Fauns piping on
the great curtain, fiddles sawing in the orchestra beneath, ladies in
gay silks and jewels leaning over the gilt balconies opposite--which
were real, and which a vision only? He turned helplessly to George
and Sir Harry. Yes, _they_ were real. But what of Nannizabuloe, and
the sand-hills, and the little parsonage to which that very morning
he had turned to wave his handkerchief?
A bell rang, and the curtain rose upon a company of russet-brown
elves dancing in a green wood. The play was _Jack the Giant-killer_;
but Taffy, who knew the story in the book by heart, found the story
on the stage almost meaningless. That mattered nothing; it was the
world, the new and unimagined world, stretching deeper and still
deeper as the scenes were lifted--a world in which solid walls
crumbled, and forests melted, and loveliness broke through the ruins,
unfolding like a rose; it was this that seized on the child's heart
until he could have wept for its mere beauty. Often he had sought
out the trout-pools on the moors behind the towans, and lying at full
length had watched the fish moving between the stones and
water-plants; and watching through a summer's afternoon had longed to
change places with them and glide through their grottoes or anchor
among the reed-stalks and let the ripple run over him. As long back
as he could remember, all beautiful sights had awakened this ache,
this longing--
"O, that I were where I would be!
Then would I be where I am not;
For where I am I would not be,
And where I would be, I cannot.
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