s love-call of theirs, which they have repeated from the
beginning of the world, and no ear has ever tired of; finches were
singing, greenfinches, chaffinches; thrushes were singing, singing
ecstatically in the tree-tops, and lower down the imitative little
blackcaps were trying to imitate them. Recurrently, from a distance,
came the soft iterations of a cuckoo. Bees went about their affairs
with a mien of sombre resolution, mumbling to themselves, in stolid
monotone, "It-'s-got-to-be-done-and-it-'s-dogged-that-does-it,
it-'s-got-to-be-done-and-it-'s-dogged-that-does-it," and showing thus
that even the beautiful task of flying from flower to flower and
gathering honey, may, if you are a bee, fail to interest you, and
necessitate an act of will; while butterflies, charmed by the continual
surprises, satisfied by the immediate joys, of the present moment,
flitted irresponsibly, capriciously, whithersoever a bright colour
beckoned, and gave no thought to the moments that had not yet come.
Everywhere there was business, rumour, action; but everywhere, none the
less, there was the ineffable peace of early morning, of the hours when
man--the peace-destroyer?--is still at rest. And everywhere,
everywhere, there was the wonderful pristine air, the virginal air,
that seemed to penetrate beyond the senses, and to reach the
imagination, a voice whispering untranslatable messages, waking mystic
surmises of things unknown but somehow kindred.

Anthony strolled on at random, down the purple-shaded paths, under the
spreading oaks and bending elms, over the sun-tipped greensward,
satisfied, like the butterflies, by the experiences of the passing
moment, enjoying, in leisurely intimacy, the aspects and vicissitudes
of his way; for a melancholy man, curiously cheerful; the tears of
things, the flat and unprofitable uses of the world, forgotten: for a
melancholy man, even curiously elated: elated--oh, more than likely
without recognising it--as one is to whom the house of life has
discovered a new chamber-door, and, therewith, new promises of
adventure. He strolled on at random, swinging his stick nonchalantly,
. . . till, all at once, he saw something that brought him, and the
heart within him, to a simultaneous standstill: something he had been
more or less sub-consciously thinking of the whole time, perhaps?--for
it brought him to a standstill, as if he saw his thought made flesh.

He had just mounted a little knoll, and now, glan