Part 8

Just so; that is, at the end of September.

Why should it be so there in England and here too?

We will try and find out. I think I have pointed out to you the Pleiades.

I know them well. They are in the Bull cluster.

There happens to be a band of twelve constellations forming a broad circle of the heavens.

Is that what is called the Signs of the Zodiac?

The same. Can you repeat them?

Yes, father. Aries the Ram, Taurus the Bull, Gemini the Twins, Cancer the Crab, Leo the Lion, Virgo the Virgin, Libra the Scales, Scorpio the Scorpion, Sagittarius the Archer, Capricornus the Goat, Aquarius the Water-bearer, Pisces the Fishes.

Over there to the eastward is one of these that rose as the sun was setting. The sun is seen opposite one or other of the twelve constellations in each month of the year. It is observed, for instance, to rise each morning for a month in the constellation of the Ram, and for the next month in the Bull.

How can it be among those stars when you say they are so much farther off?

By saying it is in such a constellation, I mean that it is in a line between us and that cluster of stars.

Why, then, the sun appears to go a journey between the stars and us for a whole year. Then it will rise in the Ram twelve months after it had been seen opposite that constellation. I wonder how this can be. Did you not say, father, that neither the stars nor the sun really moved?

I did.

Well, then, it must be either the stars turning about the sun, or the sun taking an annual trip about them, and yet the stars do not move, and the sun does not.

Let us leave the sun and his trip for a little, while we have another talk about the stars.

Notice that red star just rising there on the larboard side.

I have it, father.

As I want you to remember it, take my pocket-book and mark off with the pencil a picture of the star and its four neighbours, putting a cross under the one that has just risen.

There it is,--the under one of this cluster I have sketched. I shall know him again.

Now, then, you must go below, and resume your observations to-morrow. I took the exact time--seven p.m.--when you saw the star rise. You must look for it at seven to-morrow evening.”

At four minutes before seven the next night, up rose the pretty object, and stole a glance at the boy across the ocean.

“Father, father! it’s up, it’s up!” sang out the happy lad.

His father looked at his watch, and said--

“Your star did not come to his time. It was four minutes to seven o’clock when he appeared, and that is four minutes too soon.

How is that, father? I must ask you, for it is of no use asking the star.

Perhaps you will still wonder when I tell you that to-morrow evening it will be eight minutes to seven before it gets up at this place.

Why, this is like the sun among the stars--always getting out of his place. But the sun gets right after a year.

Do you think our star will ever get right--so as to rise at seven some other evening?