The Child of the Dawn

by Arthur Christopher Benson

I got up and said that I was ready, and Amroth led the way like a boy out for a holiday. He was brimming over with talk, and told me some stories about my friends in the land of delight, interspersing them with imitation of their manner and gesture, which made me giggle—Amroth was an admirable mimic. "I had hopes of Charmides," he said; "your stay there aroused his curiosity. But he has gone back to his absurd tones and half-tones, and is nearly insupportable. Cynthia is much more sensible, but Lucius is a nuisance, and Charmides, by the way, has become absurdly jealous of him. They really are very silly; but I have a pleasant plot, which I will unfold to you."

As we went down the interminable stairs, I said to Amroth, "There is a question I want to ask you. Why do we have to go and come, up and down, backwards and forwards, in this absurd way, as if we were still in the body? Why not just slip off the leads, and fly down over the crags like a pair of pigeons? It all seems to me so terribly material."

Amroth looked at me with a smile. "I don't advise you to try," he said. "Why, little brother, of course we are just as limited here in these ways. The material laws of earth are only a type of the laws here. They all have a meaning which remains true."

"But," I said, "we can visit the earth with incredible rapidity?"

"How can I explain?" said Amroth. "Of course we can do that, because the material universe is so extremely small in comparison. All the stars in the world are here but as a heap of sand, like the motes which dance in a sunbeam. There is no question of size, of course! But there is such a thing as spiritual nearness and spiritual distance for all that. The souls who do not return to earth are very far off, as you will sometime see. But we messengers have our short cuts, and I shall take advantage of them to-day."

We went out of the great door of the fortress, and I felt a sense of relief. It was good to put it all behind one. For a long time I talked to Amroth about all my doings. "Come," he said at last, "this will never do! You are becoming something of a bore! Do you know that your talk is very provincial? You seem to have forgotten about every one and everything except your Philips and Annas—very worthy creatures, no doubt—and the Master, who is a very able man, but not the little demigod you believe. You are hypnotised! It is indeed time for you to have a holiday. Why, I believe you have half forgotten about me, and yet you made a great fuss when I quitted you."

I smiled, frowned, blushed. It was indeed true. Now that he was with me I loved him as well, indeed better than ever; but I had not been thinking very much about him.

We went over the moorlands in the keen air, Amroth striding cleanly and lightly over the heather. Then we began to descend into the valley, through a fine forest country, somewhat like the chestnut-woods of the Apennines. The view was of incomparable beauty and width. I could see a great city far out in the plain, with a river entering it and leaving it, like a ribbon of silver. There were rolling ridges beyond. On the left rose huge, shadowy, snow-clad hills, rising to one tremendous dome of snow.

"Where are you going to take me?" I said to Amroth.

"Never mind," said he; "it's my day and my plan for once. You shall see what you shall see, and it will amuse me to hear your ingenuous conjectures."