they carefully shut out the sun too), they would tell you he
died thousands of years ago; but they are foolish, very foolish. It was
hardly so long ago as yesterday. Did not the brook tell you all about
that?

"Now this man, and all his people, used to love me and drink me, as much
as ever they could all day long and a great part of the night, and when
they died they still wanted to be with me, and so they were all buried
on the tops of the hills, and you will find these curious little mounds
everywhere on the ridges, dear, where I blow along. There I come to them
still, and sing through the long dry grass, and rush over the turf, and
I bring the scent of the clover from the plain, and the bees come
humming along upon me. The sun comes too, and the rain. But I am here
most; the sun only shines by day, and the rain only comes now and then.

"But I am always here, day and night, winter and summer. Drink me as
much as you will, you cannot drink me away; there is always just as much
of me left. As I told you, the people who were buried in these little
mounds used to drink me, and oh! how they raced along the turf, dear;
there is nobody can run so fast now; and they leaped and danced, and
sang and shouted. I loved them as I love you, my darling; there, sit
down and rest on the thyme, dear, and I will stroke your hair and sing
to you."

So Bevis sat down on the thyme, and the wind began to sing, so low and
sweet and so strange an old song, that he closed his eyes and leaned on
his arm on the turf. There were no words to the song, but Bevis
understood it all, and it made him feel so happy. The great sun smiled
upon him, the great earth bore him in her arms gently, the wind caressed
him, singing all the while. Now Bevis knew what the wind meant; he felt
with his soul out to the far-distant sun just as easily as he could feel
with his hand to the bunch of grass beside him; he felt with his soul
down through into the earth just as easily as he could touch the sward
with his fingers. Something seemed to come to him out of the sunshine
and the grass.

"There never was a yesterday," whispered the wind presently, "and there
never will be to-morrow. It is all one long to-day. When the man in the
hill was you were too, and he still is now you are here; but of these
things you will know when you are older, that is if you will only
continue to drink me. Come, dear, let us race on again." So the two went
on and came to a hawthorn-bush