"When bale is att hyest, boote is nyest."
Ballad of Sir Aldingar.
By this time, my hostess was quite anxious that I should be gone. So,
with warm thanks for their hospitality, I took my leave, and went my way
through the little garden towards the forest. Some of the garden flowers
had wandered into the wood, and were growing here and there along
the path, but the trees soon became too thick and shadowy for them. I
particularly noticed some tall lilies, which grew on both sides of
the way, with large dazzlingly white flowers, set off by the universal
green.
It was now dark enough for me to see that every flower was
shining with a light of its own. Indeed it was by this light that I
saw them, an internal, peculiar light, proceeding from each, and not
reflected from a common source of light as in the daytime. This light
sufficed only for the plant itself, and was not strong enough to cast
any but the faintest shadows around it, or to illuminate any of the
neighbouring objects with other than the faintest tinge of its own
individual hue.
From the lilies above mentioned, from the campanulas,
from the foxgloves, and every bell-shaped flower, curious little figures
shot up their heads, peeped at me, and drew back. They seemed to inhabit
them, as snails their shells but I was sure some of them were intruders,
and belonged to the gnomes or goblin-fairies, who inhabit the ground
and earthy creeping plants.
From the cups of Arum lilies, creatures with
great heads and grotesque faces shot up like Jack-in-the-box, and made
grimaces at me; or rose slowly and slily over the edge of the cup,
and spouted water at me, slipping suddenly back, like those little
soldier-crabs that inhabit the shells of sea-snails. Passing a row of
tall thistles, I saw them crowded with little faces, which peeped every
one from behind its flower, and drew back as quickly; and I heard them
saying to each other, evidently intending me to hear, but the speaker
always hiding behind his tuft, when I looked in his direction, "Look at
him! Look at him! He has begun a story without a beginning, and it will
never have any end. He! he! he! Look at him!"
But as I went further into the wood, these sights and sounds became
fewer, giving way to others of a different character. A little forest
of wild hyacinths was alive with exquisite creatures, who stood nearly
motionless, with drooping necks, holding each by the stem of her flower,
and swaying gently with it, whenever a low breath of wind swung the
crowded floral belfry. In like manner, though differing of course
in form and meaning, stood a group of harebells, like little angels
waiting, ready, till they were wanted to go on some yet unknown message.
In darker nooks, by the mossy roots of the trees, or in little tufts
of grass, each dwelling in a globe of its own green light, weaving a
network of grass and its shadows, glowed the glowworms.