He turned himself on one side and then on the other, and, as nothing would do, he raised himself and sat upright to wait till sleep might choose to come. But sleep would not come at all; and the only wakeful eyes in the whole wood were the Child’s. For the harebells had rung themselves weary, and the fire-flies had flown about till they were tired, and even the dragon-fly, who would fain have kept watch in front of the cave, had dropped sound asleep. The wood grew stiller and stiller; here and there fell a dry leaf which had been driven from its old dwelling place by a fresh one; here and there a young bird gave a soft chirp when its mother squeezed it in the nest; and from time to time a gnat hummed for a minute or two in the curtain, till a spider crept on tip-toe along its web, and gave him such a gripe in the wind-pipe as soon spoiled his trumpeting. And the deeper the silence became, the more intently did the Child listen, and at last the slightest sound thrilled him from head to foot. At length, all was still as death in the wood; and the world seemed as if it never would wake again. The Child bent forward to see whether it were as dark abroad as in the cave, but he saw nothing save the pitch-dark night, who had wrapped everything in her thick veil. Yet as he looked upwards his eyes met the friendly glance of two or three stars, and this was a most joyful surprise to him, for he felt himself no longer so entirely alone. The stars were, indeed, far, far away, but yet he knew them, and they knew him; for they looked into his eyes. The Child’s whole soul was fixed in his gaze; and it seemed to him as if he must needs fly out of the darksome cave, thither where the stars were beaming with such pure and serene light; and he felt how poor and lowly he was, when he thought of their brilliancy; and how cramped and fettered, when he thought of their free unbounded course along the heavens. CHAPTER XI. BUT the stars went on their course, and left their glittering picture only a little while before the Child’s eyes. Even this faded, and then vanished quite away. And he was beginning to feel tired, and to wish to lay himself down again, when a flickering Will-o’-the-wisp appeared from behind a bush—so that the Child thought, at first, one of the stars had wandered out of its way, and had come to visit him, and to take him with it. And the Child breathed quick with joy and surprise, and then the Will-o’-the-wisp came nearer, and sat himself down on a damp mossy stone in front of the cave, and another fluttered quickly after him, and sat down over against him and sighed deeply, “Thank God, then, that I can rest at last!” “Yes,” said the other, “for that you may thank the innocent Child who sleeps there within; it was his pure breath that freed us.” “Are you, then,” said the Child, hesitatingly, “not of yon stars which wander so brightly there above?”