The moon was low and gold tonight, resting just above the water like a lantern set down to cool. Marlow lay back against his cushion of river-reeds and let the boat hum its low hum, and as it carried him gently around the bend, he remembered the soft, sleepy sound he had heard the night before — a little like baa, and a little like a yawn that couldn't finish — drifting from a low dark shape out in the middle of the river.
Now the bend was behind him. And there, ahead, in the middle of the wide warm river, lay the little island.
It was a small green hill of an island, soft with grass, ringed all around with gentle reeds. And all over the hill, pale in the golden moonlight, stood the sheep. There were ever so many of them — round and woolly and soft as clouds that had come down to rest — and every single one of them was wide, wide awake.
They were not running about. They were not making any fuss. They were simply standing in the grass, blinking their tired eyes, and yawning enormous yawns, one after another, all night long, and not one of them was getting any closer to sleep.
Marlow let his boat drift in among the reeds at the island's edge, and the nearest sheep — a small one, with wool like a little grey cloud — turned to him and gave the longest, saddest yawn he had ever seen.
"Good evening," said Marlow, in his quiet voice. "You sound the way I feel when it's very nearly time to sleep. But none of you are sleeping. Whatever is the matter?"
"Oh," said the small sheep, and her voice was wobbly with tiredness. "We can't get to sleep. None of us can. And we are so very tired." She yawned again, helplessly. "We've tried everything. We jump the fence to count ourselves — over and over, all night long — but the jumping only wakes us up more, and the counting goes higher and higher, and the more we count, the more awake we feel." She drooped. "We're the sheep that other creatures are supposed to count to fall asleep. But nobody ever taught us how to fall asleep ourselves."
Marlow thought about this for a moment, the way he thought about most things: slowly, and softly. He did not think it was such a hopeless thing. He thought it was the kind of trouble that comes when you try too hard to do sleep, and jump, and count, and chase it — when sleep was never a thing to chase at all.
"I think," said Marlow, "you've been working much too hard at it. Sleep isn't a fence you jump over. It isn't a number you reach. It's more like the river. You can't make it carry you faster, and you can't make it come — you can only stop swimming against it, and let it take you where it was always going to take you. Shall I show you the slow way? My way?"
"Yes, please," whispered the small sheep. "But we don't know how to stop."
"Then we'll stop together," said Marlow, "very slowly. Slow and soft. That's the way. First — no more jumping. Lie down in the warm grass, all of you, just as you are. You don't have to do anything at all from here. That's the whole secret. There's nothing left to do."
And one by one, slowly, the sheep folded their legs and lay down in the soft warm grass — the little grey-cloud sheep first, and then the ones beside her, and then the ones beside them — until every woolly sheep on the hill was lying down, and a great gentle hush settled over the little island, soft as snow falling on snow.
"Now," said Marlow, "we won't count how many you are. Counting climbs, and climbing keeps you awake. Instead, let's go the other way. Let's go down. Listen to the river breathing — in... and out... and in. And each time it breathes out, let one small thing go soft. Let your ears go soft. Now your woolly backs. Now your tired legs. Now your sleepy eyes."
The sheep listened to the river breathing. And each time it breathed out, slow and warm, they let one small thing go soft — their ears, their backs, their legs, their eyes — until each woolly sheep lay loose and easy in the grass, as soft as a cloud with nowhere to be. No fences. No numbers. No counting and climbing. Only the warm grass beneath them, and the slow river breathing beside them, and nothing in all the world left to do.
"And now," murmured Marlow, more softly still, "I'll hum you the river's own hum. You don't have to listen hard. You don't have to do anything. Just let it come and go, like the water, in and out, and let it carry you wherever it's going."
And Marlow hummed. Low and warm, the same slow hum the moonlight boat made, the same hum the old willow had remembered two bends back — mmm... mmm... mmm — drifting out over the grass, soft as a blanket settling.
The small grey-cloud sheep felt her eyes grow heavy. She did not jump. She did not count. She only breathed, in and out, with the slow river, and let the hum come and go, and let one small thing after another go soft and warm and still.
And one by one, all across the little island — the way the stars had come out over Marlow's boat, the way the fireflies had glowed in the meadow, one... and then another... and then another — the sheep fell fast asleep. Their breathing slowed and deepened, until the whole island breathed together, in and out, with the river, like one soft sleeping cloud.
The very last to go was the small grey sheep. "Thank you," she breathed, her eyes already closing. "You didn't make us sleep. You only... showed us... how to stop... keeping ourselves... awake."
"Slow and soft," murmured Marlow, his own eyes nearly closed. "That's the way."
He let his boat slip quietly back from the reeds, so as not to wake a single sleeping sheep, and the gentle river took it up again and carried it on. The little island, breathing softly, grew smaller behind him, and dimmer, until it was only a low dark shape on the golden water, and then only the hush of the river and the low hum of the boat. The stars turned, slowly. The gold moon rested on the water. And the little boat made of moonlight carried him on, around the gentle curve of the night.
Marlow's eyes were nearly closed now. But just before they were — just as the boat rounded the very next soft bend in the river — he saw, far off downstream, a tall thin shape standing where the river grew wide, almost as wide as the sea. It was a little stone tower, leaning slightly, with a small round window at the very top. And in the window there was a light — but oh, such a faint and tired little light, flickering ever so dimly, the way a candle flickers when it has been burning a long, long while and is nearly ready to rest.
"How curious," Marlow thought, drowsily. "A little tower with a little light. I wonder... I wonder who keeps that light, all the way out there — and why it's grown so very dim."
But that, little one, is a tale for tomorrow night.
So close your eyes, and let the river breathe you down to sleep. Slow and soft. That's the way.
Sleep softly.
Marlow will wait for you, just around the bend.
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