"Edwy did not remember how long he stood by the brook; but this is
certain that the longer he felt himself to be alone, the more
frightened he became, and soon began to fancy terrible things. There
was towards the top of the rock from which the waters fell a huge old
yew-tree, or rather bush, which hung forward over the fall. It looked
very black in comparison with the tender green of the fresh leaves of
the neighbouring trees, and the white and glittering spray of the
water. Edwy looked at it and fancied that it moved; his eye was
deceived by the dancing motion of the water.
"Whilst he looked and looked, some great black bird came out from the
midst of it uttering a harsh croaking noise. The little boy could bear
no more; he turned away from the terrible bush and the terrible bird,
and ran down the valley, leaving hut and all behind, and crying, as he
always did when hurt or frightened, 'Papa! mamma! Oh, come, oh, come to
Edwy!'
"He ran and ran, whilst his little bare feet were pierced with pebbles,
and his legs torn with briars, until he came to where the valley became
narrower, and where one might have thought the rocks and banks on each
side had been cleft by the hand of a giant, so nicely would they have
fitted could they have been brought together again. The brook ran along
a pebble channel between these rocks and banks, and there was a rude
path which went in a line with the brook; a path which was used only by
the gipsies and a few poor cottagers, whose shortest way from the great
road at the end of the valley to their own houses was by that solitary
way.
"As Edwy ran, he still cried, 'Mamma! mamma! papa! papa! Oh, come, oh,
come to Edwy!'--and he kept up his cry from time to time as he found
breath to utter it, till his young voice began to be returned in a sort
of hollow murmur.
"When first he observed this, he was even more frightened than before;
he stood and looked round, and then he turned with his back towards the
hut, and ran and ran again, till he got deeper amongst the rocks. He
stopped again, for the high black banks frightened him still more, and
setting up his young voice he called again, and his call was the same
as before.
"He had scarcely finished his cry, when a voice, from whence he knew
not, seemed to answer him; it said, 'Come, come to Edwy;' it said it
once, it said it twice, it said it a third time, but it seemed each
time more distant.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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