48 ^MBLES OF A VOMINIS 



Now he comes in view, flying fast across the orchard. 

 Now he sails overhead, not noticing the figure in the 

 doorway. As he floats over to the great elm close by, 

 his voice rises to a perfect shout. Then he settles in the 

 old walnut-tree and calls and calls in loud clear tones, 

 bowing each time, drooping his wings and tail, and 

 varying now and then his more familiar speech by a 

 muttered scrap from some outlandish tongue. There is 

 already in his voice a suspicion of the " altered tune," 

 which all too quickly will be followed by the silence that 

 so completely removes him from the common ken. 



Long since the old walnut-tree has passed its prime. 

 Each winter breaks away the dead wood from its 

 withered limbs. Sad-coloured fungi gather round its 

 base. Whole tribes of creatures have their burrows in 

 its rotten wood ; troops of beetles hide under its loosened 

 bark. 



To the rude stonework round the spring there cling 

 in scores the shells of tiny limpets. How did their 

 ancestors find their way to this secluded well ? How was 

 it peopled with even the smallest forms of life the shells 

 that creep among the stones, the active little shrimps 

 that career across the sandy bottom ? Some wandering 

 bird, perhaps, after splashing in a distant brook, brought 

 here upon its feet the tiny spawn. 



It is an ancient spring. The hands that fitted these 

 broad flag-stones round its brink were folded for their 

 last sleep long years ago. For centuries the sons of toil 

 have cooled their sunburned faces in a well that never 

 in the memory of man has failed or faltered in its flow. 



