Part 32 (2/2)

'Oh, I say,' said Jimbo, sitting up, and pretending as usual more comprehension than he actually possessed. But his sister instantly asked, 'What is it--the Scaffolding of the Night? A sort of cathedral, you mean?'

How she divined his thought, and s.n.a.t.c.hed it from his mind always, this nimble-witted child! His germ developed with a bound at once.

'More a palace than a cathedral,' he whispered. 'Night is a palace, and has to be built afresh each time. Twilight rears the scaffolding first, then hangs the Night upon it. Otherwise the darkness would simply fall in lumps, and lie about in pools and blocks, unfinished--a ruin instead of a building. Everything must have a scaffolding first.

Look how beautifully it's coming now,' he added, pointing, 'each shadow in its place, and all the lines of grey and black fitting exaccurately together like a skeleton. Have you never noticed it before?'

Jimbo, of course, _had_ noticed it, his manner gave them to understand, but had not thought it worth while mentioning until his leader drew attention to it.

'Just as trains must have rails to run on,' he explained across Cousinenry's intervening body to Monkey, 'or else there'd be accidents and things all the time.'

'And night would be a horrid darkness like a plague in Egypt,' she supposed, adroitly defending herself and helping her cousin at the same time. 'Wouldn't it?' she added, as the shadows drew magically nearer from the forest and made the fire gradually grow brighter. The children snuggled closer to their cousin's comforting bulk, s.h.i.+vering a little. The woods went whispering together. Night shook her velvet skirts out.

'Yes, everything has its pattern,' he answered, 'from the skeleton of a child or a universe to the outline of a thought. Even a dream must have its scaffolding,' he added, feeling their shudder and leading it towards fun and beauty. 'Insects, birds, and animals all make little scaffoldings with their wee emotions, especially kittens and b.u.t.terflies. Engine-drivers too,' for he felt Jimbo's hand steal into his own and go to sleep there, 'but particularly little beasties that live in holes under stones and in fields.

When a little mouse in wonder Flicks its whiskers at the thunder,

it makes a tiny scaffolding behind which it hides in safety, shuddering. Same with Daddy's stories. Thinking and feeling does the trick. Then imagination comes and builds it up solidly with bricks and wall-papers....'

He told them a great deal more, but it cannot be certain that they heard it all, for there were other Excitements about besides their cousin--the fire, the time, the place, and above all, this marvellous coming of the darkness. They caught words here and there, but Thought went its own independent way with each little eager mind. He had started the machinery going, that was all. Interpretation varied; facts remained the same. And meanwhile twilight brought the Scaffolding of Night before their eyes.

'You can see the lines already,' he murmured sleepily, 'like veins against the sunset.... Look!'

All saw the shadowy slim rafters slip across the paling sky, mapping its emptiness with intricate design. Like an enormous spider's web of fine dark silk it bulged before the wind. The trellis-work, slung from the sky, hung loose. It moved slowly, steadily, from east to west, trailing grey sheets of dusk that hung from every filament. The maze of lines bewildered sight. In all directions shot the threads of coming darkness, spun from the huge body of Night that still hid invisible below the horizon.

'They're fastening on to everything ... look!' whispered Cousin Henry, kicking up a shower of sparks with his foot. 'The Pattern's being made before your eyes! Don't you see the guy ropes?'

And they saw it actually happen. From the summits of the distant Alps ran filmy lines of ebony that knotted themselves on to the crests of the pines beside them. There were so many no eye could follow them.

They flew and darted everywhere, dropping like needles from the sky itself, sewing the tent of darkness on to the main supports, and threading the starlight as they came. Night slowly brought her beauty and her mystery upon the world. The filmy pattern opened. There was a tautness in the lines that made one feel they would tw.a.n.g with delicate music if the wind swept its hand more rapidly across them.

And now and again all vibrated, each line making an ellipse between its fastened ends, then gradually settling back to its thin, almost invisible bed. Cables of thick, elastic darkness steadied them.

How much of it all the children realised themselves, or how much flashed into them from their cousin's mind, is of course a thing not even a bat can tell.

'Is that why bats fly in such a muddle? Like a puzzle?'

'Of course,' he said. The bats were at last explained.

They built their little pictures for themselves. No living being can lie on the edge of a big pine forest when twilight brings the darkness without the feeling that everything becomes too wonderful for words.

The children as ever fed his fantasy, while he thought he did it all himself. Dusk wore a shroud to entangle the too eager stars, and make them stay.

'I never noticed it before,' murmured Monkey against his coat sleeve.

'Does it happen every night like this?'

'You only see it if you look very closely,' was the low reply. 'You must think hard, very hard. The more you think, the more you'll see.'

'But really,' asked Jimbo, 'it's only--_crepuscule, comme ca,_ isn't it?' And his fingers tightened on his leader's hand.

'Dusk, yes,' answered Cousin Henry softly, 'only dusk. But people everywhere are watching it like ourselves, and thinking feather thoughts. You can see the froth of stars flung up over the crest of Night. People are watching it from windows and fields and country roads everywhere, wondering what makes it so beautiful. It brings yearnings and long, long desires. Only a few like ourselves can see the lines of scaffolding, but everybody who thinks about it, and loves it, makes it more real for others to see, too. Daddy's probably watching it too from his window.'

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