Part 41 (1/2)

Rogers alone seemed unperturbed, unhurried, for he was absorbed in a discovery that made him tremble. Noting the sudden perfection of his cousin's Pattern, he had gone closer to examine it, and had--seen the starry figure. Instantly he forgot everything else in the world. It seemed to him that he had suddenly found all he had ever sought. He gazed into those gentle eyes of amber and felt that he gazed into the eyes of the Universe that had taken shape in front of him. Floating up as near as he could, he spoke--

'Where do you come from--from what star?' he asked softly in an ecstasy of wonder.

The tiny face looked straight at him and smiled.

'From the Pleiades, of course,--that little group of star-babies as yet unborn.'

'I've been looking for you for ever,' he answered.

'You've found me,' sang the tiny voice. 'This is our introduction.

Now, don't forget. There was a lost Pleiad, you know. Try to remember me when you wake.'

'Then why are you here?' He meant in the Pattern.

The star-face rippled with laughter.

'It's yours--your Scheme. He's given it perfect shape for you, that's all. Don't you recognise it? But it's my Story as well. ...'

A ray with crimson in it shot out just then across the shoulder of the Blumlisalp, and, falling full upon the tiny face, it faded out; the Pattern faded with it; Daddy vanished too. On the little azure winds of dawn they flashed away. Jimbo, Monkey, and certain of the Sprites alone held on, but the tree-tops to which they clung were growing more and more slippery every minute. Mother, loth to return, balanced bravely on the waving spires of a larch. Her sleep that night had been so deep and splendid, she struggled to prolong it. She hated waking up too early.

'The Morning Spiders! Look out!' cried a Sprite, as a tiny spider on its thread of gossamer floated by. It was the Dustman's voice.

Catching the Gypsy with one arm and the Tramp with the other, all three instantly disappeared.

'But where's my Haystack friend?' called Mother faintly, almost losing her balance in the attempt to turn round quickly.

'Oh, she's all right,' the Head Gardener answered from a little distance where he was burning something. 'She just ”stays put” and flirts with every wind that comes near her. She loves the winds. They know her little ways.' He went on busily burning up dead leaves he had been collecting all night long--dead, useless thoughts he had found clogging a hundred hearts and stopping outlets.

'Look sharp!' cried a voice that fell from the sky above them.

'Here come the Morning Spiders, On their gossamer outriders!'

This time it was the Lamplighter flas.h.i.+ng to and fro as he put the stars out one by one. He was in a frantic hurry; he extinguished whole groups of them at once. The Pleiades were the last to fade.

Rogers heard him and came back into himself. For his ecstasy had carried him even beyond the region of the freest 'thinking.' He could give no account or explanation of it at all. Monkey, Jimbo, Mother, and he raced in a line together for home and safety. Above the fields they met the spiders everywhere, the spiders that bring the dawn and ride off into the Star Cave on lost rays and stray thoughts that careless minds have left scattered about the world.

And the children, as they raced and told their mother to 'please move a little more easily and slipperily,' sang together in chorus:--

'We shall meet the Morning Spiders, The fairy-cotton riders, Each mounted on a star's rejected ray; With their tiny nets of feather

They collect our thoughts together, And on strips of windy weather Bring the Day. ...'

'That's stolen from you or Daddy,' Mother began to say to Rogers--but was unable to complete the flash. The thought lay loose behind her in the air.

A spider instantly mounted it and rode it off.

Something brushed her cheek. Riquette stood rover her, fingering her face with a soft extended paw.

'But it surely can't be time yet to get up!' she murmured. 'I've only just fallen asleep, it seems.' She glanced at her watch upon the chair beside the bed, saw that it was only four o'clock, and then turned over, making a s.p.a.ce for the cat behind her shoulder. A tremendous host of dreams caught at her sliding mind. She tried to follow them.

They vanished. 'Oh dear!' she sighed, and promptly fell asleep again.