Page:Following darkness (IA followingdarknes00reid).pdf/23



Was it some magical suggestion in the word "candlelight" that invariably evoked in a small child's mind a definite picture of an old fantastic town of towers and turrets, lit by waving candles, and with windows all ablaze in dark old houses? Many of these rhymes had this quality of picture making:

That, I suppose, is pure nonsense, yet the magic was there. Before and after the cow made her amazing leap the stuff was a mere jingle: it was the word "Moon" that brought up the picture: and I saw the white, docile beast, suddenly transformed, pricked by the sting of midsummer madness, with lowered head and curling horns, poised for flight, for the wonderful upward leap, while a monstrous, glowing moon hung like a great scarlet Chinese lantern in the clouds, low against a black night.

At this time I had few books I cared for, but as I grew older, and my powers of understanding increased, I found more, for up at Derryaghy House was a whole library in which I might rummage without any other interference than that my father could exercise from a distance. Sometimes when I brought a book home which he did not approve of, he would send me back with it; but if I had begun it I always finished it. I had made this a rule; though, on the other hand, if I had not begun it, I let my father have his way.

Everything connected with the East had a deep attraction