'The stars are listening....' Jimbo's voice sounded far away, almost outside the window. Mother now snored audibly. Daddy took his courage in both hands and made the plunge.

'You know about the Star Cavern, I suppose--?' he began. It was the sudden idea that had shot into him, he knew not whence.

'No.'

'Never heard of it.'

'Where is it, please?'

'Don't interrupt. That wasn't a _real_ question. Stories always begin like that.' It was Jane Anne who thus finally commanded order.

'It's not a story exactly, but a sort of adventure,' he continued, hesitating yet undaunted. 'Star Caverns are places where the unused starlight gathers. There are numbers of them about the world, and one I know of is up here in our mountains,' he pointed through the north wall towards the pine-clad Jura, 'not far from the slopes of Boudry where the forests dip towards the precipices of the Areuse--' The phrase ran oddly through him like an inspiration, or the beginning of a song he once had heard somewhere.

'Ah, beyond le Vallon Vert? I know,' whispered Jimbo, his blue eyes big already with wonder.

'Towards the precipices on the farther side,' came the explanation, 'where there are those little open s.p.a.ces among the trees.'

'Tell us more exactly, please.'

'Star-rays, you see,' he evaded them, 'are visible in the sky on their way to us, but once they touch the earth they disappear and go out like a candle. Unless a chance puddle, or a pair of eyes happens to be about to catch them, you can't tell where they've gone to. They go really into these Star Caverns.'

'But in a puddle or a pair of eyes they'd be lost just the same,' came the objection.

'On the contrary,' he said; 'changed a little--increased by reflection--but not lost.'

There was a pause; the children stared, expectantly. Here was mystery.

'See how they mirror themselves whenever possible,' he went on, 'doubling their light and beauty by giving themselves away! What is a puddle worth until a Star's wee golden face shines out of it? And then--what gold can buy it? And what are your eyes worth until a star has flitted in and made a nest there?'

'Oh, like that, you mean--!' exclaimed Jane Anne, remembering that the wonderful women in the newspaper stories always had 'starry eyes.'

'Like that, yes.' Daddy continued. 'Their light puts sympathy in you, and only sympathy makes you lovely and--and--'

He stopped abruptly. He hesitated a moment. He was again most suddenly aware that this strange idea that was born in him came from somewhere else, almost from _some one_ else. It was not his own idea, nor had he captured it completely yet. Like a wandering little inspiration from another mind it seemed pa.s.sing through him on uncertain, feathery feet. He had suddenly lost it again. Thought wandered. He stared at Jimbo, for Jimbo somehow seemed the channel.

The children waited, then talked among themselves. Daddy so often got muddled and inattentive in this way. They were accustomed to it, expected it even.

'I always love being out at night,' said Monkey, her eyes very bright; 'it sort of excites and makes me soft and happy.'

'Excuse me, Daddy, but have you been inside one? What's it like? The Cave, I mean?' Jinny stuck to the point. She had not yet travelled beyond it.

'It all collects in there and rises to the top like cream,' he went on, 'and has a little tiny perfume like wild violets, and by walking through it you get clothed and covered with it, and come out again all soft-shiny--'

'What's soft-shiny, please?'

'Something half-primrose and half-moon. You're like a star--'

'But how--like a star?'

'Why,' he explained gently, yet a little disappointed that his adventure was not instantly accepted, 'you shine, and your eyes twinkle, and everybody likes you and thinks you beautiful--'

'Even if you're not?' inquired Jinny.

'But you _are_--'

'Couldn't we go there now? Mother's fast asleep!' suggested Jimbo in a mysterious whisper. He felt a curious excitement. This, he felt, was more real than usual. He glanced at Monkey's eyes a moment.

'Another time,' said Daddy, already half believing in the truth of his adventure, yet not quite sure of himself. 'It collects, and collects, and collects. Sometimes, here and there, a little escapes and creeps out into yellow flowers like dandelions and b.u.t.tercups. A little, too, slips below the ground and fills up empty cracks between the rocks.

Then it hardens, gets dirty, and men dig it out again and call it gold. And some slips out by the roof--though very, very little--and you see it flashing back to find the star it belongs to, and people with telescopes call it a shooting star, and--' It came pouring through him again.

'But when you're in it--in the Cavern,' asked Monkey impatiently; 'what happens then?'

'Well,' he answered with conviction, 'it sticks to you. It sticks to the eyes most, but a little also to the hair and voice, and n.o.body loves you unless you've got a bit of it somewhere on you. A girl, before any one falls in love with her, has always been there, and people who write stories and music and things--all have got some on their fingers or else n.o.body cares for what they write--'

'Oh, Daddy, then why don't you go there and get sticky all over with it?' Jinny burst out with sudden eagerness, ever thinking of others before herself. 'I'll go and get some for you--lots and lots.'

'I _have_ been there,' he answered slowly, 'once long, long ago. But it didn't stick very well with me. It wipes off so quickly in the day- time. The sunlight kills it.'

'But you got _some_!' the child insisted. 'And you've got it still, I mean?'

'A little, perhaps, a very little.'

All felt the sadness in his voice without understanding it. There was a moment's pause. Then the three of them spoke in a single breath--

'Please show it to us--_now_,' they cried.

'I'll try,' he said, after a slight hesitation, 'but--er--it's only a rhyme, you see'; and then began to murmur very low for fear of waking Mother: he almost sang it to them. The flock of tiny voices whispered it to his blood. He merely uttered what he heard:--

Starlight Runs along my mind And rolls into a ball of golden silk-- A little skein Of tangled glory; And when I want to get it out again To weave the pattern of a verse or story, It must unwind.

It then gets knotted, looped, and all up-jumbled, And long before I get it straight again, unwumbled, To make my verse or story, The interfering sun has risen And burst with pa.s.sion through my silky prison To melt it down in dew, Like so much spider-gossamer or fairy-cotton.

Don't you?

_I_ call it rotten!

A hushed silence followed. Eyes sought the fire. No one spoke for several minutes. There was a faint laughter, quickly over, but containing sighs. Only Jinny stared straight into her father's face, expecting more, though prepared at any stage to explode with unfeigned admiration.

'But that "don't you" comes in the wrong place,' she objected anxiously. 'It ought to come after "I call it rotten"---' She was determined to make it seem all right.

'No, Jinny,' he answered gravely, 'you must always put others before yourself. It's the first rule in life and literature.'

She dropped her eyes to the fire like the others. 'Ah,' she said, 'I see; of course.' The long word blocked her mind like an avalanche, even while she loved it.

'_I_ call it rotten,' murmured Monkey under her breath. Jimbo made no audible remark. He crossed his little legs and folded his arms. He was not going to express an opinion until he understood better what it was all about. He began to whisper to his sister. Another longish pause intervened. It was Jinny again who broke it.

'And "wumbled,"' she asked solemnly as though the future of everybody depended on it, 'what _is_ wumbled, really? There's no such thing, is there?--In life, I mean?' She meant to add 'and literature,' but the word stopped her like a hedge.

'It's what happens to a verse or story I lose in that way,' he explained, while Jimbo and Monkey whispered more busily still among themselves about something else. 'The bit of starlight that gets lost and doesn't stick, you see--ineffective.'