326 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



however, that instead of having been absent only a month 

 or two they had been gone twenty years, so swiftly had 

 time sped. As they grew old, and their beards grey, 

 and their frames withered, and the pearls were gone, and 

 the rubies spent, they said, ' We will go back to the city 

 of the oasis.' They set out, each on his camel, one lame, 

 the other paralytic, and the third blind, but still the way 

 was plain, for had they not trodden it before ? and they 

 had with them the astrolabe of the astronomer that fixes 

 the track by the stars. Time wore on, and presently the 

 camels' feet brought them nearer and nearer the wished- 

 for spot. One saw the water, and another the palms, 

 but when they came near, it was the mirage, and deep 

 sand covered the place. Then they separated, and each 

 hastened home ; but the blind had no leader, and the 

 lame fell from his camel, and the paralytic had no more 

 dates, and their whited bones have disappeared.^ Many 

 another tale, too, I read under the trees that are gone 

 like human beings. Sometimes I went forth to the 

 nooks in the deep meadows by the hazel mounds, and 

 sometimes I parted the ash-tree wands. In my waist- 

 coat pocket I had a little red book, made square ; I 

 never read it out of doors, but I always carried it in 

 my pocket till it was frayed and the binding broken ; 

 the smallest of red books, but very much therein — the 

 poems and sonnets of Mr. William Shakespeare. Some 



' The Arabian commentator thinks this story a myth : the oasis in the 

 desert is the time of youth, which passes so quickly, and is not recognised 

 till it is gone ; the pearls and rubies, the joys of love, which make the 

 fortunate lover as a king. In old age every man is afflicted with disease 

 or infirmity, every one is paralytic, lame, or blind. They set out to find 

 a second youth — the dream of immortality— with the astrolabe, which is 

 the creed or Koran all take as their guide. And death separated the 

 company. This is only his pragmatic way ; the circumstance is doubtless 

 historic. 



