below.
'What shall I sing? '
'That thing about the two trees Uncle Paul made up.'
'But he hasn't given me the tune yet!'
'The tune's still lost,' murmured the deep voice from the shadows of the big fork. 'I must go into the Crack and find it. That's where I found the words, at least 'The sound of his voice melted away.
'Of course,' Joan was heard to say faintly, 'all lost things are in there, aren't they?'
And then something queer happened that was never explained. Perhaps they all slipped through the Crack together; or perhaps Nixie's funny little singing voice floated down to them through such a filter of listening leaves that both words and tune were changed on the way into something sweeter than they actually were in themselves.
Who told the Silver Birch tree
The stories that we made?
And how can she remember
The very games we played?
Who told her heart of silver
That, almost from her birth,
The roots of that old Pine tree
Had sought hers under earth?
For always when the wind blows
Her hair about the wood,
It blows across my eyes too
Her pictured solitude.
And then Aventures gather
On little hidden feet,
And mystery and laughter
The magic things repeat.
For, O my Silver Birch tree,
Full half the 'things' we do,
We did—or e'er you sweetened
The starlight and the dew!
They stood there, all in order,
Ready and waiting even,
Before the sunlight kissed you,
Or you, the winds of heaven.
Who told you, then, O Birch Tree,
The 'Ventures that we play?
And how can you remember
The wonder—and the Way?
CHAPTER XXIII
Panthea. Look, sister, where a troop of spirits gather
Like flocks of cloud in spring's delightful weather,
Thronging in the blue air!
Ione And see! More come.
Like fountain-vapours when the winds are dumb,
That climb up the ravines in scattered lines.
And hark! Is it the music of the pines?
Is it the lake? Is it the waterfall?
Panthea. 'Tis something sadder, sweeter far than all.
Prometheus Unbound.
'IT'S all very well for you two to play at being trees,' the voice of Joan was heard to object, 'but I should like to know what part I '
'Hush! Hush! I hear them coming,' Nixie said quickly with a new excitement.
She had apparently floated up higher into the ilex to the place vacated by Jonah. Her voice had a ring of the sky in it.
'Come up to where I am, and we can all see. They're rising already '
'Who—what's rising?' called Joan from below; 'I'm not!'
'There's something up, I expect,' said Paul quickly. 'I'll help you.' He knew by the child's voice there was aventure afoot. 'Give me your hand, Joan. And put your feet where I tell you. We're all in the Crack, remember, so everything's possible.'
'Undoubtedly something's up, but it's not me y I'm afraid,' she laughed.
'Hush! Hush! Hush!' Nixie's voice reached them from the higher branches. 'Talk in whispers, please, or you'll frighten them. And be quick. They're rising everywhere. Any minute now they may be off and you'll miss them '
Joan and Paul obeyed; though in his record of the aventure he never described the details of their ascent. A few minutes later they were perched beside the child near the rounded top of the ilex.
'It's fearfully rickety,' Joan said breathlessly.
'But there's no danger,' whispered Nixie,' because this is an evergreen tree, and it doesn't go with the others.'
'How—"Go with the others?" 'asked the two in the same breath.
'Trees,' answered the child. 'They're emigrating. Look! Listen!'
'Migrating,' suggested Paul.
'Of course,' Nixie said, poking her head higher to see into the sky. 'Trees go away south in the autumn just like birds—the real trees; their insides, I mean, 'Their spirits,' Paul explained in his lowest whisper to Joan.
'That's why they lose their leaves. And in the spring they come back with all their new blossoms and things. If they find nicer places in the south, they stay, that's all. They—die. Listen—you can hear them going!'
High up in that still autumn sky there ran a sweet and curious sound, difficult to describe. Joan thought it was like the rustle of countless leaves falling: the tiny tapping noise made by a dying leaf as it settles on the ground—multiplied enormously; but to Paul it seemed that sudden, dream-like whirr of a host of birds when they wheel sharply in mid-air—heard at a distance. There was no question about the distance at any rate.
'Are they just the trees of our woods, then?' asked Joan in a whisper that held delight and awe, 'or?'
The child laughed under her breath. 'Oh, no,' was the reply, 'all the South of England below a certain line meets here. This is one of the great starting-places. It's just like swallows collecting on the wires. Some big tree, higher than the rest, gives a sign one night—and then all the other woods flock in by thousands. Uncle Paul knew that! 'There was a touch in her voice of something between scorn and surprise.
'Did you, Uncle Paul?' Joan asked. He fidgeted in his precarious perch. 'I write the Record of it all, so I ought to,' he answered evasively.
And high up in the autumn
