sly digs. Yet the digs were not intentional, really; it was merely that his listener, already prepared by his experience with the Starlight Express, read into them these searching meanings of his own. Something in him was deeply moved.

'You might make a great teacher, you know,' suggested his companion, stooping to sniff a lilac branch as they paused a moment. 'I thought so years ago; I think so still. You've kept yourself so simple.'

'How not to do most things,' laughed the other, glad of the darkness.

'How to do the big and simple things,' was the rejoinder; 'and do them well, without applause. You have Belief.'

'Too much, perhaps. I simply can't get rid of it.'

'Don't try to. It's belief that moves the world; people want teachers --that's my experience in the pulpit and the parish; a world in miniature, after all--but they won't listen 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, and by questions to which exact answers are impossible. With your imagination and belief you might help a world far larger than this parish of mine at any rate. I envy you.'

Goodness! how the kind eyes searched his own in this darkness. Though little susceptible to flattery, he was aware of something huge the words stirred in the depths of him, something far bigger than he yet had dreamed of even in his boyhood, something that made his cherished Scheme seem a little pale and faded.

'Take the whole world with you into fairyland,' he heard the low voice come murmuring in his ear across the lilacs. And there was starlight in it--that gentle, steady brilliance that steals into people while they sleep and dream, tracing patterns of glory they may recognise when they wake, yet marvelling whence it came. 'The world wants its fairyland back again, and won't be happy till it gets it.'

A bird listening to them in the stillness sang a little burst of song, then paused again to listen.

'Once give them of your magic, and each may shape his fairyland as he chooses...' the musical voice ran on.

The flowers seemed alive and walking. This was a voice of beauty. Some lilac bud was singing in its sleep. Sirius had dropped a ray across its lips of blue and coaxed it out to dance. 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 with gold, and partners from the Milky Way swept rustling down to lead the violets out. Oh, there was revelry to-night, and the fairy spell of the blue-eyed Spring was irresistible....

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