BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 59 



quainted .with the cause of the boy's grief and of 

 his solitary, miserable condition, began to com- 

 fort him by telling him that no grief was incur- 

 able, no desire that heart could conceive unat- 

 tainable. He discoursed of the hidden potent 

 properties of nature, unknown only to those who 

 seek not to know them; of the splendid virtue 

 inherent in all things, like the green and violet 

 flames in the clear colourless raindrops which are 

 seen only on rare occasions. Of life and death, 

 he said that life was of the spirit which never 

 dies, that death meant only a passage, a change 

 of abode of the spirit, and the left body crum- 

 bled to dust when the spirit went out of it to 

 continue its existence elsewhere, but that those 

 who hated the thought of such change could, by 

 taking thought, prolong life and live for a thou- 

 sand years, like the adder and tortoise or for 

 ever. But no, he would not leave the poor boy 

 to grope alone and blindly after that hidden 

 knowledge he was burning to possess. He pitied 

 him too much. The means were simple and near 

 to hand, the earth teemed with the virtue that 

 would save him from the dissolution which so 

 appalled him. He would be startled to hear in 



