For the moment of creation was at hand, and creation is not
accomplished without much travail.
But the children loved the pause, the sigh, the effort. Not realising
with what difficulty the stories were ground out, nor that it was an
effort against time--to make a story last till help came from outside
--they believed that something immense and wonderful was on the way,
and held their breath with beating hearts. Daddy's stories were always
marvellous; this one would be no exception.
Marvellous up to a point, that is: something in them failed. "He's
trying," was their opinion of them; and it was the trying that they
watched and listened to so eagerly. The results were unsatisfying, the
effect incomplete; the climax of sensation they expected never came.
Daddy, though they could not put this into words, possessed fancy
only; imagination was not his. Fancy, however, is the seed of
imagination, as imagination is the blossom of wonder. His stories
prepared the soil in them at any rate. They felt him digging all round
them.
He began forthwith:
"Once, very long ago--"
"How long?"
"So long ago that the chalk cliffs of England still lay beneath the
sea--"
"Was Aunt Emily alive then?"
"Or Weeden?"
"Oh, much longer ago than that," he comforted them; "so long, in fact,
that neither your Aunt Emily nor Weeden were even thought of--there
lived a man who--"
"Where? What country, please?"
"There lived a man in England--"
"But you said England was beneath the sea with the chalk cliffs.
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