“I have better things to show you,” he said gently.
“I do not understand you, sir.”
“We have only begun our journey, Mary; and—if you do not understand—but I thought you would have done so by this time—I wonder if she is going to be frightened after all!”
We were now well out upon the moors, alone together, on the side of the hill. The town looked far behind us and insignificant. The earth dwindled and the sky grew, as we looked from one to the other. It seemed to me that I had never before noticed how small a portion of our range of vision is filled by the surface of earth, and what occupies it; and how immense the proportion of the heavens. As we stood there, it seemed to overwhelm us.
“Rise,” said my father in a voice of solemn authority, “rise quickly!”
I struggled at his words, for he seemed to slip from me, and I feared to lose him. I struggled and struck out into the air; I felt a wild excitement, like one plunged into a deep sea, and desperately swimming, as animals do, and a few men, from blind instinct, having never learned. My father spoke encouragingly, and with tenderness. He never once let go my hand. I felt myself, beyond all doubt, soaring—slowly and weakly—but surely ascending above the solid ground.
“See! there is nothing to fear,” he said from time to time. I did not answer. My heart beat fast. I exerted all my strength and took a stronger stroke. I felt that I gained upon myself. I closed my eyes, looking neither above nor below.
Suddenly, as gently as the opening of a water lily, and yet as swiftly as the cleaving of the lightning, there came to me a thought which made my brain whirl, and I cried aloud:
“Father, am I DEAD?” My hands slipped—I grew dizzy—wavered—and fluttered. I was sure that I should fall. At that instant I was caught with the iron of tenderness and held, like a very young child, in my father’s arms. He said nothing, only patted me on the cheek, as we ascended, he seeing, and I blind; he strength, and I weakness; he who knew all, and I who knew nothing, silently with the rising sun athwart the rose-lit air.
I was awed, more than there are words to say; but I felt no more fear than I used to do when he carried me on his shoulder up the garden walk, after it grew dark, when I was tired out with play.