ed shepherds, and
fishes like birds darted to and fro, but made no sound. And that was
what burdened his heart,--that for all the beauty he saw, there was no
sound, no song of a single bird to comfort him.

The mermen reached out their blue arms to him, and sang; on the top of
the waves they sang, striving to make him forget the silence of the
land below. They offered him the sea-life: why should he be drowned
and die?

And now over him in the dark night the great wings crashed, and beat
abroad in the wind, and the ship made great way. And the mermen swam
fast to be with her, and ceased from their own song, for the wind sang
a coronach in the canvas and cordage. But the little child lifted his
head in his sleep and smiled, for his soul was eased of the mermen's
song, and it seemed to him that instead he heard birds singing in a
far-off land, singing of a child whose loving hand had fed them, faint
and weary, in their way over the wide ocean.

In that far southern land the dawn had begun, and the birds, waking
one by one, were singing their story of him to the soft-breathing
tamarisk boughs. And none of them knew how they had been sent as
a salvage crew to save the child's spirit from the spell of the
sea-dream, and to carry it safely back to the land that loved him.

* * * * *

But with the child's body the white wings had flown down into the
wave-buried valleys, and to a cleft of the sea-hills to rest.

THE PASSIONATE PUPPETS

[Illustration]

THE PASSIONATE PUPPETS

When the long days of summer began, Killian, the cow-herd, was able
to lead his drove up into the hills, giving them the high pastures to
range. Then from sunrise to sunset he was alone, except when, early
each morning, Grendel and the other girls came up to carry down the
milk to the villages.

All day long the cow-bells sounded in his ears, but still the time of
his wedding was a long way off; it would be five years before he and
Grendel could afford to set up a house and farm, with cows of their
own.

The great stretch of world that lay out under him, like a broad map
coloured blue and green, made him full of a restless longing for a
move in life. Yonder he could pick out the towns with their spires and
glittering roofs, and the overhead mists, that gave token of crowded
life below. It was there that wealth could be got; and with wealth men
married soon, and were at ease. Somewhere, he had heard, live