144 LITERARY PILGRIMAGES 



of rich seal brown. Here in the rich sunshine 

 Launcelot might well have said : 



"Myself beheld three spirits, mad with joy, 

 Come dashing down on a tall wayside flower." 



Here Grapta interrogationis carried his ever- 

 present question mark from one dry leaf to an- 

 other, asking always that unanswerable " why? " 

 Here Pyrameis huntera, well named the hunter's 

 butterfly, flashed red through the woodland, scout- 

 ing silently and becoming invisible in ambush as a 

 hunter should. Here a tiny fleck of sky, the spirit 

 bluebird of the spring which the entomologists 

 have woefully named Lycsena pseudargiolus, flut- 

 tered along the ground as if a new-born flower 

 tried quivering flight, and brown Hesperiidae, 

 " bedouins of the pathless air," buzzed in vanish- 

 ing eccentricity. But it was not for these that I 

 lingered long on the seaward crest. There below 

 me lay the bay that the exploring Pilgrims entered 

 at such hazard, that but the day before had been 

 blotted out with a freezing storm and gray with 

 snow, now smiling in unforgettable beauty at 

 my feet, bringing irresistibly to mind the one who 

 sang, 



