The Tower At length we came to a dreary square tower, in the middle of a dense forest. it looked as if scarce a tree had been cut down to make room for it. across the very door, diagonally, grew the stem of a tree, so large that there was just room to squeeze past it in order to enter. once miserable square hole in the roof was the only visible suggestion of a window. turret or battlement, or projecting masonry of any kind, it had none. clear and smooth and massy, it rose from its base, and ended with a line straight and unbroken. the roof, carried to a centre from each of the four walls, rose slightly to the point where the rafters met. round the base lay several little heaps of either bits of broken branches, withered and peeled, or half-whitened bones. I could not distinguish which. as I approached, the ground sounded hollow beneath my horses hoofs. the knight took a great key from his pocket, and reaching past the stem of the tree, with some difficulty opened the door. dismount! he commanded. I obeyed. he turned my horses head away from the tower, gave him a terrible blow with thhe at of his sword, and sent him madly tearing through the forest. now, said he, enter, and take your companion with you. I looked round: knight and horse had vanished, and behind me lay the horrible shadow. I entered, for I could not help myself; and the shadow followed me. I had a terrible conviction that the knigt and he were one. the door closed behind me. now I was indeed in pitiful plight. there was literally nothing in the tower but my shadow and me. the walls rose right up to the roof; in which, as I had seen from without, there was one little square opening. this I now knew to be the only window the tower possessed. I sat down on the oor, in listless wretchedness. I think I must have fallen asleep, and have slepth for hours; for I suddenly became aware of existence, in observing that the moon was shining through the hole in the roof. as shhe rose highher and higher, her light crept down the wall over me, till at last it shone right upon my head. instantaneously the walls of the tower seemed to vanish away like a mist. I sat beneath a beech, on the edge of a forest, and the open country lay, in the moonlight, for miles and miles around me, spotted with glimmering houses and spires and towers. I thought to myself, oh, joy! it was only a dream; the horrible narrow waste is gone, and I wakee beneath a beech-tree, perhaps one that loves me, and I can go where I will. I rose, as I thought, and walked about, and did what I would, but ever kept near the tree, for always, and, of course, since my meeting with the woman of the beechtree far more than ever, I loved that tree. so the night wore on. I waited for the sun to rise, before I could venture to renew my journey. but as soon as the rst faint light of the dawn appeared, instead of shining upon me from the eye of the morning, it stole like a fainting ghost through the little square hole above my head, and the walls came out as the light grew, and the glorious night was swallowed up of the hateful day. the long dreary day passed. my shadow lay black on the oor. I felt no hunger, no need of food. the night came. the moon shone. I watched her light slowly descending the wall, as I might have watched, adown the sky, the long, swift approach of a helping angel. her rays touched me, and I was free. thus night after nighht passed away. I should have died but for this. every morning I sat wretchedly disconsolate. at length, when the course of the moon no longer permitted her beams to touch me, the night was dreary as the day. when I slept, I was somewhat consoled by my dreams; but all the time I dreamed, I knew that I was only dreaming. but one night, at length, the moon, a mere shred of pallor scattered a few thin ghostly rays upon me; and I think I fell asleep and dreamed. I sat in an autumn night, before the vintage, on a hill overlooking my own castle. my eart sprang with joy. oh, to be a child again, innnocent, fearless, without shame or desire! I walked down to the castle. all were in consternation at my absence. my sisters were seeping for my loss. they sprang up and clung to me, with incoherent cries, as I entered. my old friends came ocking round me. a grey light shone on the roof of the hall. it was the light of the dawn shining through the square window of the tower. more earnestly than ever, I longed for freedom after this dream; more drearily than ever, crept on the next wretched day. I measured by the sunbeams, caught through the little window in the trap of my tower, how it went by, waiting only for the dreams of the night. about noon, I started as if something foreign to all my senses and all my experience, had suddenly invaded me; yet it was only the voice of a woman singing. my whole framee quivered with joy, surprise, and the sensation of the unforeseen. like a living soul, like an incarnation of nature, the song entered my prison-house. each tone folded its wings, and laid itself, like a caressing bird, upon my heart. it bathed me like a sea; inwrapt me like an odourous vapour; entered my soul like a long draught of clear spring water; shone upon me like essential sunlight; soothed me like a mothers voice and hand. yet, as the clearest forest-well tastes sometimes of the bitterness of decayed leaves, so to my weary prisoned heart, its cheerfulness had a sting of cold, and its tenderness unmanned me with the faintness of long-departed joys. I wept half-bitterly, half-luxuriously; but not long. I dashed away the tears, ashamed of a weakness which I thought I had abandoned. ere I knew, I had walked to the door, and seated myself with my ear against it, in order to catch every syllable of the revelation from the unseen outer world. and now I heard each word distinctly. the singer seemed to be standing or sitting near the tower, for the sounds indicated no change of place. the song was something like this: the sun, like a golden knot on high, gathers the glories of the sky, and binds them into a shining tent, roong the world with the rmament. and through the pavilion the rich winds blow, and through the pavilion the waters go. and the birds for joy, and the trees for prayer, bowing their heads in the sunny air, and for thoughts, the gently talking spring, that come from the centre with secret things all make a music, gentle and strong, bound by the heart into one sweet song. and amidst them all, the mother earth sits with the children of her birth, she tendeth them all, as a mother hen her little ones round her, twelve or ten: oft she sitteth, with hands on knee, idle with love for her family. go forth to her from the dark and the dust, and weep beside her, if weep thou must; if she may not hold thee to her breast, like a weary infant, that cries for rest, at least she will press thee to her knee, and tell a low, sweet tale to thee, till the hue to thy cheek, and the light to thine eye, strength to thy limbs, and courage high to thy fainting heart, return amain, and away to work thou goest again. from the narrow desert, o man of pride, come into the house, so high and wide. Hardly knowing what I did, I opened the door. Why had I not done so before? I do not know. (George MacDonald, Phantastes, 1857) SUBMIT AN ARTICLE posted: may 12, 2004