The Magic City | Page 7

to that. I shall
put everything away myself in the morning. Taking what doesn't
belong to you!'
'But you said I might take anything I liked,' said Philip, 'so if it's wrong
it's your fault.'
'You untruthful child!' cried the nurse, and hit him over the knuckles.
Now, no one had ever hit Philip before. He grew paler than ever, but he
did not cry, though his hands hurt rather badly. For she had snatched up
the yard-stick to hit him with, and it was hard and cornery.
'You are a coward,' said Philip, 'and it is you who are untruthful and not
me.'
'Hold your tongue,' said the nurse, and whirled him off to bed.
'You'll get no supper, so there!' she said, angrily tucking him up.
'I don't want any,' said Philip, 'and I have to forgive you before the sun
goes down.'
'Forgive, indeed!' said she, flouncing out.
'When you get sorry you'll know I've forgiven you,' Philip called after
her, which, of course, made her angrier than ever.
Whether Philip cried when he was alone is not our business. Susan,
who had watched the shaking and the hitting without daring to interfere,
crept up later with milk and sponge-cakes. She found him asleep, and
she says his eyelashes were wet.
When he awoke he thought at first that it was morning, the room was
so light. But presently he saw that it was not yellow sunlight but white
moonshine which made the beautiful brightness.
He wondered at first why he felt so unhappy, then he remembered how
Helen had gone away and how hateful the nurse had been. And now
she would pull down the city and Helen would never see it. And he

would never be able to build such a beautiful one again. In the morning
it would be gone, and he would not be able even to remember how it
was built.
The moonlight was very bright.
'I wonder how my city looks by moonlight?' he said.
And then, all in a thrilling instant, he made up his mind to go down and
see for himself how it did look.
He slipped on his dressing-gown, opened his door softly, and crept
along the corridor and down the broad staircase, then along the gallery
and into the drawing-room. It was very dark, but he felt his way to a
window and undid the shutter, and there lay his city, flooded with
moonlight, just as he had imagined it.
He gazed on it for a moment in ecstasy and then turned to shut the door.
As he did so he felt a slight strange giddiness and stood a moment with
his hand to his head. He turned and went again towards the city, and
when he was close to it he gave a little cry, hastily stifled, for fear some
one should hear him and come down and send him to bed. He stood
and gazed about him bewildered and, once more, rather giddy. For the
city had, in a quick blink of light, followed by darkness, disappeared.
So had the drawing-room. So had the chair that stood close to the table.
He could see mountainous shapes raising enormous heights in the
distance, and the moonlight shone on the tops of them. But he himself
seemed to be in a vast, flat plain. There was the softness of long grass
round his feet, but there were no trees, no houses, no hedges or fences
to break the expanse of grass. It seemed darker in some parts than
others. That was all. It reminded him of the illimitable prairie of which
he had read in books of adventure.
'I suppose I'm dreaming,' said Philip, 'though I don't see how I can have
gone to sleep just while I was turning the door handle. However----'
He stood still expecting that something would happen. In dreams
something always does happen, if it's only that the dream comes to an

end. But nothing happened now--Philip just stood there quite quietly
and felt the warm soft grass round his ankles.
Then, as his eyes became used to the darkness of the plain, he saw
some way off a very steep bridge leading up to a dark height on whose
summit the moon shone whitely. He walked towards it, and as he
approached he saw that it was less like a bridge than a sort of ladder,
and that it rose to a giddy height above him. It seemed to rest on a rock
far up against dark sky, and the inside of the rock seemed hollowed out
in one vast dark cave.
[Illustration: Beyond it he could see dim piles that looked like churches
and houses.]
And now he was close to the foot of the ladder. It had no rungs, but