After a while she emerged into a clearing. In the middle of it there was a pool, almost entirely surrounded with dark green moss, very soft, overhung by a boulder. It, too, had a covering of moss. A tiny stream flowed silently and mysteriously into the pool, which was so dark that Eepersip could just see its floor of dark sand. On the bottom grew strange star-leaved plants, and small fishes were nibbling them. It was all very strange and magical, it was so silent.
Eepersip stayed looking at this pool for a long time, and then she decided to follow the little brook which was trickling into it and see where it came from. She followed it through deep woodland for about three miles. All this way it was sluggish. Then the land changed abruptly; and Eepersip realized that she was climbing a steep and rugged hill. She went up and up on a rough path. It was very hard climbing, and she was becoming tired. At last she got to the top, and her happy eye looked back upon the way she had come.
She saw from that high perch the pool, into which she knew the little brook was trickling; the blotches which were clumps and patches of dark forest; the field, a mass of sparkling green light, a brilliant illumination to the gloomy pine forests around it; the cottage, a tiny brown speck in the distance—and the sea, the billowing sea, with the spots of foam, the towering waves, and that green colour which the waves show when they are agitated. She could even see the gulls, no bigger than flies to her, swooping about; but she was too far away to hear their shrill, excited screams. Long and steadily she looked. And then—the strangest thought Eepersip had ever experienced came to her happy mind. “Forgetfulness!” she whispered to herself. “Oh, I loved it so! and then, when it happened that I came to the woodlands again, why—I forgot it. I must go back instantly. But I am so tired!”
Each wave seemed to bring a pain to Eepersip’s heart, as she watched the sea, like emerald, stretching away until it seemed to meet the blue sky. Suddenly she sprang to her feet and started down like a wild deer. Tearing through the woodlands, through the dense thickets and the brambles, she came out at last by the pool. But she had no eye for all its beauties; she had no mind but for the sea. She rested a second; then she was on her feet again, plunging, rearing, fighting her way through the woods. She came again, in the depths of exhaustion, into that pool of light, the meadow. Unable to move, she sank down in the delicious soft grass and watched the butterflies, like winged jewels, swooping above. Then she fell into a deep, heavy slumber.
She was awakened by shrill cries which pierced the air. Looking up, she saw a flock of gulls with their long, narrow wings, the colour of foam, winging their way toward the sea. Then she remembered that she, too, was supposed to be winging her way toward the sea, and she cried: “O happy birds, I would I were among you, to go with such flashing speed!” It seemed to her that the sea was in her care, and that she, through foolish forgetfulness, had wandered off from it—wandered off from her guarding, leaving it to the mercy of the beasts. Of course, if she had thought a moment she would have seen how out of proportion this was, but she could do nothing but blame herself, and fancy a terrible monster who would come and drink it all up in her absence. And she began fighting and struggling against her tiredness, until, with one desperate effort, she managed to start running again. Then there was no stopping! Her old strength seemed to come back, the strength which she had had before starting her woodland explorations—the result, as she thought now, of a foolish desire. Once she had started running again, her feet winged with a great longing, she sped along the ground.
Soon she passed the cottage; and then—there was her sea again, just as she had left it, with the waves beating the sandy shore. The gulls were screaming and diving; everything was excited and trembling. With a cry of ecstasy, Eepersip sprang into the waves.
Many happy days Eepersip spent here, living in the vicinity of the hated little cottage. Since she had come from the sea she had worn a mermaid dress of seaweeds, fastened at the neck by a white shell with a hole through it. Her favourite play was with the waves. She could swim now, even under water, with a speed that surprised herself, and she dived gracefully from all the rocks that she came upon. But it was watching the sea that fascinated her more than anything else. She would sit for hours at a time on the rocks and listen to the waves bellowing beneath her. Sometimes, when they were very high, she would go down on the
