THE EDGE OF NIGHT 63 



this wild night-land of his; and I have felt him 

 pass so near at times that he has stirred my 

 hair, by the wind, dare I say, of his mysterious 

 wings ? At other times I have heard him. Often 

 on the edge of night I have listened to his qua- 

 vering, querulous cry from the elm-tops below me 

 by the meadow. But oftener I have watched at 

 the casement here in my castle wall. 



Away yonder on the borders of night, dim and 

 gloomy, looms his ancient keep. I wait. Soon 

 on the deepened dusk spread his soft wings, out 

 over the meadow he sails, up over my wooded 

 height, over my moat, to my turret tall, as silent 

 and unseen as the soul of a shadow, except he 

 drift across the face of the full round moon, or 

 with his weird cry cause the dreaming quiet to 

 stir in its sleep and moan. 



Yes, yes, but one must be pretty much of a 

 child, with most of his childish things not yet put 

 away, to get any such romance out of a rotten 

 apple tree, plus a bunch of feathers no bigger than 

 one's two fists. One must be pretty far removed 

 from the real world, the live world that swings, 

 no longer through the heavens, but at the dis- 

 tributing end of a news wire pretty far removed 



