“We’re changing,” he murmured, seizing some fragments of half-remembered speech. “We’re marvellously changed!”
“Daisies,” he heard her vanishing reply, “we’re two daisies on the lawn!”
And then their voices went. That was the end of speech, the end of thinking too. They only felt….
Long periods passed above their heads and then the air about them turned gorgeous as a sunset sky. It was a Clouded Yellow that sailed lazily past their faces with spreading wings as large as clouds. They shared that saffron glory. The draught of cool air fanned them. The splendid butterfly left its beauty in them before it sailed away. But that sunset sky had lasted for hours; that cool wind fanning them was a breeze that blew steadily from the hills, making “weather” for half an afternoon. Time and duration as humans measure them had passed away; there was existence without hurry; end and beginning had not been invented yet. They did not know things in the stupid sense of having names for them; all that there was they shared; that was enough. They knew by feeling.
For everything was plentiful and inexhaustible—the heavens emptied light and warmth upon them without stint or measure; space poured about them freely, for they had no wish to move; they felt themselves everywhere, for all they needed came to them without the painful effort of busy things that hunt and search outside themselves; both food and drink slipped into them unawares from an abundant source below that equally supplied whole forests without a trace of lessening or loss. All life was theirs, full, free, and generous beyond conception. They owned the world, without even the trouble of knowing that they owned it. They lived, simply staring at the universe with eyes of exquisitely fashioned beauty. They knew joy and peace, and were content with that.
They did communicate. Oh, yes, they shared each other’s special happiness. There was, it is true, no sound of broken syllables, no speech which humans use to veil the very thing they would express; but there was that simpler language which all Nature knows, which cannot lie because it is unconscious, and by which constellations converse with buttercups, and cedars with the flying drops of rain—there was gesture. For gesture and attitude can convey all the important and necessary things, while speech in the human sense is but an invention of some sprite who wanted people to wonder what they really meant. In sublimest moments it is never used even in the best circles of intelligence; it drops away quite naturally; souls know one another face to face in dumb but eloquent—gesture.
“The sun is out; I feel warm and happy; there is nothing in the world I need!”
“You are beside me,” he replied. “I love you, and we cannot go far apart. I smell you even when no wind stirs. You are sweetest when the dew has gone and left you moist and shiny.”
A little shiver of enjoyment quivered through her curving stem. His petals brushed her own. She answered:
“Wet or fine, we stand together, and never stop staring at each other till we close our faces—”
“In the long darkness. But even then we whisper as we grow—”
“And open our eyes together at the same moment when the light comes back—”
“And feel warm and soft, and smell more delicious than ever in the dawn.”
These two brave daisies, growing on the lawn, had lives of concentrated happiness, asking no pity for their humble station in the universe. All treated them with unadulterated respect, and everything made love to them because they were so tender and so easily pleased. They knew, for instance, that their splendid Earth was turning with them, for they felt the swerve of her, sharing from their roots upwards her gigantic curve through space; they knew the sun was part of them, because they felt it drawing their sweet-flavoured food up all their dainty length till it glowed in health upon their small, flushed faces; also they knew that streams of water made a tumbling fuss and sent them messages of laughter, because they caught the little rumble of it through miles of trembling ground. And some among them—though these were prophets and poets but half believed, and looked upon as partly mad and partly wonderful—affirmed that they felt the sea itself far leagues away, bending their heads this way and that for hours at a stretch, according to the thundering vibrations that the tide sent through the soil from distant shores.
But all, from the tallest spread-head to the smallest button-face—all knew the pleasure of the uncertain winds; all knew the game of holding flying things just a moment longer, by fascinating them, by drowsing them into sleepiness, by nipping their probosces, or by puffing perfume into their nostrils while they caught their feet with the pressure of a hundred yellow rods….
Enormous periods passed away. A cloud that for a man’s “ten minutes” hid the sun, wearied them so that they simply closed their eyes and went to sleep. Showers of rain they loved, because it washed and cooled them, and they felt the huge satisfaction of the earth beneath them as it drank: the sweet sensation of wet soil that sponged their roots, the pleasant gush that sluiced their bodies and carried off the irritating dust. They also felt the heavier tumbling of the swollen streams in all directions. The drops from overhanging trees came down and played with them, bringing another set of perfumes altogether. A summer shower was, of course, “a month” to them, a day of rain like weeks of holiday by the sea…. But, most of all, they enjoyed the rough-and-tumble nonsense of the violent weather, when they were tied together by the ropes of running wind; for these were visiting days—all manner of strangers dropped in upon them from distant walks in life, and they never knew whether the next would be a fir-cone or one of those careless, irresponsible travellers, a bit of thistle-down….
Yet, for all their steadiness, they knew incessant change—the variety of a daisy’s existence was proverbial. Nor was the surprise of being walked upon too alarming—it did not come to all—for they knew a way of bending beneath enormous pressure so that nothing broke, while sometimes it brought a queer, delicious pleasure, as when the bare feet of some flying child passed lightly over them, leaving wild laughter upon a group of them. They knew, indeed, a thousand joys, proudest of all, however, that the big Earth loved them so that she carried millions of them everywhere she went.
And all, without exception, communicated their knowledge by the movements, attitudes, and gestures they assumed; and since each stood close to each, the enjoyment spread quickly till the entire lawn felt one undivided sensation by itself. Anything passing across it at such a moment, whether insect, bird, loose leaf or even human being, would be aware of this, and thus, for a fleeting second, share another world. Poets, it is said, have received their sweetest inspirations upon a daisied lawn in the flush of spring. Nor is it always a sight of prey that makes the swallows dart so suddenly sideways and away, but some chance message of joy or warning intercepted from the hosts of flowers in the soil.
And from this region of the flower-life comes, of course, the legend that fairies have emotions that last for ever, with eternal youth, and with loves that do not pass away to die. This, too, they understood. Because the measurement of existence is a mightier business than with over-developed humans-in-a-hurry. For knowledge comes chiefly through the eye, and the eye can perceive only six times in a second—things that happen more quickly or more slowly than six times a second are invisible. No man can see the movement of a growing daisy, just as no man can distinguish the separate beats of a sparrow’s wing: one is too slow, and the other is too quick. But the daisy is practically all eye. It is aware of most delightful things. In its short life of months it lives through an eternity of unhurrying perceptions and of big sensations. Its youth, its loves, its pleasures are—to it—quite endless….
“I can see the old sun moving,” she murmured, “but you will love me for ever, won’t you?”
“Even till it sinks behind the hills,” he answered, “I shall not change.”
“So long we have been friends already,” she went on. “Do you remember when we first met each other, and you looked into my opening eyes?”
He sighed with joy as he thought
of the long, long stretch of time.
“That was in our first reckless youth,” he answered, catching the gold of passionate remembrance from an amber fly that hovered for an instant and was gone. “I remember well. You were half hidden by a drop of hanging dew, but I discovered you! That lilac bud across the world was just beginning to open.” And, helped by the wind, he bent his shining head, taller than hers by the sixtieth part of an inch, towards the lilac trees beside the gravel path.
“So long ago as that!” she murmured, happy with the exquisite belief in him. “But you will never change or leave me—promise, oh, promise that!”
His stalk grew nearer to her own. He leaned protectively towards her eager face.
“Until that bud shall open fully to the light and smell its sweetest,” he replied—the gesture of his petals told it plainly—"so long shall you and I enjoy our happy love.”
It was an eternity to them.
“And longer still,” she pleaded.
“And longer still,” he whispered in the wind. “Even until the blossom falls.”
Ah, it was good to be alive with such an age of happiness before them!
He felt the tears in her voice, however; he knew there was something that she longed to tell.
“What is your sadness?” he asked softly, “and why do you put such questions to me now? What is your little trouble?”
A moment’s hesitation, a moment’s hanging of the graceful head the width of a petal’s top nearer to his shoulder—and then she told him.
“I was in darkness for a time,” she faltered, “but it was a long, long time. It seemed that something came between us. I lost your face. I felt afraid.”
And his laughter—for just then a puff of wind passed by and shook his sides for him—ran across many feet of lawn.
“It was a Bumble Bee,” he comforted her. “It came between us for a bit, its shadow fell upon you, nothing more! Such things will happen; we must be prepared for them. It was nothing in myself that dimmed your world.”
“Another time I will be braver, then,” she told him, “and even in the darkness I shall know you close, ah, very close to me….”
For a long, long stretch of time, then, they stood joyfully together and watched the lilac growing. They also saw the movement of the sun across the sky. An eternity passed over them…. The vast disc of the sun went slowly gliding….
But all the enormous things that happened in their lives cannot be told. Lives crammed with a succession of such grand and palpitating adventures lie beyond the reach of clumsy words. The sweetness sometimes was intolerable, and then they shared it with the entire lawn and so obtained relief—yet merely in order to begin again. The humming of the rising Spring continued with the thunderous droning of the turning Earth. Never uncared for, part of everything, full of the big, rich life that brims the world in May—ah, almost fuller than they could hold sometimes—they passed with existence along to their appointed end.
“We began so long ago, I simply can’t remember it,” she sighed.
Yet the sun they watched had not left half a degree behind him since they met.
“There was no beginning,” he reproved her, smiling, “and there will never be any end.”
And the wind spread their happiness like perfume everywhere until the whole white lawn of daisies lay singing their rapture to the sunshine….
The minute underworld of grass and stalks seemed of a sudden to grow large; yet, till now, they had not realised it as “large"—but simply natural. A beetle, big and broad as a Newfoundland dog, went lumbering past them, brushing its polished back against their trembling necks; yet, till now, they had not thought of it as “big"—but simply normal. Its footsteps made a grating sound like the gardener’s nailed boots upon the gravel paths. It was strange and startling. Something was different, something was changing. They realised dimly that there was another world somewhere, a world they had left behind long, long ago, forgotten. Something was slipping from them, as sleep slips from the skin and the eyes in the early morning when the bath comes “pinging” upon the floor. What did it mean?
Big and little, far and near, above, below, inside and outside—all were mixed together in a falling rush.
They themselves were changing.
They looked up. They saw an enormous thing rising behind them with vast caverns of square outline opening in its sides—a house. They saw huge, towering shapes whose tops were in the clouds—the familiar lime trees. Big and tiny were inextricably mixed together.
And that was wrong. For either the forest of grass was as big as themselves—in which case they still were daisies; or else it was tiny and far below them—in which case they were hurrying humans again. There was an odd confusion…while consciousness swung home to its appointed centre and Adventure brought them back towards the old, familiar starting-place again.
There came an ominous and portentous sound that rushed towards them through the air, and through the solid ground as well. They heard it, and grew pale with terror. Across the entire lawn it rumbled nearer, growing in volume awfully. The very earth seemed breaking into bits about them. And then they knew.
It was the End of the World that their prophets had long foretold.
It crashed upon them before they had time to think. The roar was appalling. The whole lawn trembled. The daisies bowed their little faces in a crowd. They had no time even to close their innocent eyes. Before a quarter of their sweet and happy life was known, the End swept them from the world, unsung and unlamented. Two of them who had planned Eternity together fell side by side before one terrible stroke….
“I do believe—” said Judy, brushing her tumbled hair out of her eyes.
“Not possible!” exclaimed Uncle Felix, sitting up and stretching himself like a dog. “It’s a thing I never do, never, NEVER! I think my stupid watch has stopped again….”
They stared at each other with suspiciously sleepy eyes.
“Promise,” she whispered presently, “promise never to tell the others!”
“I promise faithfully,” he answered. “But we’d better get up, or we shall have our heads cut off like—all the other daisies.”
He pulled her to her feet—out of the way of the heavy mowing machine which Weeden was pushing with a whirring, droning noise across the lawn.
CHAPTER XII: TIM’S PARTICULAR ADVENTURE
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TIM’S “PARTICULAR ADVENTURE” WAS OF another kind. It was a self-repeater—of some violence, moreover, when the smallness of the hero is considered. Whether in after-life he become an astronomer-poet or a “silver-and-mechanical engineer"—both dreams of his—he will ever be sharp upon rescuing something. A lost star or a burning mine will be his objective, but with the essential condition that it be—unattainable. Achievement would mean lost interest. For Tim’s desire was, is, and ever will be insatiable. Profoundest mystery, insoluble difficulty, and endless searching were what his soul demanded of life. For him all ponds were bottomless, all gipsies older than the moon. He felt the universe within him, and was born to seek its inexplicable “explanation"—outside. The realisation of such passion, however, is not necessarily confined to writers of epics and lyrics. Tim was a man of action before he was a poet. “Forever questing” was his unacknowledged motto. Besides asking questions about stars and other inaccessible incidents of his Cosmos, he liked to “go busting about,” as he called it—again with one essential condition that the thing should never come to an end by merely happening. Its mystery must remain its beauty.
“I want to save something from an awful, horrible death,” he announced one evening, looking up from Half-hours with English Battles for a sign of beauty in distress.
“Not so easy,” his uncle warned him, equally weary of another overrated book—his own.
“But I feel like it,” he replied. “Come on.”
Uncle Felix still held back. “That you feel like it doesn’t prove that there’s anything that wants rescuing,” he
objected.
The boy stared at him with patient tolerance and surprise.
“I promised,” he said simply.
It was the other’s turn to stare. “And when, pray?” They had been alone for the last half hour. It seemed strange.
“Oh—just now,” replied the boy carelessly. “A few minutes ago—about.”
“Indeed!” It seemed stranger still. No one had come in. Yet Tim never prevaricated.
“Yes,” he said, “I gave my wordy honour.” It was so gravely spoken that, while pledges involving life and death were obviously not new to him, this one was of exceptional kind.
“Who, then, did you promise—whom, I mean?” the man demanded, fixing him with his stern blue eyes.
And the answer came out pat: “Myself!”
“Aha!” said the other, with a sigh and a raising of the eyebrows, by way of apology. “That settles it—”
“Of course.”
“Because what you think and say, you must also act,” the man continued. “If you promise yourself a thing, and then don’t do it, you’ve simply told a lie.” And he drew another sigh. He scented action coming.
“Let’s go at once and find it,” said Tim, putting a text-book into seven words. He hitched his belt up, and looked round to make sure his sisters were not within reach of interference. There was a moment’s pause, during which Uncle Felix hitched his will up. They rose, then, standing side by side. They left the room arm in arm on their way into the garden. The dusk was already laying its first net of shadows to catch the Night.
“Hadn’t you better change first?” asked Tim, thoughtfully, on his way down. He glanced at his companion’s white flannel suit. “You’re so awfully visible.”
“Visible!” It was not his bulk. Tim was never deliberately rude. Was it the risk of staining that he meant?
“Any one can see you miles away like that.”
The other understood instantly. In an adventure everything sees, everything has eyes, everything watches. The world is alive and full of eyes. He hesitated a moment.
The Algernon Blackwood Collection Page 115