DURING this conversation the dragon-fly had been preparing a bed for her
host. The moss upon which the Child sat had grown a foot high behind his
back, out of pure joy; but the dragon-fly and her sisters had so revelled
upon it, that it was now laid at its length along the cave. The
dragon-fly had awakened every spider in the neighbourhood out of her
sleep, and when they saw the brilliant light, they had set to work
spinning so industriously that their web hung down like a curtain before
the mouth of the cave. But as the Child saw the ant peeping up at him,
he entreated the fire-flies not to deprive themselves any longer of their
merry games in the wood on his account. And the dragon-fly and her
sisters raised the curtain till the Child had laid him down to rest, and
then let it fall again, that the mischievous gnats might not get in to
disturb his slumbers.
The Child laid himself down to sleep, for he was very tired; but he could
not sleep, for his couch of moss was quite another thing than his little
bed, and the cave was all strange to him.
He turned himself on one side and then on the other, and, as nothing
would do, he raised himself and sat upright to wait till sleep might
choose to come. But sleep would not come at all; and the only wakeful
eyes in the whole wood were the Child’s. For the harebells had rung
themselves weary, and the fire-flies had flown about till they were
tired, and even the dragon-fly, who would fain have kept watch in front
of the cave, had dropped sound asleep.
The wood grew stiller and stiller; here and there fell a dry leaf which
had been driven from its old dwelling place by a fresh one; here and
there a young bird gave a soft chirp when its mother squeezed it in the
nest; and from time to time a gnat hummed for a minute or two in the
curtain, till a spider crept on tip-toe along its web, and gave him such
a gripe in the wind-pipe as soon spoiled his trumpeting.
And the deeper the silence became, the more intently did the Child
listen, and at last the slightest sound thrilled him from head to foot.
At length, all was still as death in the wood; and the world seemed as if
it never would wake again. The Child bent forward to see whether it were
as dark abroad as in the cave, but he saw nothing save the pitch-dark
night, who had wrapped everything in her thick veil. Yet as he looked
upwards his eyes met the friendly glance of two or three stars, and this
was a most joyful surprise to him, for he felt himself no longer so
entirely alone. The stars were, indeed, far, far away, but yet he knew
them, and they knew him; for they looked into his eyes.
The Child’s whole soul was fixed in his gaze; and it seemed to him as if
he must needs fly out of the darksome cave, thither where the stars were
beaming with such pure and serene light; and he felt how poor and lowly
he was, when he thought of their brilliancy; and how cramped and
fettered, when he thought of their free unbounded course along the
heavens.