Part 34 (1/2)

'It's going too fast for sight,' thought Rogers; 'I can't keep up with it. Even the children have toppled off.' But he still heard Daddy's laughter echoing down the lanes of darkness as he chased his pattern with yearning and enthusiasm.

The huge structure with its towers and walls and platforms slid softly out of sight. The moonlight sponged its outlines from the sky. The scaffolding melted into darkness, moving further westwards as night advanced. Already it was over France and Italy, sweeping grandly across the sea, bewildering the vessels in its net of glamour, and filling with wonder the eyes of the look-out men at the mast heads.

'The fire's going out,' a voice was saying. Rogers heard it through a moment's wild confusion as he fell swiftly among a forest of rafters, beams, and s.h.i.+fting uprights.

'I'll get more wood.'

The words seemed underground. A mountain wind rose up and brought the solid world about him. He felt chilly, s.h.i.+vered, and opened his eyes.

There stood the solemn pine trees, thick and close; moonlight flooded the s.p.a.ces between them and lit their crests with silver.

'This is the Wind Wood,' he remarked aloud to rea.s.sure himself.

Jimbo was bending over the fire, heaping on wood. Flame leaped up with a shower of sparks. He saw Monkey rubbing her eyes beside him.

'I've had a dream of falling,' she was saying, as she snuggled down closer into his side.

'_I_ didn't,' Jimbo said. 'I dreamed of a railway accident, and everybody was killed except one pa.s.senger, who was Daddy. It fell off a high bridge. We found Daddy in the _fourgon_ with the baggages, writing a story and laughing--making an awful row.'

'What did _you_ dream, Cousinenry?' asked Monkey, peering into his eyes in the firelight.

'That my feet were cold, because the fire had gone out,' he answered, trying in vain to remember whether he had dreamed anything at all.

'And--that it's time to go home. I hear the curfew ringing.'

Some one whistled softly. They ought to have been in bed an hour ago.

It was ten o'clock, and Gygi was sounding the _couvre feu_ from the old church tower. They put the fire out and walked home arm in arm, separating with hushed good-nights in the courtyard of the Citadelle.

But Rogers did not hear the scolding Mother gave them when they appeared at the Den door, for he went on at once to his own room in the carpenter's house, with the feeling that he had lived always in Bourcelles, and would never leave it again. His Scheme had moved bodily from London to the forest.

And on the way upstairs he peeped a moment into his cousin's room, seeing a light beneath the door. The author was sitting beside the open window with the lamp behind him and a note-book on his knees.

Moonlight fell upon his face. He was sound asleep.

'I won't wake him,' thought his cousin, going out softly again. 'He's dreaming--dreaming of his wonderful new story probably.'

CHAPTER XXII

Even as a luminous haze links star to star, I would supply all chasms with music, breathing Mysterious motions of the soul, no way To be defined save in strange melodies.

_Paracelsus_, R. BROWNING.

Daddy's story, meanwhile, continued to develop itself with wonder and enthusiasm. It was unlike anything he had ever written. His other studies had the brilliance of dead precious stones, perhaps, but this thing moved along with a rus.h.i.+ng life of its own. It grew, fed by sources he was not aware of. It developed of itself--changed and lived and flashed. Some creative fairy hand had touched him while he slept perhaps. The starry sympathy poured through him, and he thought with his feelings as well as with his mind.

At first he was half ashamed of it; the process was so new and strange; he even attempted to conceal his method, because he could not explain or understand it. 'This is emotional, not intellectual,' he sighed to himself; 'it must be second childhood. I'm old. They'll call it decadent!' Presently, however, he resigned himself to the delicious flow of inspiration, and let it pour out till it flowed over into his daily life as well. Through his heart it welled up and bubbled forth, a thing of children, starlight, woods, and fairies.

Yet he was shy about it. He would talk about the story, but would not read it out. 'It's a new _genre_ for me,' he explained shyly, 'an attempt merely. We'll see what comes of it. My original idea, you see, has grown out of hand rather. I wake every morning with something fresh, as though'--he hesitated a moment, glancing towards his wife-- 'as if it came to me in sleep,' he concluded. He felt her common sense might rather despise him for it.

'Perhaps it does,' said Rogers.

'Why not?' said Mother, knitting on the sofa that was her bed at night.