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Blackwood, Algernon, 1869-1951

"A Prisoner in Fairyland"

The rays, coming from all corners of the sky, wove
a pattern like a network.
'Jimbo!' gasped the girl, 'it's like a fishing-net. We've never
noticed it before.'
'It _is_ a net,' he answered, standing still as a stone, though he had
not thought of it himself until she said so. He instantly dressed
himself, as he always translated _il se dressait_ in his funny Franco-
English. _Deja_ and _comme ca_, too, appeared everywhere. 'It is a net
like that. I saw it already before, once.'
'Monkey,' he added, 'do you know what it really is? Oh, I say!'
'Of course I do.' She waited nevertheless for him to tell her, and he
was too gallant just then in his proud excitement for personal
exultation.
'It's the Star Cave--it's Daddy's Star Cave. He said it was up here
"where the Boudry forests dip below the cliffs towards the Areuse."
...' He remembered the very words.
His sister forgot to turn her usual somersaults. Wonder caught them
both. 'A pair of eyes, then, or a puddle! Quick!' she cried in a
delighted whisper. She looked about her everywhere at once, making
confused and rushing little movements of helplessness. 'Quick, quick!'
'No,' said Jimbo, with a man's calm decision, 'it's when they
_can't_ find eyes or puddles that they go in there. Don't interfere.'
She admitted her mistake.


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