n said, "Nay, he has
entered by another way." And presently he bade Ralph return home in
peace, and blessed him in a form of words which Ralph could not
afterwards remember, but it sounded very sweet. And Ralph asked
whether he might come again, but the Wise Man said, "Nay, my son."

Then Ralph went home in wonder; and though the journey had seemed very
long, he found that it was still morning in Birnewood.

Then he returned to the Parsonage; and the next day Father John
returned, and told him that the lands would be restored to him; and as
they talked, Father John said, "My son, what new thing has come to
you? for there is a light in your eye that was not lit before." But
Ralph could not tell him.

So Ralph became a great knight, and did worthily; and in his hall
there hang three pictures in one frame; to the left is a little green
snake on a stone bench; to the right a leprous man richly clad; and in
the centre a grey mist, with a figure down on its face. And some folk
ask Ralph to explain the picture, and he smiles and says it is a
vision; but others look at the picture in a strange wonder, and then
look in Ralph's face, and he knows that they understand, and that they
too have been to the Country of Dreams.

BROTHER ROBERT

The castle of Tremontes stands in a wood of oaks, a little way off
the high-road; it takes its name from the three mounds that rise in
the castle yard, covered now with turf and daisies, but piled together
within of stones, which cover, so the legend says, the bodies of three
Danish knights killed in a skirmish long ago; the river that runs in
the creek beside the castle is joined to the sea but a little below,
and the tide comes up to Tremontes; when the sea is out, there are
bare and evil-smelling mudbanks, with a trickle of brackish water in
the midst. But at the time of which I write, the channel was deeper,
and little ships with brown sails could be seen running before the
wind among the meadows, to discharge their cargoes at the water-gate
of the castle. It was a strong place with its leaded roofs and its
tower of squared stone, very white and smooth. There was a moat all
round the wall, full of water-lilies, where the golden carp could be
seen basking on hot days; there was a barbican with a drawbridge, the
chains of which rattled and groaned when the bridge was drawn up at
sunset, and let down at sunrise; the byre came up to the castle walls
on on