A child on the floor, flat on her stomach in the red light of the
stove, drawing pictures; her mother by the shaded lamp mending
stockings; her father reading; a faint odour of kerosene from the
glass lamp in the room, and the rattle of sleet on roof and window;
this was one of her childhood memories which never faded through all
the years of Ruhannah's life.
Of her waking hours she preferred that hour after supper when, lying
prone on the worn carpet, with pencil and paper, just outside the
lamp's yellow circle of light, her youthful imagination kindled and
caught fire.
For at that hour the magic of the stove's glowing eyes transformed the
sitting-room chairs to furtive watchers of herself, made of her
mother's work-table a sly and spidery thing on legs, crouching in
ambush; bewitched the ancient cottage piano so that its ivory keys
menaced her like a row of monstrous teeth.
She adored it all. The tall secretary stared at her with owlish
significance. Through that neutral veil where lamplight and shadow
meet upon the wall, the engraved portrait of a famous and godly
missionary peered down at her out of altered and malicious eyes; the
claw-footed, haircloth sofa was a stealthy creature offering to entrap
her with wide, inviting arms; three folded umbrellas leaned over the
edge of their shadowy stand, looking down at her like scrawny and
baleful birds, ready to peck at her with crooked handles. And as for
Adoniram, her lank black cat, the child's restless creative fancy was
ever transforming him from goblin into warlock, from hydra to
hippogriff, until the earnestness of pretence sent agreeable shivers
down her back, and she edged a trifle nearer to her mother.
But when pretence became a bit too real and too grotesque she had
always a perfect antidote. It was merely necessary to make a quick
picture of an angel or two, a fairy prince, a swan, and she felt
herself in their company, and delightfully protected.
* * * * *
There was a night when the flowing roar of the gale outside filled the
lamplit silence; when the snow was drifting level with the window
sills; when Adoniram, unable to prowl abroad, lay curled up tight and
sound asleep beside her where she sat on the carpet in the stove
radiance. Wearied of drawing castles and swans, she had been listening
to her father reading passages aloud from the book on his knees to her
mother who was sewing by the lamp.
Presently he continued his reading: "I asked Alaro the angel: 'Which place is this, and which people are
these?' "And he answered: 'This place is the star-track; and these are they
who in the world offered no prayers and chanted no liturgies. Through
other works they have attained felicity.'"