His mother met Gratian at the kitchen door.

"I was coming out to look for you," she said. "Put away your books now.

You'd do no more good at them to-night."

"I wasn't sleepy, mother. I went to the door to wake myself up," he replied. But his tone was no longer fretful or cross.

"Feeling you needed waking up was something very like being sleepy," she answered smiling. "And all the lessons you have to learn are not to be found in your books, Gratian."

He did not at once understand, but he kept the words in his mind to think over.

"Good-night, mother," and he lifted his soft round face for her kiss.

"Good-night, my boy. Father has gone out to the stable to speak to one of the men. I'll say good-night to him for you. Pleasant dreams, and get up as early as you like if you want to work more."

"Mother," said Gratian hesitatingly.

"Well?"

"Is it a good thing to be born where the four winds meet?"

She laughed.

"I can't say," she replied. "It's not done you any harm so far. But don't begin getting your head full of fancies, my boy. Off with you to bed, and get to sleep as fast as you can. Pleasant dreams."

"But, mother," said the child as he went upstairs, "dreams are fancies."

"Yes, but they don't waste our time. There's no harm in dreaming when we're asleep--we can't be doing aught else then."

"Oh," said Gratian, "it's dreaming in the day that wastes time then."

He was turning the corner of the stair as he said so, speaking more to himself than to his mother. Just then a little waft of air came right in his face. It was not the sharp touch that had made him start at the door, nor was it the soft warm breath which old Jonas said was the south wind. Rather did it remind Gratian of the kindly breeze and the sea-green glimmerings on the moor. He stood still for an instant. Again it fluttered by him, and he heard the words, "Not always, Gratian; not always."

"What was I saying?" he asked himself. "Ah yes--that it is dreaming in the day that is a waste of time! And now she says 'Not always.' You are very puzzling people whoever you are," he went on; "you whose voices I hear in the chimney, and who seem to know all I am thinking whether I say it or not."

And as he lifted his little face towards the corner whence the sudden draught had come, there fell on his ears the sound of rippling laughter--the merriest and yet softest laughter he had ever heard, and in which several voices seemed to mingle. So near it seemed at first that he could have fancied it came from the old granary on the other side of the wooden part.i.tion shutting off the staircase, but again, in an instant, it seemed to dance and flicker itself away, till nothing remained but a faint ringing echo, which might well be no more than the slight rattle of the gla.s.s in the old cas.e.m.e.nt window.

Then all was silent, and the boy went on to his own room, and was soon covered up and fast asleep in his little white bed.

There were no voices in the chimney that night, or if there were Gratian did not hear them. But he had a curious dream.

CHAPTER IV.

A RAINBOW DANCE

"Purple and azure, white and green and golden, * * * * *

and they whirl Over each other with a thousand motions."

_Prometheus Unbound._--Sh.e.l.lEY

He dreamt that he awoke, and found himself not in his comfortable bed in his own room, but in an equally comfortable but much more uncommon bed in a very different place. Out on the moor! He opened his eyes and stared about him in surprise; there were the stars, up overhead, all blinking and winking at him as if asking what business a little boy had out there among them all in the middle of the night. And when he did find out where he was, he felt still more surprised at being so warm and cozy. For he felt perfectly so, even though he had neither blankets nor sheets nor pillow, but instead of all these a complete nest of the softest moss all about him. He was lying on it, and it covered him over as perfectly as a bird is covered by its feathers.

"Dear me," he said to himself, "this is very funny. How have I got here, and who has covered me up like this?"

But still he did not feel so excessively surprised as if he had been awake; for in dreams, as everybody knows, any surprise one feels quickly disappears, and one is generally very ready to take things as they come.

So he lay still, just quietly gazing about him. And gradually a murmur of approaching sound caught his ears. It was like soft voices and fluttering garments and breezes among trees, all mixed together, till as it came nearer the voices detached themselves from the other sounds, and he heard what they were saying.

"Yes, he deserves a treat, poor child," said one in very gentle caressing tones; "you have teased him enough, sisters."

"Teased him!" exclaimed another voice, and this time it seemed a familiar one to him; "_I_ tease him! Why, as you well know, it is my mission in life to comfort and console. I don't believe in petting and praising to the same extent as you do, perhaps--still you cannot say I ever tease. Laugh at him a little now and then, I may. But that does no harm."

"I never pet and praise except when it is deserved," murmured the first voice--and as he heard its soft tones a sort of delicious languor seemed to creep over Gratian--"never. But I beg your pardon, sister, if I misjudged you. You can be rigorous sometimes, you know, and----"

"So much the better--so much the better," broke in with clear cutting distinctness another voice; "how would the world go round--that is to say, how would the ships sail and the windmills turn--if we were all four as sweet and silky as you, my golden-winged sister? But it was _I_ who teased the child as you call it--I slapped him on the face; yes, and I am ready to do it again--to sting him sharply, when I think he needs it."

"Right, right--quite right," said another voice, not exactly sharp and clear like the last, yet with a resemblance to it, though deeper and sterner and with a strange cold strength in its accents. "You are his true friend in doing so. I for my part shall always be ready to invigorate and support him--to brace him for the battles he must fight.

But you, sister, have a rare gift of correction and of discerning the weak points which may lead to defeat and failure. Yours is an ungrateful task truly, but you are a valuable monitor."

"I must find my satisfaction in such considerations; it is plain I shall never get any elsewhere," replied the former speaker, rather bitterly.

"What horrid things are said of me, to be sure! Every ache and pain is laid at my door--I am 'neither good for man nor beast,' I am told! and yet--I am not all grim and gray, am I, sisters? There is a rosy glow in the trail of my garments if people were not so short-sighted and colour-blind."

"True, indeed, as who knows better than I," said the sweet mellow tones of the first speaker. "When you come my way and we dance together, sister, who could be less grim than you?"

"Ah, indeed," said the cold, stern voice, but it sounded less stern now, "then her sharp and biting words came from neighbourhood with _me_. Ah well--I can bear the reproach."

"I should think so," said the voice which Gratian had recognised, "for you know in your heart, you great icy creature, that you love fun as well as any one. How you do whirl and leap and rush and tear about, once your spirits really get the better of you! And you have such pretty playthings--your snow-flakes and filigree and icicles--none of us can boast such treasures, not to speak of your icebergs and crystal palaces, where you hide heaven knows what. My poor waves and foam, though I allow they are pretty in their way, are nothing to your possessions."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Now for our dance--our rainbow dance, sisters--no need to wake him roughly. We need only kiss his eyelids."]

"Never mind all that. _I_ don't grumble, though I might. What can one do with millions of tons of sand for a toy, I should like to know? And little else comes in my way that I can play catch-and-toss with! I can waft my scents about, to be sure--there is some pleasure in that. But now for our dance--our rainbow dance, sisters--no need to wake him roughly. We need only kiss his eyelids."

And Gratian, who had not all this time, strange to say, known that his eyes were closed again, felt across his lids a breeze so fresh and sudden that he naturally unclosed them to see whence it came. And once open he did not feel inclined to shut them again, I can a.s.sure you.

The sight before him was so pretty--and not the sight only. For the voices had melted into music--far off at first, then by slow degrees coming nearer; rising, falling, swelling, sinking, bright with rejoicing like the song of the lark, then soft and low as the tones of a mother hushing her baby to sleep, again wildly triumphant like a battle strain of victory, and even while you listened changing into the mournful, solemn cadence of a dirge, till at last all mingled into a slow, even measure of stately harmony, and the colours which had been weaving themselves in the distance, like a plaited rainbow before the boy's eyes, took definite form as they drew near him.

He saw them then--the four invisible sisters; he saw them, and yet it is hard to tell what he saw! They were distinct and yet vague, separate and yet together. But by degrees he distinguished them better. There was his old friend with the floating sea-green-and-blue mantle, and the streaming fair hair and loving sad eyes, and next her the sister with the golden wings and glowing locks and laughing rosy face, and then a gray shrouded nimble figure, which seemed everywhere at once, whose features Gratian could scarcely see, though a pair of bright sparkling eyes flashed out now and then, while sometimes a gleam of radiant red lighted up the grim robe. And in and out in the meshes of the dance glided the white form of the genius of the north--cold and stately, sparkling as she moved, though shaded now and then by the steel-blue veil which covered the dusky head. But as the dance went on, the music gradually grew faster and the soft regular movements changed into a quicker measure. In and out the four figures wove and unwove themselves together, and the more quickly they moved the more varied and brilliant grew the colours which seemed a part of them, so that each seemed to have all those of the others as well as her own, and Gratian understood why they had spoken of the rainbow dance. Golden-wings glowed with every other shade reflected on her own rich background, the sister from the sea grew warmer with the red and yellow that shone out among the lapping folds of her mantle, with its feather-like tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of foam, the gray of the East-wind's garments grew ruddier, like the sky before sunrise, and the cold white of the icy North glimmered and gleamed like an opal. And faster and faster they danced and glided and whirled about, till Gratian felt as if his breath were going, and that in another moment he would be carried away himself by the rush.

"Stop, stop," he cried at last. "It is beautiful, it is lovely, but my breath is going. Stop."

Instantly the four heads turned towards him, the four pairs of wings sheathed themselves, the eyes, laughing and gentle, piercing and grave, seemed all to be gazing at him at once, and eight outstretched arms seemed as if about to lift him upwards.

"No--no--" he said, "I don't want--I don't----."

But with the struggle to speak he awoke. He was in his own bed of course, and by the light he saw that it must be nearly time to get up.