IV.
"Hush!" said the captain; "we must not make any noise. Do not speak again.
Go like a mouse
Into the house.
Up the stairs creep
Though they are steep.
There you will find,
If you're not blind,
A little child who's softly tapping,
Tapping, rapping, rapping, tapping,
Rapping, tapping at the door.
Though the knocker is so high,
Yet she still doth try and try;
You must knock, and it will fly
Open—little girl, good bye."
"Why, that was in the dream; and if you please, captain, tell me where I am, and who is the child, and——"
But the captain had gone, so had the sailors, so had the ship.
The girl went slowly up the steps to the castle door, which being open, she entered in, and found herself in a great hall, from which a staircase wound up and up through a great many storeys.
"I must go," she said; for the music that sounded through the castle seemed to speak to her, and bid her come.
And on and on she went, and on the seventh storey she paused; for at a door she saw a child tapping and rapping, and trying to reach the knocker.
Softly the girl went behind the little one, who never turned round, but clutched in her hand a lily similar to the one the girl herself held. She reached above the child's head, and knocked loudly. And lo! a bugle-blast answered, and the door flew open, and the girl and the child entered in together. They wandered through beautiful rooms, listening ever to the music, and at last they came to one where on a couch lay the master of the castle playing upon a lute.
If the music had sounded sweet in the distance, it sounded far sweeter now, and the two paused on the threshold.
But the master said—
"Welcome to the Castle of Song, for none but true musicians find their way here."
And then the child knelt down beside him, and said to him—
"I tried to come, but I could not knock loudly enough."
And the girl said—
"I do not think I tried to come, though the music was so beautiful. Did you send for me?"
The master of the castle smiled, and answered—
"The music brought you."
Then the girl remembered that the boat sailed by music, and as she looked through the open window and saw it sailing away in the distance, she asked—
"Will it bring others, too?"
And the master of the castle replied—
"In time, in time."
Julia Goddard.