Algernon Blackwood (11 page)

And suddenly a new enormous thing stirred in their father's heart.
Whence it came, or why, he knew not. Like a fire it rose in him deep
down, from very far away, delightful. Was it an inspiration coming, he
wondered? And why did Jimbo use that phrase of beauty about star-
ladders? How did it come into the mind of a little boy? The phrase
opened a new channel in the very depths of him, thence climbing up and
outwards, towards the brain.... And, with a thrill of curious high
wonder, he let it come. It was large and very splendid. It came with a
rush—as of numerous whispering voices that flocked about him, urging
some exquisite, distant sweetness in him to unaccustomed delivery. A
softness of ten thousand stars trooped down into his blood. Some
constellation like the Pleiades had flung their fiery tackle across
the dusk upon his mind. His thought turned golden....

We are the stars which sing.
We sing with our light.
We are the birds of fire.
We fly across the heaven.
Our light is a star.
We make a road for Spirits,
A road for the Great Spirit.
Among us are three hunters
Who chase a bear:
There never was a time
When they were not hunting;
We look down on the mountains.
This is the Song of the Mountains.

Red Indian
(
Algonquin
)
Lyric
.
Translator, J. D. PRINCE.

'A star-story, please,' the boy repeated, cuddling up. They all drew,
where possible, nearer. Their belief in their father's powers, rarely
justified, was pathetic. Each time they felt sure he would make the
adventures seem real, yet somehow he never quite did. They were aware
that it was invention only. These things he told about he had not
experienced himself. For they badly needed a leader, these children;
and Daddy just missed filling the position. He was too 'clever,' his
imagination neither wild nor silly enough, for children. And he felt
it. He threw off rhymes and stories for them in a spirit of bravado
rather—an expression of disappointment. Yet there was passion in them
too—concealed. The public missed the heart he showed them in his
books in the same way.

'The stars are listening....' Jimbo's voice sounded far away, almost
outside the window. Mother now snored audibly. Daddy took his courage
in both hands and made the plunge.

'You know about the Star Cavern, I suppose—?' he began. It was the
sudden idea that had shot into him, he knew not whence.

'No.'

'Never heard of it.'

'Where is it, please?'

'Don't interrupt. That wasn't a
real
question. Stories always begin
like that.' It was Jane Anne who thus finally commanded order.

'It's not a story exactly, but a sort of adventure,' he continued,
hesitating yet undaunted. 'Star Caverns are places where the unused
starlight gathers. There are numbers of them about the world, and one
I know of is up here in our mountains,' he pointed through the north
wall towards the pine-clad Jura, 'not far from the slopes of Boudry
where the forests dip towards the precipices of the Areuse—' The
phrase ran oddly through him like an inspiration, or the beginning of
a song he once had heard somewhere.

'Ah, beyond le Vallon Vert? I know,' whispered Jimbo, his blue eyes
big already with wonder.

'Towards the precipices on the farther side,' came the explanation,
'where there are those little open spaces among the trees.'

'Tell us more exactly, please.'

'Star-rays, you see,' he evaded them, 'are visible in the sky on their
way to us, but once they touch the earth they disappear and go out
like a candle. Unless a chance puddle, or a pair of eyes happens to be
about to catch them, you can't tell where they've gone to. They go
really into these Star Caverns.'

'But in a puddle or a pair of eyes they'd be lost just the same,' came
the objection.

'On the contrary,' he said; 'changed a little—increased by
reflection—but not lost.'

There was a pause; the children stared, expectantly. Here was mystery.

'See how they mirror themselves whenever possible,' he went on,
'doubling their light and beauty by giving themselves away! What is a
puddle worth until a Star's wee golden face shines out of it? And
then—what gold can buy it? And what are your eyes worth until a star
has flitted in and made a nest there?'

'Oh, like that, you mean—!' exclaimed Jane Anne, remembering that the
wonderful women in the newspaper stories always had 'starry eyes.'

'Like that, yes.' Daddy continued. 'Their light puts sympathy in you,
and only sympathy makes you lovely and—and—'

He stopped abruptly. He hesitated a moment. He was again most suddenly
aware that this strange idea that was born in him came from somewhere
else, almost from
some one
else. It was not his own idea, nor had he
captured it completely yet. Like a wandering little inspiration from
another mind it seemed passing through him on uncertain, feathery
feet. He had suddenly lost it again. Thought wandered. He stared at
Jimbo, for Jimbo somehow seemed the channel.

The children waited, then talked among themselves. Daddy so often got
muddled and inattentive in this way. They were accustomed to it,
expected it even.

'I always love being out at night,' said Monkey, her eyes very bright;
'it sort of excites and makes me soft and happy.'

'Excuse me, Daddy, but have you been inside one? What's it like? The
Cave, I mean?' Jinny stuck to the point. She had not yet travelled
beyond it.

'It all collects in there and rises to the top like cream,' he went
on, 'and has a little tiny perfume like wild violets, and by walking
through it you get clothed and covered with it, and come out again all
soft-shiny—'

'What's soft-shiny, please?'

'Something half-primrose and half-moon. You're like a star—'

'But how—like a star?'

'Why,' he explained gently, yet a little disappointed that his
adventure was not instantly accepted, 'you shine, and your eyes
twinkle, and everybody likes you and thinks you beautiful—'

'Even if you're not?' inquired Jinny.

'But you
are
—'

'Couldn't we go there now? Mother's fast asleep!' suggested Jimbo in a
mysterious whisper. He felt a curious excitement. This, he felt, was
more real than usual. He glanced at Monkey's eyes a moment.

'Another time,' said Daddy, already half believing in the truth of his
adventure, yet not quite sure of himself. 'It collects, and collects,
and collects. Sometimes, here and there, a little escapes and creeps
out into yellow flowers like dandelions and buttercups. A little, too,
slips below the ground and fills up empty cracks between the rocks.
Then it hardens, gets dirty, and men dig it out again and call it
gold. And some slips out by the roof—though very, very little—and
you see it flashing back to find the star it belongs to, and people
with telescopes call it a shooting star, and—' It came pouring
through him again.

'But when you're in it—in the Cavern,' asked Monkey impatiently;
'what happens then?'

'Well,' he answered with conviction, 'it sticks to you. It sticks to
the eyes most, but a little also to the hair and voice, and nobody
loves you unless you've got a bit of it somewhere on you. A girl,
before any one falls in love with her, has always been there, and
people who write stories and music and things—all have got some on
their fingers or else nobody cares for what they write—'

'Oh, Daddy, then why don't you go there and get sticky all over with
it?' Jinny burst out with sudden eagerness, ever thinking of others
before herself. 'I'll go and get some for you—lots and lots.'

'I
have
been there,' he answered slowly, 'once long, long ago. But
it didn't stick very well with me. It wipes off so quickly in the day-
time. The sunlight kills it.'

'But you got
some
!' the child insisted. 'And you've got it still, I
mean?'

'A little, perhaps, a very little.'

All felt the sadness in his voice without understanding it. There was
a moment's pause. Then the three of them spoke in a single breath—

'Please show it to us—
now
,' they cried.

'I'll try,' he said, after a slight hesitation, 'but—er—it's only a
rhyme, you see'; and then began to murmur very low for fear of waking
Mother: he almost sang it to them. The flock of tiny voices whispered
it to his blood. He merely uttered what he heard:—

Starlight
Runs along my mind
And rolls into a ball of golden silk—
A little skein
Of tangled glory;
And when I want to get it out again
To weave the pattern of a verse or story,
It must unwind.

It then gets knotted, looped, and all up-jumbled,
And long before I get it straight again, unwumbled,
To make my verse or story,
The interfering sun has risen
And burst with passion through my silky prison
To melt it down in dew,
Like so much spider-gossamer or fairy-cotton.
Don't you?
I
call it rotten!

A hushed silence followed. Eyes sought the fire. No one spoke for
several minutes. There was a faint laughter, quickly over, but
containing sighs. Only Jinny stared straight into her father's face,
expecting more, though prepared at any stage to explode with unfeigned
admiration.

'But that "don't you" comes in the wrong place,' she objected
anxiously. 'It ought to come after "I call it rotten"—' She was
determined to make it seem all right.

'No, Jinny,' he answered gravely, 'you must always put others before
yourself. It's the first rule in life and literature.'

She dropped her eyes to the fire like the others. 'Ah,' she said, 'I
see; of course.' The long word blocked her mind like an avalanche,
even while she loved it.

'
I
call it rotten,' murmured Monkey under her breath. Jimbo made no
audible remark. He crossed his little legs and folded his arms. He was
not going to express an opinion until he understood better what it was
all about. He began to whisper to his sister. Another longish pause
intervened. It was Jinny again who broke it.

'And "wumbled,"' she asked solemnly as though the future of everybody
depended on it, 'what
is
wumbled, really? There's no such thing, is
there?—In life, I mean?' She meant to add 'and literature,' but the
word stopped her like a hedge.

'It's what happens to a verse or story I lose in that way,' he
explained, while Jimbo and Monkey whispered more busily still among
themselves about something else. 'The bit of starlight that gets lost
and doesn't stick, you see—ineffective.'

'But there
is
no such word, really,' she urged, determined to clear
up all she could. 'It rhymes—that's all.'

'And there
is
no verse or story,' he replied with a sigh. 'There
was
—that's all.'

There was another pause. Jimbo and Monkey looked round suspiciously.
They ceased their mysterious whispering. They clearly did not wish the
others to know what their confabulation was about.

'That's why your books are wumbled, is it?' she inquired, proud of an
explanation that excused him, yet left his glory somehow unimpaired.
Her face was a map of puzzled wrinkles.

'Precisely, Jinny. You see, the starlight never gets through properly
into my mind. It lies there in a knot. My plot is wumbled. I can't
disentangle it quite, though the beauty lies there right enough—'

'Oh, yes,' she interrupted, 'the beauty lies there still.' She got up
suddenly and gave him a kiss.

'Never mind, Daddy,' she whispered. 'I'll get it straight for you one
day. I'll unwumble it. I'll do it like a company promoter, I will.'
She used words culled from newspapers.

'Thank you, child,' he smiled, returning her kiss; 'I'm sure you will.
Only, you'd better let me know when you're coming. It might be
dangerous to my health otherwise.'

She took it with perfect seriousness. 'Oh, but, excuse me, I'll come
when you're asleep,' she told him, so low that the others could not
hear. 'I'll come to you when I'm dreaming. I dream all night like a
busy Highlander.'

'That's right,' he whispered, giving her a hug. 'Come when I'm asleep
and all the stars are out; and bring a comb and a pair of scissors—'

'And a hay-rake,' added Monkey, overhearing.

Everybody laughed. The children cuddled up closer to him. They pitied
him. He had failed again, though his failure was as much a pleasure as
his complete success. They sat on his knees and played with him to
make up for it, repeating bits of the rhyme they could remember. Then
Mother and Riquette woke up together, and the spell was broken. The
party scattered. Only Jimbo and his younger sister, retiring into a
corner by themselves, continued their mysterious confabulation. Their
faces were flushed with excitement. There was a curious animation in
their eyes—though this may have been borrowed from the embers of the
peat. Or, it may have been the stars, for they were close to the open
window. Both seemed soft-shiny somehow.
They
, certainly, were not
wumbled.

And several hours later, when they had returned from supper at the
Pension and lay in bed, exchanging their last mysterious whispers
across the darkness, Monkey said in French—

'Jimbo, I'm going to find that Cavern where the star stuff lies,' and
Jimbo answered audaciously, 'I've already been there.'

'Will you show me the way, then?' she asked eagerly, and rather
humbly.

'Perhaps,' he answered from beneath the bedclothes, then added, 'Of
course I will.' He merely wished to emphasise the fact that he was
leader.

'Sleep quickly, then, and join me—over there.' It was their game to
believe they joined in one another's dreams.

They slept. And the last thing that reached them from the outer world
was their mother's voice calling to them her customary warning: that
the
ramoneur
was already in the chimney and that unless they were
asleep in five minutes he would come and catch them by the tail. For
the Sweep they looked upon with genuine awe. His visits to the
village—once in the autumn and once in the spring—were times of
shivery excitement.