The Golden Spears | Page 3

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 light that hit their eyes, when they had crossed the threshold, that they had to shade them with their hands; but, after a moment or two, they became able to bear the splendor, and when they looked around they saw that they were in a noble hall, whose crystal roof was supported by two rows of crystal pillars rising from a crystal floor; and the walls were of crystal, and along the walls were crystal couches, with coverings and cushions of sapphire silk with silver tassels.
Over the crystal floor