e joy of birth. At last comes the
knowledge of why there is joy. Strive to be fully born."

"And if I were so--?"

"Then life alters and there is strong embrace."

A great stillness lay upon the oasis and the desert around. Men and
beasts were sleeping, only these two waking, just here, just now.
After a moment the dervish spoke again. "The holder-back is the sense
of disunity. Sit fast and gather yourself to yourself.... Then will
you find how large is your brood!"

He rose, stood a moment above Glenfernie, then went away. The man whom
he left sat on, struck from within by fresh shafts. Perception now
came in this way, with inner beam. How huge was the landscape that it
lighted up!... Alexander sat still. He bent his head--there was a
sense, extending to the physical, of a broken shell, of escape,
freedom.... He found that he was weeping. He lay upon the sand, and
the tears came as they might from a young boy. When they were past,
when he lifted himself again, the morning star was in the sky.

CHAPTER XXXI

Strickland, in the deep summer glen, saw before him the feather of
smoke from Mother Binning's cot. The singing stream ran clearly, the
sky arched blue above. The air held calm and fine, filled as it were
with golden points. He met a white hen and her brood, he heard the
slow drone of Mother Binning's wheel. She sat in the doorway, an old
wise wife, active still.

"Eh, mon, and it's you!--Wish, and afttimes ye'll get!" She pushed her
wheel aside. "I've had a feeling a' the day!"

Strickland leaned against her ash-tree. "It's high summer, Mother--one
of the poised, blissful days."

"Aye. I've a feeling.... Hae ye ony news at the House?"

"Alice sings beautifully this summer. Jamie is marrying down in
England--beauty and worth he says, and they say."

"Miss Alice doesna marry?"

"She's not the marrying kind, she says."

"Eh, then! She's bonny and gude, juist the same! Did ye come by White
Farm?"

"Yes. Jarvis Barrow fails. He sits under his fir-tree, with his Bible
beside him and his eyes on the hills. Littlefarm manages now for White
Farm."

"Robin's sunny and keen. But he aye irked Jarvis with his profane
sangs." She drew out the adjective with a humorous downward drag of
her lip.

Strickland smiled. "The old man's softer now. You see that by the
places at which his Bible opens."

"Oh aye! We're journeyers--rock and tree and Kelpie's Pool with the
rest of us."

She seemed to catch h