"I have made a dress for the youngest child of our cousins, Jack and
Jill, and this morning I shall saddle the white horse and ride over to
their cottage. Perhaps I may stay with them for a few days. You will
find a fresh baking of bread and a meat-pie in the larder. Good-bye,
Giles; I'll soon be home again."
So Giles answered, "Good-bye," and away rode Phyllida on the white
horse.
A few days passed, and Giles, wandering here and there through the quiet
house, felt very lonely indeed. Finally he could stand it no longer, and
said to himself, "Phyllida must be on her way home now; I shall walk
down the highway and meet her."
So he turned all the animals loose in the fields, and putting a few
slices of bread and cheese in his pockets, set forth upon the road.
Leagues ahead of him stood the mysterious mountains rising palely
through the haze of the midsummer afternoon. A pale violet light fell on
their distant precipices, and the snow in the rifts upon their sides
appeared of the purest and loveliest white. Gusts of wind hurrying from
the distant summits swept the great plain, and the fields of ripening
wheat bent before them and rustled harshly.
Suddenly, down the throat of the Thunder Valley, Giles saw a river of
lightning fall, and from far away came a low murmur of thunder. Then,
faster and faster, a storm poured down the chasm like a flood, drowning
out the light of the sun, stilling the songs of the little birds, and
turning to the sky the pale underside of the leaves of the roadside
trees. A darkness as of night itself covered the land. Rain began to
fall in great spattering drops. Now, by the glare of the lightning,
Giles would see the endless fields, drenched and waving in the rain; now
the Thunder Valley itself, covered with a floor of onrushing cloud
unfolding, turning, and sinking in continuous and multitudinous
activity.
Night came on amid the storm, and a flash of lightning revealed to Giles
that he had lost his way. Hoping to find a shelter or some friendly
cottage, however, he plunged on; but the road became worse and worse,
and he was again and again forced to wade brooks flooded by the tempest.
At length his steps led him into a pine wood, and there in the thickest
part he found a little shelter, and fell asleep.
When he woke, numb, cramped, and cold, he found to his horror that in
the night and darkness he had blundered on into the Valley of Thunder,
into which no living soul had ever before advanced. Worst of all, he
could not find the way by which he had entered, for high crags rose on
every side and held him prisoner. Presently, to his amazement, he beheld
a narrow flight of steps cut in the solid rock of the mountainside. Up
these steps climbed Giles, and as he mounted higher, the stairs began to
twist and turn amid the crags and pinnacles. At the end of an hour's
ascent, he found himself at a turn from which the Thunder Valley, the
chasm through which it opened into the plain, and the wide plain itself,
could all be seen.
Giles lingered there a while, trying to see his own cottage, or perhaps
Phyllida on her white horse; but he could see neither one nor the other.
So he began to climb again. All day long he climbed and climbed and
climbed. Twilight fell. The circle of the sun dropped below the level
horizon of the distant fields. One still golden star hung on the fringe
of the sun-glow. The stairs began to widen, and presently Giles found
himself at the summit of the mountain. Before his eyes lay a little
level field surrounded by strange crags and pinnacles, looming tall and
black against the fast-appearing stars, and as Giles rubbed his eyes in
wonder, lights shone here and there in the sides of the towering rocks,
even as lights shine in the windows of a village when you see it from
afar.
Giles rubbed his eyes again. Lights? What could they mean? Presently a
great door, cut in the side of a towering mass of stone, opened with a
burst of light, and toward Giles there hurried the two strangest
creatures whom he had ever seen. These were two elves, alike as two peas
and each about three feet tall. Instead of having ears much like other
elves, however, the first one had ears like great curved cornucopias,
which projected almost a foot on each side of his enormous round head,
while the other, whose ears were quite natural, had but one huge eye in
the centre of his forehead.
Without saying a single word, these strange elves seized Giles by the
hands, and after hurrying him across the open space, urged him through
the open doors into the house in the crags.
Still keeping silence, the elves led Giles through hundreds of splendid
rooms and great halls, all lighted by hanging lamps as countless in
number as the leaves upon the trees. Suddenly, a great archway rose
before them, through which appeared a hall larger and brighter than all
the others seen before. At one end of it, under a canopy of rosy-gray,
stood a golden throne, and on the throne sat a being dressed in radiant
blue--in blue such as the sky wears after a rain, when the dark clouds
with bright edges break asunder and reveal the glory overhead. At the
same moment, the countless mountain elves gathered in the hall began to
sing:--
"All Hail, All Hail to the Shepherd of Clouds,
Who, high in his mountain-top, rules o'er the' weather;
He sends the rich rain over mountain and plain,
And sprinkles the dew-drops afar o'er the heather."
The elves led Giles before the Shepherd.
"How comest thou, mortal, to invade my mountain?" said the Shepherd.
"I went forth to seek Phyllida," said Giles, "and lost my way in the
storm."
"What sayest thou, Eye-o?" said the Shepherd to the elf with the single
great eye in his forehead.
"The mortal speaks the truth," answered Eye-o in the queerest,
squealiest voice. "I saw him set out yesterday from his cottage on the
plain. He had not gone far when the storm which Your Mightiness prepared
in the morning and sent forth in the afternoon overtook him. He lost his
way, and chance led him to your dwelling, O Shepherd of Clouds."
"What sayest thou, Ear-o?" said the Shepherd to the elf with the great
ears.
"I heard him say good-bye to his wife Wednesday last," replied the elf
in a voice exactly like that of his brother. "Phyllida said to him, 'You
will find a fresh baking of bread and a meat-pie in the larder.'"