Algernon Blackwood (13 page)

'We shall be wonderful,' whispered Monkey, obeying, yet peeping with
one big brown eye.

The cataract of starbeams rushed past them in a flood of gold.

They moved towards an opening in the trees where the limestone cliffs
ran into rugged shapes with pinnacles and towers. They found the
entrance in the rocks. Water dripped over it, making little splashes.
The lime had run into hanging pillars and a fringe of pointed fingers.
Past this the river of starlight poured its brilliant golden stream.
Its soft brightness shone yellow as a shower of primrose dust.

'Look out! The Interfering Sun!' gasped Monkey again, awed and
confused with wonder. 'We shall melt in dew or fairy cotton. Don't
you? ... I call it rotten ...!'

'You'll unwind all right,' he told her, trying hard to keep his head
and justify his leadership. He, too, remembered phrases here and
there. 'I'm a bit knotted, looped, and all up-jumbled too, inside. But
the sun is miles away still. We're both soft-shiny still.'

They stooped to enter, plunging their bodies to the neck in the silent
flood of sparkling amber.

Then happened a strange thing. For how could they know, these two
adventurous, dreaming children, that Thought makes images which,
regardless of space, may flash about the world, and reach minds
anywhere that are sweetly tuned to their acceptance?

'What's that? Look out!
Gare!
Hold tight!' In his sudden excitement
Jimbo mixed questions with commands. He had caught her by the hand.
There was a new sound in the heavens above them—a roaring, rushing
sound. Like the thunder of a train, it swept headlong through the sky.
Voices were audible too.

'There's something enormous caught in the star-net,' he whispered.

'It's Mother, then,' said Monkey.

They both looked up, trembling with anticipation. They saw a big, dark
body like a thundercloud hovering above their heads. It had a line of
brilliant eyes. From one end issued a column of white smoke. It
settled slowly downwards, moving softly yet with a great air of bustle
and importance. Was this the arrival of a dragon, or Mother coming
after them? The blood thumped in their ears, their hands felt icy. The
thing dipped slowly through the trees. It settled, stopped, began to
purr.

'It's a railway train,' announced Jimbo finally with authority that
only just disguised amazement. 'And the passengers are getting out.'
With a sigh of immense relief he said it. 'You're not in any danger,
Monkey,' he added.

He drew his sister back quickly a dozen steps, and they hid behind a
giant spruce to watch. The scene that followed was like the holiday
spectacle in a London Terminus, except that the passengers had no
luggage. The other difference was that they seemed intent upon some
purpose not wholly for their own advantage. It seemed, too, they had
expected somebody to meet them, and were accordingly rather confused
and disappointed. They looked about them anxiously.

'Last stop; all get out here!' a Guard was crying in a kind of
pleasant singing voice. 'Return journey begins five minutes before the
Interfering Sun has risen.'

Jimbo pinched his sister's arm till she nearly screamed. 'Hear that?'
he whispered. But Monkey was too absorbed in the doings of the busy
passengers to listen or reply. For the first passenger that hurried
past her was no less a person than—Jane Anne! Her face was not
puzzled now. It was like a little sun. She looked utterly happy and
contented, as though she had found the place and duties that belonged
to her.

'Jinny!' whispered the two in chorus. But Jane Anne did not so much as
turn her head. She slipped past them like a shaft of light. Her hair
fell loose to her waist. She went towards the entrance. The flood rose
to her neck.

'Oh! there she is!' cried a voice. 'She travelled with us instead of
coming to meet us.' Monkey smiled. She knew her sister's alien,
unaccountable ways only too well.

The train had settled down comfortably enough between the trees, and
lay there breathing out a peaceable column of white smoke, panting a
little as it did so. The Guard went down the length of it, turning out
the lamps; and from the line of open doors descended the stream of
passengers, all hurrying to the entrance of the cave. Each one stopped
a moment in front of the Guard, as though to get a ticket clipped, but
instead of producing a piece of pasteboard, or the Guard a punching
instrument, they seemed to exchange a look together. Each one stared
into his face, nodded, and passed on.

'What blue eyes they've got,' thought Monkey to herself, as she peered
into each separate face as closely as she dared. 'I wish mine were
like that!' The wind, sighing through the tree-tops, sent a shower of
dew about their feet. The children started. 'What a lovely row!' Jimbo
whispered. It was like footsteps of a multitude on the needles. The
fact that it was so clearly audible showed how softly all these
passengers moved about their business.

The Guard, they noticed then, called out the names of some of them;
perhaps of all, only in the first excitement they did not catch them
properly. And each one went on at once towards the entrance of the
cave and disappeared in the pouring river of gold.

The light-footed way they moved, their swiftness as of shadows, the
way they tossed their heads and flung their arms about—all this made
the children think it was a dance. Monkey felt her own legs twitch to
join them, but her little brother's will restrained her.

'If you turn a somersault here,' he said solemnly, 'we're simply
lost.' He said it in French; the long word had not yet dawned upon his
English consciousness. They watched with growing wonder then, and
something like terror seized them as they saw a man go past them with
a very familiar look about him. He went in a cloud of sparkling, black
dust that turned instantly into shining gold when it reached the
yellow river from the stars. His face was very dirty.

'It's
not
the
ramoneur
,' whispered Jimbo, uncertain whether the
shiver he felt was his sister's or his own. 'He's much too springy.'
Sweeps always had a limp.

For the figure shot along with a running, dancing leap as though he
moved on wires. He carried long things over his shoulders. He flashed
into the stream like a shadow swallowed by a flame. And as he went,
they caught such merry words, half sung, half chanted:—,

'I'll mix their smoke with hope and mystery till they see dreams and
faces in their fires—' and he was gone.

Behind him came a couple arm in arm, their movements equally light and
springy, but the one behind dragging a little, as though lazily. They
wore rags and torn old hats and had no collars to their shirts. The
lazy one had broken boots through which his toes showed plainly. The
other who dragged him had a swarthy face like the gypsies who once had
camped near their house in Essex long, oh, ever so long ago.

'I'll get some too,' the slow one sang huskily as he stumbled along
with difficulty 'but there's never any hurry. I'll fill their journeys
with desire and make adventure call to them with love—'

'And I,' the first one answered, 'will sprinkle all their days with
the sweetness of the moors and open fields, till houses choke their
lungs and they come out to learn the stars by name. Ho, ho!'

They dipped, with a flying leap, into the rushing flood. Their rags
and filthy slouched hats flashed radiant as they went, all bathed and
cleaned in glory.

Others came after them in a continuous stream, some too outlandish to
be named or recognised, others half familiar, very quick and earnest,
but merry at the same time, and all intent upon bringing back
something for the world. It was not for themselves alone, or for their
own enjoyment that they hurried in so eagerly.

'How splendid! What a crew!' gasped Monkey. '
Quel spectacle
!' And
she began a somersault.

'Be quiet, will you?' was the rejoinder, as a figure who seemed to
have a number of lesser faces within his own big one of sunburned
brown, tumbled by them somewhat heavily and left a smell of earth and
leaves and potting-sheds about the trees behind him. 'Won't my flowers
just shine and dazzle 'em? And won't the dead leaves crackle as I burn
'em up!' he chuckled as he disappeared from view. There was a rush of
light as an eddy of the star-stream caught him, and something
certainly went up in flame. A faint odour reached the children that
was like the odour of burning leaves.

Then, with a rush, came a woman whose immensely long thin arms reached
out in front of her and vanished through the entrance a whole minute
before the rest of her. But they could not see the face. Some one with
high ringing laughter followed, though they could not see the outline
at all. It went so fast, they only heard the patter of light footsteps
on the moss and needles. Jimbo and Monkey felt slightly uncomfortable
as they watched and listened, and the feeling became positive
uneasiness the next minute as a sound of cries and banging reached
them from the woods behind. There was a great commotion going on
somewhere in the train.

'I can't get out, I can't get out!' called a voice unhappily. 'And if
I do, how shall I ever get in again? The entrance is so ridiculously
small. I shall only stick and fill it up. Why did I ever come? Oh, why
did I come at all?'

'Better stay where you are, lady,' the Guard was saying. 'You're good
ballast. You can keep the train down. That's something. Steady
thinking's always best, you know.'

Turning, the children saw a group of figures pushing and tugging at a
dark mass that appeared to have stuck halfway in the carriage door.
The pressure of many willing hands gave it a different outline every
minute. It was like a thing of india-rubber or elastic. The roof
strained outwards with ominous cracking sounds; the windows threatened
to smash; the foot-board, supporting the part of her that had emerged,
groaned with the weight already.

'Oh, what's the good of
me
?' cried the queer deep voice with
petulance. 'You couldn't get a wisp of hay in there, much less all of
me. I should block the whole cave up!'

'Come out a bit!' a voice cried.

'I can't.'

'Go back then!' suggested the Guard.

'But I can't. Besides I'm upside down!'

'You haven't got any upside down,' was the answer; 'so that's
impossible.'

'Well, anyhow, I'm in a mess and muddle like this,' came the smothered
voice, as the figures pulled and pushed with increasing energy.' And
my tarpaulin skirt is all askew. The winds are at it as usual.'

'Nothing short of a gale can help you now,' was somebody's verdict,
while Monkey whispered beneath her breath to Jimbo. 'She's even bigger
than Mother. Quelle masse!'

Then came a thing of mystery and wonder from the sky. A flying figure,
scattering points of light through the darkness like grains of shining
sand, swooped down and stood beside the group.

'Oh, Dustman,' cried the guard, 'give her of your dust and put her to
sleep, please. She's making noise enough to bring the Interfering Sun
above the horizon before his time.'

Without a word the new arrival passed one hand above the part of her
that presumably was the face. Something sifted downwards. There was a
sound of gentle sprinkling through the air; a noise followed that was
half a groan and half a sigh. Her struggles grew gradually less, then
ceased. They pushed the bulk of her backwards through the door. Spread
over many seats the Woman of the Haystack slept.

'Thank you,' said several voices with relief. 'She'll dream she's been
in. That's just as good.'

'Every bit,' the others answered, resuming their interrupted journey
towards the cavern's mouth.

'And when I come out she shall have some more,' answered the Dustman
in a soft, thick voice; 'as much as ever she can use.'

He flitted in his turn towards the stream of gold. His feet were
already in it when he paused a moment to shift from one shoulder to
the other a great sack he carried. And in that moment was heard a low
voice singing dreamily the Dustman's curious little song. It seemed to
come from the direction of the train where the Guard stood talking to
a man the children had not noticed before. Presumably he was the
engine-driver, since all the passengers were out now. But it may have
been the old Dustman himself who sang it. They could not tell exactly.
The voice made them quite drowsy as they listened:—

The busy Dustman flutters down the lanes,
He's off to gather star-dust for our dreams.

He dusts the Constellations for his sack,
Finding it thickest on the Zodiac,
But sweetest in the careless meteor's track;
That
he keeps only
For the old and lonely,
(And is very strict about it!)
Who sleep so little that they need the best;
The rest,—
The common stuff,—
Is good enough

For Fraulein, or for Baby, or for Mother,
Or any other
Who likes a bit of dust,
But yet can do without it
If they
must
!

The busy Dustman hurries through the sky
The kind old Dustman's coming to
your
eye!

By the time the song was over he had disappeared through the opening.

'I'll show 'em the real stuff!' came back a voice—this time certainly
his own—far inside now.

'I simply love that man,' exclaimed Monkey. 'Songs are usually such
twiddly things, but that was real.' She looked as though a somersault
were imminent. 'If only Daddy knew him, he'd learn how to write
unwumbled stories. Oh! we
must
get Daddy out.'

'It's only the head that sticks,' was her brother's reply. 'We'll
grease it.'

They remained silent a moment, not knowing what to do next, when they
became aware that the big man who had been talking to the Guard was
coming towards them.