The Silver Crown Part 8

"SIT DOWN!" said the Angel; and he took the child by her shoulders and set her down.

"Now sit still!" he said, and he began patiently to wind up the skein.

It was wofully tangled, and knotted about the child's hands and feet; it was a wonder she could move at all; but at last it was all clear, and the Angel handed her the ball.

"I thank you so very much!" said the child. "I was not naughty, was I?"

"Not naughty, only foolish; but that does just as much harm sometimes."

"But I was doing right things!" said the child.

"But you were doing them in the wrong way!" said the Angel. "It is good to do an errand, and it is good to go to school, but when you have a skein to wind you must sit still."

THE NURSLING

Yesterday, the kind nurse, Yesterday, the wise old woman, sat by the fire with her nursling on her knee.

"Still, my babe, be still!" she said. "Listen now, till I sing you a song!"

"Oh! I know all your songs," said the child. "I know them by heart, the sleepy bed-time songs. But the lovely lady yonder, who smiles at me from the doorway, sings a new song, new and strange, and sweet, sweet. If I listen to her, may be I shall learn it."

"Nay! listen not to her, the gipsy!" said Yesterday. "Bide here by the fire with me, my babe, and I will tell you a story shall do you good to hear."

"Oh! I know all your stories," said the child, "know them every word, and some of them are false, and all are dull. But the lovely lady who beckons me from the doorway murmurs strange words, in a new tongue, yet clear as light; if I go with her, may be I shall learn it."

"Child, child," said the old nurse, "listen not to her gipsy talk; it is full of peril, and these new words have wicked meanings. Come with me, my darling, and I will show you my garden, full of sweet flowers and delicate fruits and precious herbs. See! they have grown from all time, and I gathered them from the four ways of the world, and all for you."

The child laughed, and his laugh rang cruel clear, as when a bird sings loud and merry over a new-made grave.

"Your flowers are faded," he said. "I have tasted your fruits, every one, and your precious herbs are but a handful of dry leaves and stalks.

But the lovely lady who holds out her hands to me from the doorway tells me of things unknown, dim lands of furthest dawn, seas that no bark has ever sailed. I will go with her and see them, and live my life."

"Nay now, my child, my darling; stay with me by the fire, in the warm sheltered room;" said Yesterday the nurse, the wise old woman.

But the child was already gone, with To-morrow, the lovely lady with sunrise in her eyes, laughter on her lips, and the knife hidden in her hand.

WORMWOOD

All the morning the child ran about his field, smelling the sweet, tasting the sweet, plucking the bright and gay; and as he plucked and smelled and tasted, he found among the strawberries a dusky leaf that was bitter in his mouth. "What is this?" he asked of the Angel beside him; and the Angel said, "It is wormwood!"

"Pluck it all up!" cried the child. "It is bitter and hateful; I will have nought in my field but strawberries and roses."

And the Angel smiled, with folded hands.

Noon came, and afternoon, with long rays sloping westward; and the child walked in his field with slow and thoughtful steps. There were no flowers now in the gra.s.s, but everywhere a dusky leaf with dusky berries; and the air was full of the fragrance of them, sweet and yet bitter; bitter, yet oh, how sweet!

"What is this," the child asked, "that is bitter, and yet sweeter than aught else in the world?"

And the Angel said, "It is wormwood!"

THE PIT

"_Though I make my bed in h.e.l.l...._"

It was dark in the Pit. The air was heavy with poisonous vapors; the walls were foul with the slime of uncounted generations; under foot was the horror of the ages; yet still the man slept, for he was used to the place, and his brain sodden with the fumes of it. But by and by, as he slept, a sound crept into his ears, a weary, crying voice that went on and on and would not still; till the man stirred uneasily in his sleep, and awoke with the sound in his ears.

"Who is this," he said, "that breaks my slumber?"

He hearkened, and the voice went crying on:

"Oh! the blackness and the horror! oh! the dreadful, dreadful place!

will none help me out?"

"What ails you at the place?" asked the man. "One sleeps well enough, if folk would but be quiet."

And the voice went clamoring on; the piteousness of it might have stirred the dead things under foot.

"Oh! for one breath of G.o.d's pure air! for one glimpse of G.o.d's good suns.h.i.+ne! Oh! the horror of it, to die in the foul dark! will none help me out?"

Then the man looked, for his eyes were used to the mirk of the Pit, and saw beside him the face of a youth, glimmering white as the dead moon at midday, and s.h.i.+ning with tears and sweat of agony; and the lad was tearing at the walls, trying to make a way out; but his hands slipped on the slimy stones, and he fell back moaning and crying.

"Here is a great ado!" said the man. "But if it goes so ill with you, I will find a way out, if way there be."

He rose from the wallow where he lay, and with his strong hands felt along the walls, and found a crack between two great stones, and set his strength to rend them apart; but they clung together like the lips of Death. Long he struggled, yet could not stir them; and ever the doleful voice beat like a bell in his ears, till it seemed to him that he must give his life, so but that lad might go free.

Suddenly he felt a touch upon him, and in that same moment the stones moving under his hand: and looking, he was ware through the glimmering dark of another hand laid on the stone, and of one toiling beside him, striving even as he strove. Then the man set all the strength that was in him, and the great stones crumbled apart, and through the opening the fresh wind blew and the sun shone.

Then those two, the man and he who had toiled beside him, lifted the youth between them and brought him out into the open day; and the lad cried out once more, sobbing now for pure joy, and kissed their hands that had brought him out, and went singing on his way.

But the man stayed, and looked on that one who had toiled beside him.

"Oh!" he said, "it was you!"

"Who else?" said the other.

"But how came you there?" asked the man.

And the other answered, "I went in with you!"