'Name, please,' she urged, 'but quickly. The Interfering Sun, you know—there's no time to lose. We shall be meeting the Morning Spiders soon.'
The Morning Spiders! How it all came back! The Morning Spiders that fly over the fields in the dawn upon their private threads of gossamer and fairy cotton.
He remembered that, as children, they had never actually found this Star Cave, for the Interfering Sun had always come too soon and spoilt it all.
'Name, please, and do hurry up. We can't hover here all night,' rang in his ears.
And he made a plunge. He suddenly thought of Bourcelles, the little village in the Jura mountains, where he and his cousin had spent a year learning French. The idea flashed into him probably because it contained mountains, caves, and children. His cousin lived there now to educate his children and write his books. Only that morning he had got a letter from him.
'Bourcelles, of course, Bourcelles!' he cried, 'and steer for the slopes of Boudry where the forests dip towards the precipices of the Areuse. I'll send word to the children to meet us.'
'Splendid!' cried the Guard, and kissed him with delight. The whistle shrieked, the train turned swiftly in a tremendous sweeping curve, and vanished along the intricate star-rails into space, humming and booming as it went. It flew a mane of stars behind it through the sky.
CHAPTER V
Oh! thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.
Doctor Famtus, CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE.
The plop of a water-rat in the pond that occupied the rock-garden in the middle of the lawn brought him back to earth, and the Vicar's invitation to tea flashed across his mind.