The Golden Spears | Page 3

and
wait and watch until the shadows have crept up the heather, and then,
when the mountain top is gleaming like a golden spear, look at the line
where the shadow on the heather meets the sunshine, and you shall see
what you shall see."
And having said this, the thrush sang another song sweeter than the
first, and then saying "good-by," he flew away into the woods.
The children went home, and all night long they were dreaming of the
thrush and the nine little pipers; and when the birds sang in the morning,
they got up and went out into the meadow to watch the mountain.
The sun was shining in a cloudless sky, and no shadows lay on the
mountain, and all day long they watched and waited, and at last, when
the birds were singing their farewell song to the evening star, the
children saw the shadows marching from the glen, trooping up the
mountain side and dimming the purple of the heather.
And when the mountain top gleamed like a golden spear, they fixed
their eyes on the line between the shadow and the sunshine.
"Now," said Connla, "the time has come."

"Oh, look! look!" said Nora, and as she spoke, just above the line of
shadow a door opened out, and through its portals came a little piper
dressed in green and gold. He stepped down, followed by another and
another, until they were nine in all, and then the door slung back again.
Down through the heather marched the pipers in single file, and all the
time they played a music so sweet that the birds, who had gone to sleep
in their nests, came out upon the branches to listen to them, and then
they crossed the meadow, and they went on and on until they
disappeared in the leafy woods.
While they were passing the children were spellbound, and couldn't
speak, but when the music had died away in the woods, they said:
"The thrush is right, that is the sweetest music that was ever heard in all
the world."
And when the children went to bed that night the fairy music came to
them in their dreams. But when the morning broke, and they looked out
upon their mountain and could see no trace of the door above the
heather, they asked each other whether they had really seen the little
pipers, or only dreamt of them.
That day they went out into the woods, and they sat beside a stream
that pattered along beneath the trees, and through the leaves tossing in
the breeze the sun flashed down upon the streamlet, and shadow and
sunshine danced upon it. As the children watched the water sparkling
where the sunlight fell, Nora said:
"Oh, Connla, did you ever see anything so bright and clear and
glancing as that?"
"No," said Connla, "I never did."
"That's because you never saw the crystal hall of the fairy of the
mountains," said a voice above the heads of the children.
And when they looked up, who should they see perched on a branch
but the thrush.

"And where is the crystal hall of the fairy?" said Connla.
"Oh, it is where it always was, and where it always will be," said the
thrush. "And you can see it if you like."
"We would like to see it," said the children.
"Well, then," said the thrush, "if you would, all you have to do is to
follow the nine little pipers when they come down through the heather,
and cross the meadow to-morrow evening."
And the thrush having said this, flew away.
Connla and Nora went home, and that night they fell asleep talking of
the thrush and the fairy and the crystal hall.
All the next day they counted the minutes, until they saw the shadows
thronging from the glen and scaling the mountain side. And, at last,
they saw the door springing open, and the nine little pipers marching
down.
They waited until the pipers had crossed the meadow and were about to
enter the wood. And then they followed them, the pipers marching on
before them and playing all the time. It was not long until they had
passed through the wood, and then, what should the children see rising
up before them but another mountain, smaller than their own, but, like
their own, clad more than half way up with purple heather, and whose
top was bare and sharp-pointed, and gleaming like a golden spear.
Up through the heather climbed the pipers, up through the heather the
children clambered after them, and the moment the pipers passed the
heather a door opened and they marched in, the children following, and
the door closed behind them.
Connla and Nora were so dazzled by the