Lilith

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"Close eyes!" she said suddenly. I closed my eyes, and kept them close. The elephants stood still. I heard a soft scurry, a little rustle, and then a silence−−for in that world SOME silences ARE heard. "Open eyes!" twenty voices a little way off shouted at once; but when I obeyed, not a creature was visible except the elephants that bore me. I knew the children marvellously quick in getting out of the way−−the giants had taught them that; but when I raised myself, and looking about in the open shrubless forest, could descry neither hand nor heel, I stared in "blank astonishment." The sun was set, and it was fast getting dark, yet presently a multitude of birds began to sing. I lay down to listen, pretty sure that, if I left them alone, the hiders would soon come out again. The singing grew to a little storm of bird−voices. "Surely the children must have something to do with it!−−And yet how could they set the birds singing?" I said to myself as I lay and listened. Soon, however, happening to look up into the tree under which my elephants stood, I thought I spied a little motion among the leaves, and looked more keenly. Sudden white spots appeared in the dark foliage, the music died down, a gale of childish laughter rippled the air, and white spots came out in every direction: the trees were full of children! In the wildest merriment they began to descend, some dropping from bough to bough so rapidly that I could scarce believe they had not fallen. I left my litter, and was instantly surrounded−−a mark for all the artillery of their jubilant fun. With stately composure the elephants walked away to bed. "But," said I, when their uproarious gladness had had scope for a while, "how is it that I never before heard you sing like the birds? Even when I thought it must be you, I could hardly believe it!" "Ah," said one of the wildest, "but we were not birds then! We were run−creatures, not fly−creatures! We had our hide−places in the bushes then; but when we came to no−bushes, only trees, we had to build nests! When we built nests, we grew birds, and when we were birds, we had to do birds! We asked them to teach us their noises, and they taught us, and now we are real birds!−−Come and see my nest. It's not big enough for king, but it's big enough for king to see me in it!" I told him I could not get up a tree without the sun to show me the way; when he came, I would try. "Kings seldom have wings!" I added. "King! king!" cried one, "oo knows none of us hasn't no wings−−foolis feddery tings! Arms and legs is better." "That is true. I can get up without wings−−and carry straws in my mouth too, to build my nest with!" "Oo knows!" he answered, and went away sucking his thumb. A moment after, I heard him calling out of his nest, a great way up a walnut tree of enormous size, "Up adain, king! Dood night! I seepy!" Lilith And I heard no more of him till he woke me in the morning. CHAPTER XXXIII. LONA'S NARRATIVE Lilith 104
Lilith I lay down by a tree, and one and one or in little groups, the children left me and climbed to their nests. They were always so tired at night and so rested in the morning, that they were equally glad to go to sleep and to get up again. I, although tired also, lay awake: Lona had not bid me good night, and I was sure she would come. I had been struck, the moment I saw her again, with her resemblance to the princess, and could not doubt her the daughter of whom Adam had told me; but in Lona the dazzling beauty of Lilith was softened by childlikeness, and deepened by the sense of motherhood. "She is occupied probably," I said to myself, "with the child of the woman I met fleeing!" who, she had already told me, was not half mother enough. She came at length, sat down beside me, and after a few moments of silent delight, expressed mainly by stroking my face and hands, began to tell me everything that had befallen since I went. The moon appeared as we talked, and now and then, through the leaves, lighted for a quivering moment her beautiful face−−full of thought, and a care whose love redeemed and glorified it. How such a child should have been born of such a mother−−such a woman of such a princess, was hard to understand; but then, happily, she had two parents−−say rather, three! She drew my heart by what in me was likest herself, and I loved her as one who, grow to what perfection she might, could only become the more a child. I knew now that I loved her when I left her, and that the hope of seeing her again had been my main comfort. Every word she spoke seemed to go straight to my heart, and, like the truth itself, make it purer. She told me that after I left the orchard valley, the giants began to believe a little more in the actual existence of their neighbours, and became in consequence more hostile to them. Sometimes the Little Ones would see them trampling furiously, perceiving or imagining some indication of their presence, while they indeed stood beside, and laughed at their foolish rage. By and by, however, their animosity assumed a more practical shape: they began to destroy the trees on whose fruit the Little Ones lived. This drove the mother of them all to meditate counteraction. Setting the sharpest of them to listen at night, she learned that the giants thought I was hidden somewhere near, intending, as soon as I recovered my strength, to come in the dark and kill them sleeping. Thereupon she concluded that the only way to stop the destruction was to give them ground for believing that they had abandoned the place. The Little Ones must remove into the forest−−beyond the range of the giants, but within reach of their own trees, which they must visit by night! The main objection to the plan was, that the forest had little or no undergrowth to shelter−−or conceal them if necessary. But she reflected that where birds, there the Little Ones could find habitation. They had eager sympathies with all modes of life, and could learn of the wildest creatures: why should they not take refuge from the cold and their enemies in the tree−tops? why not, having lain in the low brushwood, seek now the lofty foliage? why not build nests where it would not serve to scoop hollows? All that the birds could do, the Little Ones could learn−−except, indeed, to fly! She spoke to them on the subject, and they heard with approval. They could already climb the trees, and they had often watched the birds building their nests! The trees of the forest, although large, did not look bad! They went up much nearer the sky than those of the giants, and spread out their arms−−some even stretched them down−−as if inviting them to come and live with them! Perhaps, in the top of the tallest, they might find that bird that laid the baby−eggs, and sat upon them till they were ripe, then tumbled them down to let the little ones out! Yes; they would build sleep−houses in the trees, where no giant would see them, for never by any chance did one throw back his dull head to look up! Then the bad giants would be sure they had left the country, and the Little Ones would gather their own apples and pears and figs and mesples and peaches when they were asleep! Thus reasoned the Lovers, and eagerly adopted Lona's suggestion−−with the result that they were soon as much at home in the tree−tops as the birds themselves, and that the giants came ere long to the conclusion that they had frightened them out of the country−−whereupon they forgot their trees, and again almost ceased Lilith 105
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Lilith George MacDonald
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Lilith George MacDonald • CHAPTER
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Lilith The library, although duly c
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CHAPTER II. THE MIRROR Nothing more
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"I saw you come through it!−−sa
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Lilith was the mirror, on whose top
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"I do not want to go," I said. "Tha
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"Ten minutes ago you did not see it
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CHAPTER V. THE OLD CHURCH I followe
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"Here we are at last!" said the rav
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"I never saw one do it!" "You saw m
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helmet" gleaming like a moonstone.
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"That also you will know when you w
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"Where was that?" "In this very roo
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"That is the door I spoke of," he s
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"I would have lain down at once had
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Lilith larger, and at length gave m
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The moon went below, and the world
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molten music sang me into a dreamle
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I lay on the floor that night hardl
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I had found that to ask precisely t
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had never seen any before they saw
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A long pause followed. "Then you do
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"I will," I replied−−and sat do
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"There is no hurt in the air," she
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their princess and her power, and d
Page 53 and 54:
I learned afterward that there were
Page 55 and 56: Lilith to grow dark. At my feet lay
Page 57 and 58: I was lying on my withered leaves i
Page 59 and 60: "Have you hurt yourself, my lord?"
Page 61 and 62: "Granted!−−but in which or what
Page 63 and 64: they are pretty steadily growing mo
Page 65 and 66: To do for her all I could, I spread
Page 67 and 68: She was lying as I had left her. Th
Page 69 and 70: other from her shoulders. With the
Page 71 and 72: "Doubtless you pitied me!" "Never h
Page 73 and 74: Despair restored my volition; the s
Page 75 and 76: night. I ran the faster, though I c
Page 77 and 78: Lilith CHAPTER XXII. BULIKA I had l
Page 79 and 80: "Thank you!" she murmured. "Have yo
Page 81 and 82: As I lay sleepless, I began to hear
Page 83 and 84: "Take me to the princess," I said.
Page 85 and 86: The princess stood waiting me, in a
Page 87 and 88: CHAPTER XXVI. A BATTLE ROYAL I thre
Page 89 and 90: I turned and followed the spotted l
Page 91 and 92: in a stormy water, I was flung abou
Page 93 and 94: "Indeed you almost taught the noble
Page 95 and 96: "A song that had no sound into his
Page 97 and 98: Then at last I understood that Mr.
Page 99 and 100: "But," I returned, hard to persuade
Page 101 and 102: do. The librarian walked on in sile
Page 103 and 104: "Mr. Vane," croaked the raven, "thi
Page 105: All day I worked hard. When the dar
Page 109 and 110: Now arose in the mind of the woman
Page 111 and 112: Little Ones, from a crowd of childr
Page 113 and 114: them as for those other animals, bu
Page 115 and 116: Lilith myself learned to obey! Untr
Page 117 and 118: For she must think! Now what she ca
Page 119 and 120: CHAPTER XXXVII. THE SHADOW A murmur
Page 121 and 122: In the morning we set out, and made
Page 123 and 124: "He will kill me!" she moaned. "At
Page 125 and 126: "Will the cat−woman−−I mean t
Page 127 and 128: terrible, something they were not t
Page 129 and 130: "Such a compulsion would be without
Page 131 and 132: embrace of a friend whom her soul h
Page 133 and 134: een timelessly, spacelessly, absolu
Page 135 and 136: "It is the biggest room in all this
Page 137 and 138: Almost under our feet, shot up the
Page 139 and 140: "This food will help thee to die,"
Page 141 and 142: "You will soon begin to find comfor
Page 143 and 144: She gave the candle to her husband,
Page 145 and 146: With measured tread along the path,
Page 147 and 148: And as I sat, there grew in me such
Page 149 and 150: and I thought I had heard the song
Page 151 and 152: me, as to him that made me, all in
Page 153 and 154: "Then remember, and recall. Trials
Page 155 and 156: He embraced Lona his child, put an
Page 157 and 158:
"The black bat is flown!" said Mara
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tumid bulges, glaring orbs of sepia
Page 161 and 162:
I had seen the lightning, but heard
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"But whence first into thy dark sel
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Lilith

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