  How long she lay there asleep the child did not know. It might only have been for a few minutes; it might have been for hours. Yet, when she did awake, and think it was time for her to go home, she did not understand where she could be. The place seemed the same, yet not the same,—as though some wonderful change had come over it during her sleep. There was the pond, to be sure, but was it the same pond? Tall trees grew round it, yet their branches were bare and leafless. A little brook ran into the pond, which she was sure that she never had seen there before. Was she still asleep? No. She was wide awake. She sprang to her feet and looked around. The green toad was gone, so was the moon-face; her father’s house was nowhere to be seen; there was no sun, but it was not dark, for a light seemed to come from the earth, and yet the earth itself did not shine; mountains rose in the distance; but, strangest of all, these mountains sometimes bore one shape, sometimes another; at times they were like great crouching beasts, then again like castles or palaces, then, as you looked, they were mountains again. Strange shadows passed over the pond, stranger shapes flitted among the trees. Eva did not know how the change had been made, still less did she guess that she was now in Shadow-Land. Yet it was all so singular that, as she looked upon the changing mountain forms, and the quaint shadows, a sudden longing came over her, with a desire to go home, and she turned away from the pond. And as she did so, a little fragrant purple violet, the last that was left of all the flowers which she had gathered, and which had been tangled in her curls, fell to the ground, melting into fragrance as it did so; and as it fell, there passed from Eva’s mind all recollection of father, mother, home, and the little brother cooing in his cradle: the changing mountain forms seemed strange no longer; she forgot to wonder at the singular earth-light, and at the absence of the sun; and noticing for the first time that she was standing in a little path which ran along the pond, and then followed the course of the little brook, whose waters seemed singing the words, “Follow, follow me!” Eva wondered no longer, but first stooping to pick up a little stick, in shape like a boy’s cane, with a knob at one end, just like a roughly carved head, and which was lying just at her feet, she walked along the little path, which seemed made expressly for her to walk in. She walked on and on, as she thought, for hours, yet there came neither sunset nor moonrise, and there were no stars in the sky, which seemed nearer the earth than she had ever seen it before. There were clouds, to be sure, of shapes as strange as those of the mountains, which passed and repassed each other, although there was no wind to move them. Everything was silent. Even the trees, swaying, as they did, to and fro, moved noiselessly; the only sound, save Eva’s light steps, which broke the stillness was the silvery ripple of the brook, which kept company with the path Eva trod, and whose waters murmured, gently, “Follow, follow me!” And Eva followed the murmuring brook, which seemed to her like a pleasant companion in this silent land, where, even as there was no sound, there was no sign of life; nothing like the real world which the child had left, and of which, with the fall of the little violet from her curls, she had lost all recollection; even as though that world had never existed for her. Once or twice, as she went on, holding her little stick in her hand, she imagined that she saw child-figures beckoning to her; but, upon going up to them, she always found that either a rock, or a low, leafless shrub, or else a rising wreath of mist, had deceived her. Yet, though she was alone, with no one near her, not even a bird to flit merrily from tree to tree, nor an insect to buzz across her path, Eva felt and knew no fear, and not for a moment did she care that she was alone. The silvery ripple of the little brook, along which her path lay, sounded like a pleasant voice in her ears; when thirsty, she drank of its waters, which seemed to serve alike as food and drink; when tired, she would lie fearlessly down upon its grassy margin, and sleep, as she would imagine, only for a few minutes, for there would be no change in the strange sky nor in the earth-light when she would awake from what it had been when she lay down; and yet in reality she would sleep as long as she would have done in her little bed at home. For two whole days, which yet seemed as only a few hours, the child followed the brook. During this time she had felt no desire to leave the path; she had unhesitatingly obeyed the rippling voice of the brook, which seemed to say, “Follow, follow me!” But now there was a change: the water, at times, encroached upon the path, and rocks obstructed the current, around which little waves broke and dashed, while strange little flames, which yet did not burn, and gave no heat, started from the waves, dancing on them; and misty shapes, more definite than those she had first seen, beckoned to her to come to them. Now, Eva felt an irresistible longing to leave the brook, and wander away; far, far into the deep forest, away from the dancing flames and the beckoning shapes. And once or twice she did leave the path, and turn her back upon the brook. But every time that she stepped off the beaten track, faint though it was, her feet grew heavy, and clung to the earth, so that she could scarcely move; and the waves of the brook leaped higher and higher; and the dancing flames grew brighter; and the silvery voice, louder and clearer than ever, would call, “Follow, follow me!” till the child was always glad to return to the path, and then once again the way would grow easy to her feet, and the water would resume its former tranquillity. On, on she went, still following the course of the brook. But at last a new sound mingled, though but faintly, with its musical ripple,—the distant voice of falling waters. And when first this new tone reached Eva’s ears, a few signs of life began to show themselves,—a sad-colored moth flitted lazily across the path into the forest,—a slow-crawling worm or hairy caterpillar hid itself under a stone as Eva passed,—the bright eyes of a mouse would peep out at her from under the shelter of a leaf, or else a toad would leap hastily from the path into the waters of the brook. Still Eva walked onward, more eagerly than ever, for though the “Follow, follow me!” of the brook was now silent, she heard the voice of the other waters, and at every turn in the path she looked forward eagerly for the little joyous cascade she expected to see. For it she looked, yet in vain: though the sound of the waters grew louder, she saw nothing, till at last a sudden gleam of golden light, from a long opening in the forest, fell across the now placid waters of the brook; and Eva looked up to see, far away in this opening, a fountain playing in clouds of golden spray, amid which danced sparkles of light; and the path, parting abruptly from the brook which it had followed so long, led down the opening in the forest directly to this play of waters, whose voice Eva had heard and followed. And as she turned away from the little brook, whose course and her own had so long been the same, it seemed to her that even the silvery ripple of its waters died away into silence; and, looking back once more, after she had taken a few steps, upon the way by which she had come, lo! the brook and its waters had wholly disappeared, and an impenetrable forest had already closed up the path behind her. |
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