| Share page |
|
56 LILITH
As suddenly I woke, feeling as if some one had called me. The house was still as an empty church. A blackbird was singing on the lawn. I said to myself, ' I will go and tell them I am ashamed, and will do whatever they would have me do ! ' I rose, and went straight up the stairs to the garret.
The wooden chamber was just as when first I saw it, the mirror dimly reflecting everything before it. It was nearly noon, and the sun would be a little higher than when first I came : I must raise the hood a little, and adjust the mirrors accordingly ! If I had but been in time to see Mr. Raven do it!
I pulled the chains, and let the light fall on the first mirror. I turned then to the other: there were the shapes of the former vision—distinguishable indeed, but tremulous like a landscape in a pool ruffled by ' a small pipling wind ! ' I touched the glass; it was impermeable.
Suspecting polarisation as the thing required, I shifted and shifted the mirrors, changing their relation, until at last, in a great degree, so far as I was concerned, by chance, things came right between them, and I saw the mountains blue and steady and clear. I stepped forward, and my feet were among the heather.
All I knew of the way to the cottage was that we had gone through a pine-forest. I passed through many thickets and several small fir-woods, continually fancying afresh that I recognised something of the country; but I had come upon no forest, and now the sun was near the horizon, and the air had begun to grow chill with the coming winter, when, to my delight, ' saw a little black object coming toward me : it was indeed the raven!
I hastened to meet him. |
||