Christmas-Tree Land

'Oh, Maia,' said Silva, 'you don't yet understand godmother a bit. But we must not stand here. You know the way, Waldo?'

'Here,' where they were standing, was, as I said, a rock, ragged and bare, though lower down, its sides were clothed with short thymy grass. And stretching behind them the children saw a beautiful expanse of hilly ground, beautiful though treeless, for the heather and bracken and gorse that covered it looked soft and mellow in the distance, more especially with the lovely light and colour just now reflected from the sky.

But Waldo turned in the other direction. He walked a little way across the hard, bare rock, which he seemed to be attentively examining, till suddenly he stopped short, and tapped on the ground with a little stick he had in his hand.

'It must be about here,' he said. The other three children came close round him.

'Here,' exclaimed Silva, and she pointed to a small white cross cut in the stone at their feet.

Waldo knelt down, and pressed the spot exactly in the centre of the cross. Immediately a large slab of rock, forming a sort of door, but fitting so closely when shut that no one would have suspected its existence, opened inwards, disclosing a flight of steps. Waldo looked round.

'This is the short cut to the face of the cliff,' he said. 'Shall I go down first?'

'Yes, and I next,' said Rollo, eagerly springing forward.

Then followed Silva and Maia. The flight of steps was a short one. In a few moments they found themselves in a rocky passage, wide enough for them to walk along comfortably, one by one, and not dark, as light came in from little shafts cut at intervals in the roof. The passage twisted and turned about a good deal, but suddenly Waldo stopped, calling out:

'Here we are! Is not this worth coming to see?'

The passage had changed into a gallery, with the rock on one side only, on the other a railing, to protect those walking along it from a possible fall; for they were right on the face of an enormous cliff, far down at the bottom of which they could distinguish the tops of their old friends the firs. And far as the eye could reach stretched away into the distance, miles and miles and miles, here rising, there again sweeping downwards, the everlasting Christmas-trees!

The passage stopped suddenly. It ended in a sort of little shelf in the rock, and higher up in the wall, at the back of this shelf as it were, the children saw two large round holes cut in the rock: they were the windows of the eagles' eyrie.

Waldo went forward, and with his little stick tapped three times on the smooth, shining rock-wall. But the others, intently watching though they were, could not see how a door opened – whether it drew back inwards or rolled in sidewards. All they saw was that just before them, where a moment before there had been the rock-surface, a great arched doorway now invited them to enter.

Waldo glanced round, though without speaking. The other three understood, and followed him through the doorway, which, in the same mysterious way in which it had opened, was now closed up behind them. But that it was so they hardly noticed, so delighted were they with what they saw before them. It was the prettiest room, or hall, you could imagine – the roof rising very high, and the light coming in through the two round windows of which I told you. And the whole – roof, walls, floor – was completely lined with what, at first sight, the children took for some most beautifully-embroidered kind of velvet. But velvet it was not. No embroidery ever showed the exquisite delicacy of tints, fading into each other like the softest tones of music, from the purest white through every silvery shade to the richest purple, or from deep glowing scarlet to pink paler than the first blush of the peach-blossom, while here and there rainbow wreaths shone out like stars on a glowing sky. It was these wreaths that told the secret.

'Why,' exclaimed Maia, 'it is all feathers!'

'Yes,' said Silva, 'I had forgotten. I never was here before, but godmother told me about it.'

'And where – ?' Maia was going on, but a sound interrupted her. It was that of a flutter of wings over their heads, and looking up the children perceived two enormous birds slowly flying downwards to where they stood, though whence they had come could not be seen.

They alighted and stood together – their great wings folded, while their piercing eyes surveyed their guests.

'We make you welcome,' they said at last, in a low soft tone which surprised the children, whose heads were full of the idea that eagles were fierce and their only voice a scream. 'We have been looking for your visit, of which our birds gave us notice. We have ordered a collation to be prepared for you, and we trust you will enjoy the view.'

Waldo, who seemed to be master of the ceremonies to-day, stepped forward a little in front of the others.

'We thank you,' he said quietly, making his best bow as he spoke.

The eagle queen raised her great wing – the left wing – and with it pointed to a spot among the feather hangings where, though they had not noticed it, the children now saw gleaming a silver knob.

'Up that stair leads to the balcony overhanging the cliff,' she said. 'There you will find our respected attendants, the falcon and the hawk, who have purveyed for your wants. And before you leave, the king and I hope to show you something of this part of our domains. Au revoir!– the sun awaits us to bid him good-morning.'

And with a slow, majestic movement the two strange birds spread their wings and rose upwards, where, though the children's eyes followed them closely, they disappeared they knew not how or where.

Then Waldo turned the silver knob and opened a door, through which, as the eagle queen had said, they saw a staircase mounting straight upwards. It led out on to a balcony cut in the rock, but carefully carpeted with moss, and with rustic seats and a rustic table, on which were laid out four covers evidently intended for the four children. Two birds, large, but very much smaller than the eagles, stood at the side, each with a table-napkin over one wing, which so amused the children that it was with difficulty they returned the exceedingly dignified 'reverence' with which the hawk and the falcon greeted them. And they were rather glad when the two attendants spread their wings and flew over the edge of the balcony, evidently going to fetch the dishes.

'What will they give us to eat, I wonder?' said Maia. 'I hope it won't be pieces of poor little lambs, all raw, you know. That's what they always tell you eagles eat in the natural history books.'

'Not the eagles of this country,' said Silva. 'I am sure you never read about them in your books. Our eagles are not cruel and fierce; they would never eat little lambs.'

'But they must kill lots of little birds, whether they eat them or not,' said Maia, 'to get all those quantities and quantities of feathers.'

'Kill the little birds!' cried Silva and Waldo both at once. 'Kill their own birds! Maia, what are you thinking of? As if any creature that lives in Christmas-tree Land would kill any other! Why, the feathers are the birds' presents to the king and queen. They keep all that drop off and bring them once a year, and that's been done for years and years, till the whole of the nest is lined with them.'

'How nice!' replied Maia. 'I'm very glad the eagles are so kind. But they're not so funny as the squirrels. They look so very solemn.'

'They must be solemn,' said Waldo. 'They're not like the squirrels, who have nothing to do but jump about.'

'I beg your pardon,' said Rollo. 'Have you forgotten that the world would stop if Mr. Bushy didn't climb to the top of the tree?'

'And what would happen if the eagles left off watching the sun?' said Waldo.

'I don't know,' said Maia eagerly. 'Do tell us, Waldo.'

Waldo looked at her.

'I don't know either,' he said. 'Perhaps the sun would go to sleep, and then there would be a nice confusion.'

'You're laughing at me,' said Maia, in rather an offended tone. 'I don't see how I'm to be expected to know everything; if the squirrels and the eagles and all the creatures here are different from everywhere else, how could I tell?'

'Here's the collation!' exclaimed Rollo, and looking up, the others saw the falcon and the hawk flying back again, carrying between them a large basket, from which, when they had set it down beside the table, they cleverly managed, with beaks and claws, to take all sorts of mysterious things, which they arranged upon the table. There was no lamb, either raw or roasted, for all the repast consisted of fruits. Fruits of every kind the children had ever heard of, and a great many of which they did not even know the names, but which were more delicious than you, who have never tasted them, can imagine.

'You see the eagle king and queen have no need to kill poor little lambs,' said Silva. And Maia agreed with her that no one who could get such fruits to eat, need ever wish for any other food. While she was speaking, the same soft rustle which they had heard before sounded overhead, and again the two great majestic birds alighted beside them. The four children started to their feet.

'Thank you so much for the delicious fruit, eagle king and eagle queen,' said Maia, who was seldom backward at making speeches.

'We are glad you found it to your taste,' said the king. 'It has come from many a far-away land – lands you have perhaps scarcely even dreamt of, but which to us seem not so strange or distant.'

'Do you fly away so very far?' asked Maia, but the eagles only gleamed at her with their wonderful eyes, and shook their heads.

'It is not for us to tell what you could not understand,' said the king. 'They who can gaze undazzled on the sun must see many things.'

Maia drew back a little.

'They frighten me rather,' she whispered to the others. 'They are so solemn and mysterious.'

'But that needn't frighten you,' said Silva. 'Rollo isn't frightened.'

'Rollo's a boy,' replied Maia, as if that settled the matter.

Waldo now pointed out some steps in the rock leading up still higher.

'The eagles want us to go up there,' he said. 'We shall see right over the forest and ever so far.'

And so they did, for the steps led up a long way till they ended on another rock-shelf right on the face of the cliff. From here the great fir-forests looked but like dark patches far below, while away, away in the distance stretched on one side the great plain across which the children had journeyed on their first coming to the white castle; and on the other the distant forms of mountain ranges, gray-blue, shading fainter and fainter till the clouds themselves looked more real.