"What"s the matter?" asked the robin.
"We"re unhappy." After they had said it, they had difficulty to choke back their sobs.
"But why are you unhappy? Whoever heard of being unhappy in Heaven!"
"Because--because----." They glanced at one another forlornly, hoping that someone else would be the first to answer. "Because of the forbidden fruit. It"s made G.o.d cross."
"Pshaw!" The robin swelled out his little breast with importance. "You"d better visit earth and see our baby. If the Woman hadn"t eaten the forbidden fruit, there wouldn"t be any baby."
The word "baby" was entirely new to them. They sat up beneath their scented trees and began to ask questions. But the robin didn"t want to be delayed; he spread his wings and fluttered on.
At last he came to the smoothest of smooth lawns, in the midst of which grew a mulberry-tree, beneath whose shadow G.o.d was seated with the Virgin Mary. Despite the flakes of sunlight falling and the gold-blue peace by which They were surrounded. Their att.i.tudes were no less despondent than the angels". G.o.d sat with His elbows digging into His knees. His face was buried in His delicate hands. His eyes, peering through His fingers, were strained and red with always staring broodingly straight before Him. Of the Virgin Mary, crouching at His feet, the robin could only see the glint of her flaxen hair and the paleness of her narrow shoulders. Her head was bowed in the lap of her Maker as if she had been beseeching Him always.
The robin was overwhelmed with terror. All his chirpiness was gone.
"Dear G.o.d," he quavered, "I beg Thy forgiveness. I have come when I was not bidden."
He paused, hoping that G.o.d would encourage him. When G.o.d took no notice, he felt himself to be the most insignificant and impertinent of living creatures. He spoke again, lest the silence should kill him on the spot.
"I have brought glad tidings--at least, we on earth think they are glad. The Woman, whom Thou didst cast out for eating the fruit that was forbidden, has been very sick. She has been sick since April till just before day-break this morning, when she miraculously recovered. At her side she found lying a little thing--such a little thing--so like to Thyself, oh, G.o.d. It has bandy legs and arms no thicker than Thy smallest finger. It has a baldy head, about the size of an apple, with threads of gold spread over it like floss. It has a pink, wee face and a rose-bud of a mouth. It"s eyes are like patches of Thine own blue Heaven. And it"s soft and cuddly. The Women calls it her "Belovedest."
And it smells sweet like the flowers we used to breathe in Eden. We didn"t know what it was. Even the Man didn"t know. He summoned the animals to come and find a name for it. While they were sitting on their hind-legs, behold, it awoke and told us that its rightful name was baby.
And now, oh, G.o.d, we birds and animals want to have babies. We"re all trying to find out how it happened. And I want to find out most especially, because----"
"A baby, thou sayest! What is a baby? I, thy Creator, know nothing of it. The last thing I fashioned was the Woman, who has brought this deep shame upon Us."
G.o.d had spoken through His hands very softly, yet His voice was like a great wind blowing. It took the robin some seconds to recover from the shock. By the time he was ready to answer, the angels were rustling through all the glades of Heaven and the Virgin was gazing at him with wistful intensity.
"What is a baby!" he said audaciously repeating G.o.d"s words. "It is a little Man and a little G.o.d. Surely, Thou knowest?"
"I know nothing," G.o.d thundered, letting fall His hands from before His face. "Be gone."
When the hurricane of sound had ended, the robin found himself hovering in the gateway between the jasper walls, where the sheer drop which lies between earth and Heaven commences. He turned to look back before he took the leap and saw that behind him the angels were following.
Following most closely was the Virgin.
"Tell me again," she pleaded. "It"s little and soft. It"s cuddly and it smells like the flowers that bloom in Eden."
Perched on her shoulder, with his beak against her ear, he twittered to her his tale once more. While he was telling her, the angels crowded round, smoothing his feathers with shy caresses. But he didn"t dare to stay too long, for distantly from beneath the mulberry tree, he still felt the brooding eyes of G.o.d. Launching himself from the Virgin"s shoulder, he sank between the burning stars and through the bitter coldness of clouds snow-laden, till late in the wintry afternoon he reached the cave on the limestone ridge, whence a murmur of secret singing was emerging.
X
On the threshold he paused to listen. Yes, it was the Woman. It was the first time she had been happy enough to sing since she had been cast out of Eden. But her song was entirely different from anything that she had sung before. It was more little and tender. It was a lullaby of mother-nonsense, which she hummed when she couldn"t find the proper rhymes and made up as she went along.
As the robin fluttered through the gloom to her shoulder, she pressed her finger to her lips to warn him. The baby eyes were the merest slits of blueness. The little thumb was in the mouth and the baby lips were sucking hard. The tiny knees were digging into the Woman"s body and the baldy head was cushioned on her bosom. The dog snoozed across her feet.
The Man crouched against her, shrouded in the mantle of her hair, overcome with weariness. She was mothering them all, rocking herself slowly and singing gently her silly little song. The crooning of it over and over seemed to hush them with a sense of security.
"You are my ownty, Dear little donty, Sweetest and wonty, Pudding and pie; Good little laddie, Just like your daddie.
Fallen from Heaven, Come from the sky."
"But he didn"t," whispered the robin.
The Woman paused in her singing. "Didn"t what?"
"He didn"t fall from Heaven. G.o.d"s just been telling me; He never heard about him."
The Woman smiled. "Never heard about him! It doesn"t matter; his Mummy"s heard about him." She stooped to kiss the soft little bundle, for he had commenced to stir. Then she resumed her singing.
Gradually the day failed. The late afternoon faded into evening. Gray twilight stole swiftly down. For a while the white fields of snow outside reflected a vague dimness; then night came with a noiseless rush, closing up the entrance to the cave with a wall of blackness.
Perched on the Woman"s shoulder the robin dozed. She still went on singing. How long he had been dozing he had no means of telling. He was wakened by a mult.i.tudinous rustling, as of a crowd a.s.sembling and drawing nearer. At first he thought that it was some of the more persistent of the animals, coming once more to urge the Woman to tell them how babies happened. Then, of a sudden, he knew that he had been mistaken. The gloom of the cave was lit up by a glowing brightness.
Peering across the threshold, with all the haloed hosts of Heaven tiptoeing behind her, was the Virgin Mary. It was the crowd of haloes that was causing so much brightness.
Stepping to the Woman"s side, she gazed down longingly at the small G.o.d-Man.
"I want one. Oh, I want one so badly," she murmured.
The angels, thronging behind her, folded their wings and repeated her words, "So badly! So badly!" The sound was like a prayer, dying out in the void which spreads between earth and Heaven.
"Let me hold him," she begged.
Because she was the Virgin, even though it might wake him, the Woman did not dare to refuse her. But she a.s.serted her authority, as all mothers must, by pretending that she was the only person who knew how to hold him properly. And perhaps she was the only one at that moment, for there was no other mother besides herself in earth or Heaven. She showed the Virgin how to support his little head because it was wobbly; and how to keep one arm beneath his back because it was weak; and how he liked to be cuddled against her breast because it was warm and cushiony. And then, becoming generous, she taught her the silly little lullaby.
"I shall never go back to Heaven," the Virgin whispered. "I shall stay here always and help you nurse him."
"Never go back to Heaven," the angels echoed; "stay here always."
The Woman"s eyes became troubled. "But I want him to myself," she faltered. "I don"t want helping." Then she ceased to frown, for she had discovered a stronger argument. "Besides, what about G.o.d? You wouldn"t leave Him all by Himself in Heaven. He"d be lonely."
The Virgin nodded her head vigorously. "I would, for I also am a woman.
There are no babies in Heaven. I couldn"t be happy without a baby."
Behind her the angels nodded their haloes. "No babies in Heaven.
Couldn"t be happy without a baby."
It must have been so much talking that disturbed him; the baby woke up.
As he opened his eyes and saw the Queen of Heaven bending over him, he smiled. It was his first smile. On the instant the Woman, like all mothers, became jealous and s.n.a.t.c.hed him back into her own possession.
She liked to believe that no one, not even the Man, could make him as comfortable as she could. Piling her golden hair upon her knees to make a pillow for him, she laid him naked on his back and commenced playing with his toes. If he had not given her his first smile, she would at least make certain of his second.
She was so taken up with her playing that she did not notice who had entered. She was the only one who had not noticed. The angels were cowering against the walls of the cave. The Man had roused and crouched covering his face with his hands. Only the Virgin stood upright, meek and fearless, with a look of unconquerable challenge. The Woman was quite oblivious; she went on with her mother-nonsense. And there stood G.o.d regarding her through a cloud of puzzlement and anger.
The game that she played with the baby-feet she was inventing on the spur of the moment. Starting with the tiniest toe, she wiggled it.
Then she wiggled the next tiniest, and the next tiniest, and the next tiniest, till she had come to the biggest of the tiny toes. To each toe as she wiggled it, she gave a name; when she had wiggled them all she buried her face in the fat, kicking legs.
"And this is Peedy Peedy," she said as she wiggled the littlest toe.