First went the Tramp, shining and glowing like a mirror in the

sunshine--fire surely in him; next Judy, almost flying with the joy and

lightness in her--as of air; Tim barely able to keep tight hold of her

hand, so busily did his feet love the roots and rabbit-holes of--earth;

and finally, Uncle Felix, rolling to and fro, now sideways, now

toppling headlong, roaring as he followed like a heavy wave. Fire, air,

earth, and water--they summarised existence; owned and possessed the

endless day; lived it, were one with it. Their leader, who apparently

had swallowed the sun, fused and unified them in this amazing way

with--fire.

And hardly had they passed the line of shy forget-me-nots on the top of

the bank, than they ran against a curious looking object that at first

appeared to be an animated bundle of some kind, but on closer

inspection proved to be a human figure stooping. It was somebody very

busy about the edges of a great clump of bramble bushes. At the sound

of their impetuous approach it straightened up. It had the face of a

man--yellowish, patched with red, breathless and very hot. It was

Come-back Stumper.

He glared at them, furious at being disturbed, yet with an uneasy air,

half comical, half ashamed, as of being--caught. He took on a

truculent, aggressive attitude, as though he knew he would have to

explain himself and did not want to do so. He turned and faced them.

"Mornin'," he grunted fiercely. "It's a lovely day."

But they all agreed so promptly with him that he dropped the offensive

at once. His face was _very_ hot. It dripped.

"Energetic as usual," observed Uncle Felix, while Tim poked among the

bushes to see what he had been after, and Judy offered him a very dirty

handkerchief to mop his forehead with. His bald head shone and

glistened. Wisps of dark hair lay here and there upon it like the

feathers of a crow's torn wing.

"Thanks, dear," he said stiffly, using the few inches of ragged cambric

and then tucking the article absent-mindedly into a pocket of his

shooting coat. "I've been up very early--since dawn. Since dawn," he

repeated in a much louder voice, "got up, in fact, with the sun." He

meant to justify his extreme and violent activity. He glanced at the

Tramp with a curious air of respect. Tim thought he saluted him, but

Judy declared afterwards he was only wiping "the hot stuff off the side

of his dear old head."

"Wonderful moment,--dawn, ain't it, General?" said the Tramp. "Best in

the whole day when you come to think of it."

"It is, sir," replied Stumper, as proud as though a Field-Marshal had

addressed him, "and the first." He looked more closely at the Tramp; he

rubbed his eyes, and then produced the scrap of cambric and rubbed them

again more carefully than before. Perhaps he, too, had been hoping for

a leader! Something very proud and happy stole upon his perspiring face

of ochre. He moved a step nearer. "Did you notice it this morning?" he

asked in a whisper, "the dawn, I mean? Never saw anything like it in me

life before. Thought I was in the Himalayas or the Caucasus again.

Astonishin', upon me word--the beauty of it! And the birds! Did you

hear 'em? Expect you usually do, though," he added with a touch of

unmistakable envy and admiration in his tone.

"Uncommon," agreed the Tramp, "and no mistake about it. _They_ knew,

you see." They no longer called each other "Sir" and "General"; they

had come to an understanding apparently.

"Umph!" said Stumper, and looked round shyly at the others.

Stumper was evidently under the stress of some divine emotion he was

half ashamed of. An unwonted passion stirred him. He seemed a prey to

an unusual and irrepressible curiosity. Only the obvious fact that his

listeners shared the same feelings with him loosened his sticky tongue

and stole self-consciousness away. He had expected to be laughed at.

Instead the group admired him. The Tramp--his manner proved it--thought

of him very highly indeed.

"Never knew such a day in all me life before," Stumper admitted

frankly. "Couldn't--simply couldn't stay indoors."

He still retained a trace of challenge in his tone. But no one

challenged. Judy took his arm. "So you came out?" she said softly.

"Like us," said Uncle Felix.

"Of course," Tim added. But it was the Tramp who supplied the

significant words they had all been waiting for, Stumper himself more

eagerly than any one else. "To look," he remarked quite naturally.

Stumper might have just won a great world-victory, judging by the

expression that danced upon his face. He dropped all pretence at

further concealment. He put his other arm round Tim's shoulder, partly

to balance himself better against Judy's pushing, and partly because he

realised the companionship of both children as very dear just then. He

had a great deal to say, and wanted to say it all at once, but words

never came to him too easily; he had missed many an opportunity in life

for the want of fluent and spontaneous address. He stammered and halted

somewhat in his delivery. A new language with but a single word in it

would have suited him admirably.

"Yes," he growled, "I came out--to look. But when I got out--I clean

forgot what it was--who, I mean--no, _what_," he corrected himself

again, "I'd come out to look for. Can't make it out at all." He broke

off in a troubled way.

"No?" agreed Judy sympathetically, as though _she_ knew.

"But you want to find it awfully," Tim stated as a fact.

"Awfully," admitted Stumper with a kind of fierceness.

"Only you can't remember what it looks like quite?" put in Uncle Felix.

Stumper hesitated a moment. "Too wonderful to remember properly," he

said more quietly; something like that. "But the odd thing is," he went

on in a lower tone, "I've seen it. I _know_ I've seen it. Saw it this

mornin'--very early--when the pigeon woke me up--at dawn."

"Pigeon!" exclaimed Tim and Judy simultaneously. "Dawn!"

"Carrier-pigeon--flew in at my open window--woke me," continued the

soldier in his gruff old voice. "I've used 'em--carrier-pigeons, you

know. Sent messages--years ago. I understand the birds a bit.

Extraordinary thing, I thought. Got up and looked at it." He blocked

again.

"Ah!" said some one, by way of encouragement.

"And it looked back at me." By the way he said it, it was clear he

hardly expected to be believed.

"Of course," said Uncle Felix.

"Naturally," added Tim.

"And what d'you think?" Stumper went on, a note of yearning and even

passion in his voice. "What d'you think?" he whispered: "I felt it had

a message for me--brought _me_ a message--something to tell me--"

"Round its neck or foot?" asked Tim.

Stumper drew the boy closer and looked down into his face. "Eyes," he

mumbled, "in its small bright eyes. There was a flash, I saw it

plainly--something strange and marvellous, something I've been looking

for all my life."

No one said a single word, but the old soldier felt the understanding

sympathy rising like steam from all of them.

"Then, suddenly, it was gone--out into the open sky--bang into the

sunrise. And I saw the dawn all over everything. I dressed--rushed

out--and--"

"Had it laid an egg?" Tim asked, remembering another kind of hunting

somewhere, long ago.

"How could it?" Judy corrected him quickly. "There was--no time--" then

stopped abruptly. She turned towards Come-Back Stumper; she gave him a

hurried and affectionate hug. "And then," she asked, "what happened

next?"

Stumper returned the hug, including Tim in it too. "I found

_this_--fluttering in my hand," he said, and held up a small grey

feather for them to admire. "It's the only clue I've got. The pigeon

left it."

While they admired the feather and exhibited their own, Tim crying,

"We've got five now, nearly a whole wing!" Stumper was heard to murmur

above their heads, "And since I--came out to look--I've felt--quite

different."

"Your secret's in the wind and open sky!" cried Judy, dancing round him

with excitement. Her voice came flying from the air.

"You're awfully warm--you're hot--you're burning!" shouted Tim,

clapping his hands. His voice seemed to rise out of the earth.

"We've all seen it, all had a glimpse," roared Uncle Felix with a sound

of falling water, rolling up nearer as he spoke. "It's too wonderful to

see for long, too wonderful to remember quite. But we shall find it in

the end. We're all looking!" He began a sort of dancing step. "And when

we find it--" he went on.

"We'll change the world," shouted Stumper, as though he uttered a final

word of command.

"It's a he, remember," interrupted Tim. "Come along!"

And then the Tramp, who had been standing quietly by, smiling to

himself but saying nothing, came nearer, opened his great arms and drew

the four of them together. His voice, his shining presence, the warm

brilliance that glowed about him, seemed to envelop them like a flame

of fire and a fire of--love.

"We're thinking and arguing too much," he drawled in his leisurely, big

voice, "we lose the trail that way, we lose the rhythm. Just love and

look and wonder--then we'll find him. There is no hurry, life has just

begun. But keep on looking all the time." He turned to Stumper with a

chuckle. "You said you had a flash," he reminded him. "What's become of

it? You can't have lost it--with that pigeon's feather in your hand!"

"It's waggling," announced Tim, holding up his own, while the others

followed suit. The little feathers all bent one way--towards the

bramble clump. Their tiny, singing music was just audible in the pause.

"Yes," replied Come-Back Stumper at length. "I've had a flash--flashes,

in fact! What's more," he added proudly, "I was after a couple of

them--just when you arrived."

Everybody talked at once then. Uncle Felix and the children fell to

explaining the signs and traces they had already discovered, each

affirming vehemently that their own particular sign was the

loveliest--the dragon-fly, the flowers, the wind, the bending reeds,

even the lizard and the bumble-bee. The chorus of sound was like the

chattering of rooks among the tree-tops; in fact, though the quality of

tone of course was different, the resemblance to a concert of birds,

all singing together in a summer garden, was quite striking. Out of the

hubbub single words emerged occasionally--a "robin," "swallows," an

"up-and-under bird"--yet, strange to say, so far as Stumper was

concerned, only one thing was said; all said the same one thing; he

heard this one thing only--as though the words and sentences they used

were but different ways of pronouncing it, of spelling it, of uttering

it. Moreover, the wind in the feather said it too, for the sound and

intonation were similar. It was the thing that wind and running water

said, that flame roared in the fireplace, that rain-drops pattered on

the leaves, even house-flies, buzzing across the

window-panes--everything everywhere, the whole earth, said it.

He stood still, listening in amazement. His face had dried by now; he

passed his hand across it; he tugged at his fierce military moustache.

"Hiding--near us--in the open--everywhere," he muttered, though no one

heard him; "I've had my flashes too."

"Different people get different signs, of course," the Tramp made

himself heard at length, "but they're all the same. All lie along the

trail. The earth's a globe and circle, so everything leads to the same

place--in the end."

"Yes," said Stumper; "thank you"--as though he knew it already, but

felt that it was neatly put.

"Follow up your flash," added the Tramp. "Smell--then follow. That

is--keep on looking."

Stumper turned, pirouetting on what the children called his "living

leg." "I will," he cried, with an air of self-abandonment, and promptly

diving by a clever manoeuvre out of their hands, he fell heavily upon

all fours, and disappeared beneath the dense bramble bushes just behind

them. Panting, and certainly perspiring afresh, he forced his way in

among the network of thick leaves and prickly branches. They heard him

puffing; it seemed they heard him singing too, as he reached forward

with both arms into the dark interior. Caught by his whole-hearted

energy, they tried to help; they pushed behind; they did their best to

open a way for his head between the entwining brambles.

"Don't!" he roared inside. "You'll scratch my eyes out. I shan't

see--anything!" His mouth apparently was full of earth. They watched

the retreating soles of his heavy shooting-boots. Slowly the feet were

dragged in after him. They disappeared from sight. Stumper was gone.

"He'll come back, though," mentioned Judy. The performance had been so

interesting that she almost forgot its object, however. Tim reminded

her. "But he won't find anything in a smelly place like that," he

declared. "I mean," he added, "it can't be a beetle or a grub that

we're--looking for." Yet there was doubt and wonder in his voice.

Stumper, a "man like that," and a soldier, a hunter too, who had done

scouting in an Indian jungle, and met tigers face to face--a chap like

that could hardly disappear on all fours into a clump of bramble bushes

without an excellent reason!

An interval of comparative silence followed, broken only by the faint

murmur of the wind that stirred their humming feathers. They stood in a

row and listened intently. Hardly a sound came from the interior of the

bramble bushes. The soldier had justified his title. He had retired

pletely. To Judy it occurred that he might be suffocated, to Tim that

he might have been eaten by some animal, to Uncle Felix that he might

have slipped out at the other side and made his escape. But no one

expressed these idle thoughts in words. They believed in Stumper

really. He invariably came back. This time would be no exception to the

rule.

And, presently, as usual, Stumper did come back. They heard him

grunting and panting long before a sign of him was visible. They heard

his voice, "Got him! Knew I was right! Bah! Ugh!" as he spluttered

earth and leaves from his mouth apparently. He emerged by degrees and

backwards; backed out, indeed, like an enormous rabbit. His boots, his

legs, his hands planted on the ground, his neck and then his face,

looking out over his shoulder, appeared successively. "Just the kind of

place he _would_ choose!" he exclaimed triumphantly, collapsing back

upon his haunches and taking a long, deep breath. Beside the triumph in

his voice there was a touch of indescribable, gruff sweetness the

children knew was always in his heart--no amount of curried-liver

trouble could smother _that_. Just now it was more marked than usual.

"Show us!" they cried, gathering round him. Judy helped him to his

feet; he seemed a little unsteady. Purple with the exertion of the

search, both cheeks smeared with earth, neck-tie crooked, and old grey

shooting-coat half-way up his back, Come-Back Stumper stood upright,

and looked at them with shining eyes. He was the picture of a happy and

successful man.

"There!" he growled, and held out a hand, palm upwards, still trembling

with his recent exertions. "Didn't I tell you?"

They crowded round to examine a small object that lay between two

smears of earth in the centre of the upturned palm. It was round and

had a neat little opening on its under side. It was pretty, certainly.

Their heads pressed forward in a bunch, like cabbages heaped for

market. But no one spoke.

"See it?" said Stumper impatiently; "see what it is?" He bent forward

till his head mixed with theirs, his big aquiline nose in everybody's

way.

"We see it--yes," said Uncle Felix without enthusiasm. "It's a snail

shell--er--I believe?" The shade of disappointment in his voice was

reflected in the children's faces too, as they all straightened up and

gazed expectantly at the panting soldier. "Is that all?" was the

sentence no one liked to utter.

But Stumper roared at them. "A snail shell!" he boomed; "of course it's

a snail shell! But did you ever see such a snail shell in your lives

before? Look at the colour! Look at the shape! Put it against your ears

and hear it singing!" He was furious with their lack of appreciation.

"It's the common sort," said Uncle Felix, braver than the others,

"something or other vulgaris--"

"Hundreds of them everywhere," mentioned Tim beneath his breath to Judy.

But Stumper overheard them.

"Common sort! Hundreds everywhere!" he shouted, his voice almost

choking in his throat; "look at the colour! Look at the shape, I tell

you! Listen to it!" He said the last words with a sudden softness.

They lowered their heads again for a new examination.

"What more d'you want, I'd like to know? There's colour for you!

There's wonder! There's a sheer bit of living beauty!" and he lowered

his head again so eagerly that it knocked audibly against Tim's skull.

"Please move your nose away," said Tim, "I can't see."

"Common indeed!" growled the soldier, making room willingly enough,

while they obeyed his booming orders. They felt a little ashamed of

themselves for being so obtuse, for now that they looked closer they

saw that the shell was certainly very beautiful. "Common indeed!" he

muttered again. "Why, you don't know a sign when it's straight before

your noses!"

Judy pulled the fingers apart to make it roll towards her; she felt it

all over, stroking the smooth beauty of its delicate curves. It was

exquisitely tinted. It shone and glistened in the morning sunlight. She

put it against her ear and listened. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "It _is_

singing," as the murmur of the wind explored its hollow windings.

"That's the Ganges," explained Stumper in a softer voice. "The waves of

the Ganges breaking on the yellow sands of India. Wind in the jungle

too." His face looked happy as he watched her; his explosions never

lasted long.

She passed it over to her brother, who crammed it against his ear and

listened with incredible grimaces as though it hurt him. "I can hear

the tigers' footsteps," he declared, screwing up his eyes, "and birds

of paradise and all sorts of things." He handed it on reluctantly to

his uncle, who listened so deeply in his turn that he had to shut both

eyes. "I hear calling voices," he murmured to himself, "voices calling,

calling everywhere....it's wonderful... like a sea of voices from the

other side of the world... the whole world's singing...!"

"And look at the colour, will you?" urged Stumper, snatching it away

from the listener, who, seemed in danger of becoming entranced. "Why,

he's not only passed this way--he's actually touched it. That's his

touch, I tell you!"

"That's right," mumbled the Tramp, watching the whole performance with

approval. "Folks without something are always sharper than the others."

But this reference to a wooden leg was also too low for any one to hear

it.

Besides Stumper was saying something wonderful just then; he lowered

his voice to say it; there was suppressed excitement in him; he frowned

and looked half savagely at them all:

"I found other signs as well," he whispered darkly. "Two other signs.

In the darkness of those bushes I saw--another flash--two of 'em!" And

he slowly extended his other hand which till now he had kept behind his

back. It was tightly clenched. He unloosed the fingers gradually.

"Look!" he whispered mysteriously. And the hand lay open before their

eyes. "He's been hiding in those very bushes, I tell you. A moment

sooner and we might have caught him."

His enthusiasm ran all over them as they pressed forward to examine the

second grimy hand. There were two things visible in it, and both were

moving. One, indeed, moved so fast that they hardly saw it. There was a

shining glimpse--a flash of lovely golden bronze shot through with

blue--and it was gone. Like a wee veiled torch it scuttled across the

palm, climbed the thumb, popped down the other side and dropped upon

the ground. Vanished as soon as seen!

"A beetle!" exclaimed Uncle Felix. "A tiny beetle!"

"But dipped in colour," said Stumper with enthusiasm, "the colour of

the dawn!"

"Another sign! I never!" He was envious of the soldier's triumph.

"He looks in the unlikely places," muttered the Tramp again,

approvingly. "You've been pretty warm this time." But, again, he said

it too low to be audible. Besides, Stumper's other "find" engrossed

everybody's attention. All were absorbed in the long, dainty object

that clung cautiously to his hand and showed no desire to hurry out of

sight after the brilliant beetle. It was familiar enough to all of

them, yet marvellous. It presented itself in a new, original light.

They watched it spellbound; its tiny legs moved carefully over the

wrinkles of the soldier's skin, feeling its way most delicately, and

turning its head this way and that to sniff the unaccustomed odour.

Sometimes it looked back to admire its own painted back, and to let its

distant tail know that all was going well. The coloured hairs upon the

graceful body were all a-quiver. It fairly shone. There was obviously

no fear in it; it had perfect control of all its length and legs. Yet,

fully aware that it was exploring a new country, it sometimes raised

its head in a hesitating way and looked questioningly about it and even

into the great faces so close against its eyes.

"A caterpillar! A common Woolly Bear!" observed Tim, yet with a touch

of awe.

"It tickles," observed Stumper.

"I'll get a leaf," Judy whispered. "It doesn't understand your smell,

probly." She turned and picked the biggest she could find, and the

caterpillar, after careful observation, moved forward on to it, turning

to inform its following tail that all was safe. Gently and cleverly

they restored it to the bush whence Stumper had removed it. It went to

join the snail-shell and the beetle. They stood a moment in silence and

watched the quiet way it hid itself among the waves of green the wind

stirred to and fro. It seemed to melt away. It hid itself. It left

them. It was gone.

And Stumper turned and looked at them with the air of a man who has

justified himself. He had certainly discovered definite signs.

But there was bewilderment among the group as well as pleasure. For

signs, they began to realise now, were everywhere indeed. The world was

smothered with them. There was no one clear track that they could

follow. All Nature seemed organised to hide the thing they looked for.

It was a conspiracy. It was, indeed, an "enormous hide," an endless

game of hide-and-seek. The interest and the wonder increased sensibly

in their hearts. The thing they sought to find, the Stranger, "It," by

whatever name each chose to call the mysterious and evasive "hider,"

was so marvellously hidden. The glimpse they once had known seemed

long, long ago, and very far away. It lay like a sweet memory in each

heart, half forgotten, half remembered, but always entirely believed

in, very dear and very exquisite. The precious memory urged them

forward. They would search and search until they re-discovered it, even

though their whole lives were spent in the looking. They were quite

positive they would find him in the end.

All this lay somehow in the expression on Stumper's face as he glared

at them and ejaculated a triumphant "There! I told you so!" And at that

moment, as though to emphasize the thrill of excited bewilderment they

felt, a gorgeous brimstone butterfly sailed carelessly past before

their eyes and vanished among the pools of sunlight by the forest edge.

Its presence added somehow to the elusive and difficult nature of their

search. Its flamboyant beauty was a kind of challenge.

"That's what the caterpillar gets into," observed Tim dreamily.

"Let's follow it," said Judy. "_I_ believe the flying signs are best."

"Puzzlin' though," put in the Tramp behind them. They had quite

forgotten his existence. "Let's ask the gardener what _he_ thinks."

He pointed to a spot a little further along the edge of the wood where

the figure of a man was visible. It seemed a good idea. Led by the

Tramp, Uncle Felix and Stumper following slowly in the rear, they moved

forward in a group. Weeden might have seen something. They would ask

him.

WEEDEN'S SIGN

VII

John WEEDEN--the children always saw his surname in capitals--was

probably the most competent Head Gardener of his age, or of any other

age: he supplied the household with fruit and vegetables without

grumbling or making excuses. When asked to furnish flowers at short

notice for a dinner-party he made no difficulty, but just produced

them. Neither did he complain about the weather; wet or dry, it was

always exactly what his garden needed. All weather to him was Fine

Weather. He believed in his garden, loved it, lived in it, was almost

part of it. To make excuses for it was to make excuses for himself.

WEEDEN was a genius.

But he was mysterious too. He was one-eyed, and the loss endeared him

to the children, relating him also, once or twice removed, to Come-Back

Stumper; it touched their imaginations. Being an artist, too, he never

told them how he lost it, a pitchfork and a sigh were all he vouchsafed

upon the exciting subject. He understood the value of restraint, and

left their minds to supply what details they liked best. But this wink

of pregnant suggestion, while leaving them divinely unsatisfied, sent

them busily on the search. They imagined the lost optic roaming the

universe without even an attendant eyelid, able to see things on its

own account--invisible things. "Weeden's lost eye's about," was a

delightful and mysterious threat; while "I can see with the Gardener's

lost eye," was a claim to glory no one could dispute, for no one could

deny it. Its chief duty, however, was to watch the "froot and vegebles"

at night and to keep all robbers--two-foot, four-foot, winged, or

wriggling robbers--from what Aunt Emily called "destroying everything."

A source of wonder to the children, this competent official was at the

same time something of an enigma to the elders. His appearance, to

begin with, was questionable, and visitors, being shown round the

garden, had been known to remark upon it derogatively sometimes. It was

both in his favour and against him. For, either he looked like an

untidy parcel of brown paper, loose ends of string straggling out of

him, or else--in his Sunday best--was indistinguishable from a

rose-bush wrapped up carefully in matting against the frost. Yet, in

either aspect, no one could pretend that he looked like anything but a

genuine Head Gardener, the spirit of the kitchen-garden and the

potting-shed incarnate.

It was the way he answered questions that earned for him the title of

enigma--he avoided a direct reply. (He was so cautious that he would

hesitate even when he came to die.) He would think twice about it. The

decision to draw the final breath would incapacitate him. He would feel

worse--and probably continue alive instead, from sheer inability to

make his mind up. In all circumstances, owing to his calling doubtless,

he preferred to hedge. If Mrs. Horton asked for celery, he would

intimate "I'll have a look." When Daddy enquired how the asparagus was

doing, he obtained for reply, "Won't you come and see it for yourself,

sir?" Upon Mother's anxious enquiry if there would be enough

strawberries for the School Treat, WEEDEN stated "It's been a grand

year for the berries, mum." Then, just when she felt relieved, he

added, "on the 'ole."

For the children, therefore, the Gardener was a man of mystery and

power, and when they saw his figure in the distance, their imagination

leaped forward with their bodies, and WEEDEN stood wrapped in a glory

he little guessed. He was bent double, digging (as usual in his spare

time) for truffles beneath the beech trees. These mysterious delicacies

with the awkward name he never found, but he liked looking for them.

At first he was so intent upon his endless quest that he did not hear

the approach of footsteps.

"No hurry," said the Tramp, as they collected round the stooping figure

and held their feathers up to warn his back. For the wandering eye had

a way of seeing what went on behind him. An empty sack, waiting for the

truffles, lay beside him. He looked like an untidy parcel, so he was

_not_ in his Sunday clothes.

At the sound of voices he straightened slowly and looked round. He

seemed pleased with everything, judging by the expression of his eye,

yet doubtful of immediate success.

"Good mornin'," he said, touching his speckled cap to the authorities.

"Found any?" enquired Uncle Felix, sympathetically.

"It seems a likely spot, maybe," was the reply. "I'm looking." And he

closed the mouth of the sack with his foot lest they should see its

emptiness.

But the use of the verb set the children off at once.

"I say," Tim exploded eagerly, "we're looking too--for somebody who's

hiding. Have you seen any one?"

"Some one very wonderful?" said Judy. "Has he passed this way? It's

Hide-and-Seek, you know."

WEEDEN looked more mysterious at once. It was strange how a one-eyed

face could express so big a meaning. He scratched his head and smiled.

"All my flowers and vegitubles is a-growin' nicely," he said at length.

"It is a lovely mornin' for a game." His eye closed and opened. The

answer was more direct than usual. It meant volumes. WEEDEN was in the

know. They felt him somehow related to their leader--a kind of

organised and regulated tramp.

"You _have_ seen him, then?" cried Judy.

"With your gone eye!" exclaimed Tim. "Which way? And what signs have

you got?"

"Flowers, beetles, snail-shells, caterpillars--anything beautiful is a

sign, you know," went on Judy, breathlessly.

"Deep, tender, kind and beautiful," interposed the Tramp, laying the

accent significantly on the first adjective, as if for Weeden's special

benefit.

WEEDEN looked up. "Sounds like my garden things," he said darkly, more

to himself than to the others. He gazed down into the hole he had been

digging. The moist earth glistened in the sunlight. He sniffed the

sweet, rich odour of it, and scratched his head in the same spot as

before--just beneath the peak of his speckled cap. His nose wrinkled

up. Then he looked again into the faces, turning his single eye slowly

upon each in turn. The Tramp's remark had reached his cautious brain.

"There's no sayin' where anybody sich as you describe him to be might

hide hisself a day like this," he observed deliberately, his optic

ranging the sunny landscape with approval. "I never saw sich a

beautiful day before--not like to-day. It's endless sort of. Seems to

me as if I'd been at this 'ole for weeks."

He paused. The others waited. WEEDEN was going to say something real

any moment now, they felt.

"No hurry," the Tramp reminded him. "Everything's light and careless,

and so are we. There is no longer any Time--to lose."

His voice half sang, half chanted in the slow, windy way he had, and

the Gardener looked up as if a falling apple had struck him on the

head. He shifted from one leg to the other; he seemed excited, moved.

His single eye was opened--to the sun. He looked as if his body was

full of light.

"_You_ was the singer, was you?" he asked wonderingly, the tone low and

quiet. "It was you I heard a-singin'--jest as dawn broke!" He scratched

his head again. "And me thinkin' all the time it was a bird!" he added

to himself.

The Tramp said nothing.

WEEDEN then resumed his ordinary manner; he went on speaking as before.

But obviously--somewhere deep down inside himself--he had come to a big

decision.

"Gettin' nearer and nearer," he resumed his former conversation exactly

where he had left it off, "but never near enough to get

disappointed--ain't it? When you gets to the end of anything, you see,

it's over. And that's a pity."

Uncle Felix glanced at Stumper; Stumper glanced down at the end of his

"wooden" leg; the Tramp still said nothing, smiling in his beard, now

combed out much smoother than before.

"It comes to this," said Weeden, "my way of thinkin' at least." He

scratched wisdom from another corner of his head. "There's a lot of

'iding goin' on, no question about _that_; and the great thing is--my

way of thinkin' at any rate--is--jest to keep on lookin'."

The children met him eagerly at this point, using two favourite words

that Aunt Emily strongly disapproved of: "deslidedly," said one;

"distinkly," exclaimed the other.

"That's it," continued WEEDEN, pulling down his cap to hide, perhaps,

the spot where wisdom would leak out. "And, talking of signs, I

say--find out yer own pertickler sign, then follow it blindly--till the

end."

He straightened up and looked with an air of respectful candour at the

others. The decision of his statement delighted them. The children felt

something of awe in it. Something of their Leader's knowledge evidently

was in him.

"Miss Judy, she gets 'er signs from the air," he said, as no one spoke.

"Master Tim goes poking along the ground, looking for something with

his feet. He feels best that way, feels the earth--things a-growin' up

or things wot go down into 'oles. Colonel Stumper--and no offence to

you, sir--chooses dark places where the sun forgets to shine--"

"Dangerous, jungly places," whispered Tim, admiringly.

"And Mr. Felix--" he hesitated. Uncle Felix's easiest way of searching

seemed to puzzle him. "Mr. Felix," he went on at length, "jest messes

about all over the place at once, because 'e sees signs everywhere and

don't know what to foller in partickler for fear of losin' hisself."

Come-Back Stumper chuckled audibly, but Uncle Felix asked at once--"And

you, WEEDEN? What about yourself, I wonder?"

The Gardener replied without his usual hesitation. It was probably the

most direct reply he had ever made. No one could guess how much it cost

him. "Underground," he said. "My signs lies underground, sir. Where the

rain-drops 'ides theirselves on getting down and the grubs keeps secret

till they feel their wings. Where the potatoes and the reddishes is,"

he added, touching his cap with a respectful finger. He went on with a

hint of yearning in his tone that made it tremble slightly: "If I could

find igsackly where and 'ow the potatoes gets big down there"--he

pointed to the earth--"or how my roses get colour out of the dirt--I'd

know it, wouldn't I, sir? I'd--'ave him, fair!"

The effort exhausted him, it seemed. So deeply was he moved that he had

almost gone contrary to his own nature in making such an explicit

statement. But he had said something very real at last. It was clear

that he was distinctly in the know. Living among natural growing

things, he was in touch with life in a deeper sense than they were.

"And me?" the Tramp mentioned lightly, smiling at his companion of the

outdoor life. "Don't leave me out, please. I'm looking like the rest of

you."

WEEDEN turned round and gazed at him. He wore a strange expression that

had respect in it, but something more than mere respect. There was a

touch of wonder in his eye, a hint of worship almost. But he did not

answer; no word escaped his lips. Instead of speaking he moved up

nearer; he took three cautious steps, then halted close beside the

great burly figure that formed the centre of the little group.

And then he did a curious and significant little act; he held out both

his hands against him as a man might hold out his hands to warm them

before a warm and comforting grate of blazing coals.

"Fire," he said; then added, "and I'm much obliged to you."

He wore a proud and satisfied air, grateful and happy too. He put his

cap straight, picked up his spade, and prepared without another word to

go on digging for truffles where apparently none existed. He seemed

quite content with--looking.

A pause followed, broken presently by Tim: a whisper addressed to all.

"He never finds any. That shows how real it is."

"They're somewhere, though," observed Judy.

They stood and watched the spade; it went in with a crunching sound; it

came out slowly with a sort of "pouf," and a load of rich, black earth

slid off it into the world of sunshine. It went in again, it came out

again; the rhythm of the movement caught them. How long they watched it

no one knew, and no one cared to know: it might have been a moment, it

may have been a year or two; so utterly had hurry vanished out of life

it seemed to them they stood and watched for ever...when they became

aware of a curious sensation, as though they felt the whole earth

turning with them. They were moving, surely. Something to which they

belonged, of which they formed a part--was moving. A windy voice was

singing just in front of them. They looked up. The words were

inaudible, but they knew it was a bit of the same old song that every

one seemed singing everywhere as though the Day itself were singing.

The Tramp was going on.

"Hark!" said Tim. "The birds are singing. Let's go on and look."

"The world is wild with laughter," Judy cried, snatching the words from

the air about her. "We can fly--" She darted after him.

"Among the imprisoned hours as we choose," boomed the voice of Uncle

Felix, as he followed, rolling in behind her.

"We can play," growled Stumper, hobbling next in the line. "_My_ life

has just begun."

Their Leader waited till they all came up with him. They caught him up,

gathering about him like things that settled on a sunny bush. It almost

seemed they were one single person growing from the earth and air and

water. The Tramp glowed there between them like a heart of burning fire.

"_He_ ought to be with us, too," said Judy, looking back.

"No hurry," replied the Tramp. "Let him be; he's following _his_ sign.

When he's ready, he'll come along. It's a lovely day."

They moved with the rhythm of a flock of happy birds across the field

of yellow flowers, singing in chorus something or other about an "extra

day." A hundred years flowed over them, or else a single instant. It

mattered not. They took no heed, at any rate. It was so enormous that

they lost themselves, and yet so tiny that they held it between a

finger and a thumb. The important thing was--that they were getting

warmer.

Then Judy suddenly nudged Tim, and Tim nudged Uncle Felix, and Uncle

Felix dug his elbow into Come-Back Stumper, and Stumper somehow or

other caught the attention of the Tramp--a sort of panting sound,

half-whistle and half-gasp. They paused and looked behind them.

"He's ready," remarked their Leader, with a laughing chuckle in his

beard. "He's coming on!"

WEEDEN, sure enough, had quietly shouldered his shovel and empty sack,

and was making after them, singing as he came. Judy was on the point of

saying to her brother, "Good thing Aunt Emily isn't here!" when she

caught a look in his eyes that stopped her dead.

AUNT EMILY FINDS--HERSELF

VIII

"My dear!" he exclaimed in his tone of big discovery.

Judy made a movement like a swan that inspects the world behind its

back. She tried to look everywhere at once. It seemed she did so.

"Gracious me!" she cried. She instinctively chose prohibited words.

"_My_ gracious me!"

For the places of the world had marvellously shifted and run into one

another somehow. A place called "Somewhere Else" was close about her;

and standing in the middle of it was--a figure. Both place and figure

ought to have been somewhere else by rights. Judy's surprise, however,

was quite momentary; swift, bird-like understanding followed it. Place

was a sham and humbug really; already, without leaving the schoolroom

carpet, she and Tim had been to the Metropolis and even to the East.

This was merely another of these things she didn't know she knew; she

understood another thing she didn't understand. She believed.

The rest of the party had disappeared inside the wood; only Tim

remained--pointing at this figure outlined against the trees. But these

trees belonged to a place her physical eyes had never seen. Perhaps

they were part of her mental picture of it. The figure, anyhow, barred

the way.

It was a woman, the last person in the world they wished to see just

then. The face, wearing an expression as though it tried to be happy

when it felt it ought not to be, was pointed; chin, ears, and eye-brows

pointed; nose pointed too--round doors and into corners--an elastic

nose; there was a look of struggling sweetness about the thin, tight

lips; the entire expression, from the colourless eyes down to the tip

of the decided chin, was one of marked reproach and disapproval that at

the same time fought with an effort to be understanding, gentle, wise.

The face wanted to be very nice, but was prevented by itself. It was

pathetic. Its owner was dressed in black, a small, neat bonnet fastened

carefully on the head, an umbrella in one hand, and big goloshes on

both feet. There were gold glasses balanced on the nose. She smiled at

them, but with a smile that prophesied rebuke. Before she spoke a word,

her entire person said distinctly NO.

"Bother!" Tim muttered beneath his breath, then added, "It's her!"

Already he felt guilty--of something he had not done, but might do

presently. The figure's mere presence invited him to break all rules.

"We thought," exclaimed Judy, trying to remember what rules she had

just disobeyed, and almost saying "hoped,"--"we thought you were at

Tunbridge Wells." Then with an effort she put in "Aunty."

Yet about the new arrival was a certain flustered and uneasy air, as

though she were caught in something that she wished to hide--at any

rate something she would not willingly confess to. One hand, it was

noticed, she kept stiffly behind her back.

"Children," she uttered in an emphatic voice, half-surprised

remonstrance, half-automatic rebuke; "I am astonished!" She looked it.

She pursed her lips more tightly, and gazed at the pair of culprits as

though she had hoped better things of them and _again_ had been

disappointed. "You know quite well that this is out of bounds." It came

out like an arrow, darting.

"We were looking for some one," began Tim, but in a tone that added

plainly enough "it wasn't you."

"Who's hiding, you see," quoth Judy, "but expecting us--at once." The

delay annoyed her.

"You are both well aware," Aunt Emily went on, ignoring their excuses

as in duty bound, "that your parents would not approve. At this hour of

the morning too! You ought to be fast asleep in bed. If your father

knew--!"

Yet, strange to say, the children felt that they loved her suddenly;

for the first time in their lives they thought her lovable. A kind of

understanding sympathy woke in them; there was something pitiable about

her. For, obviously, she was looking just as they were, but looking in

such a silly way and in such hopelessly stupid places. All her life she

had been looking like this, dressed in crackling black, wearing a

prickly bonnet and heavy goloshes, and carrying a useless umbrella that

of course must bother her. It was disappointment that made her talk as

she did. But it was natural she should feel disappointment, for it

never rained when she had her umbrella, and her goloshes were always

coming off.

"She's stuck in a hole," thought Tim, "and so she just says things at

us. She hurts herself somewhere. She's tired."

"She has to be like that," thought Judy. "It's really all pretending.

Poor old thing!"

But Aunt Emily was not aware of what they felt. They were out of bed,

and it was her duty to find fault; they were out of bounds, and she

must take note of it. So she prepared to scold a little. Her bonnet

waggled ominously. She gripped her umbrella. She spoke as though it was

very early in the morning, almost dawn--as though the sun were rising.

There was confusion in her as to the time of day, it seemed. But the

children did not notice this. They were so accustomed to being rebuked

by her that the actual words made small impression. She was just

"saying things"; they were often very muddled things; the attitude, not

the meaning, counted. And her attitude, they divined, was subtly

different.

"You know this is forbidden," she said. "It is damp and chilly. It's

sure to rain presently. You'll get your feet wet. You should keep to

the gravel paths. They're plain enough, are they not?" She looked about

her, sniffing--a sniff that usually summoned disasters in a flock.

"Oh, yes," said Tim; "and they look like brown sugar, _we_ thought."

"It does not matter what you thought, Timothy. The paths are made on

purpose to be walked upon and used--"

"They're beautifully made," interrupted Judy, unable to keep silent

longer. "WEEDEN made them for us."

"And we've used them all," exclaimed Tim, "only we came to an end of

them. We've done with them--paths!" The way he uttered the substantives

made it instantly sound ridiculous.

Aunt Emily opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again

without saying it. She stared at them instead. They watched her. All

fear of her had left their hearts. A new expression rose struggling

upon her pointed features. She fidgeted from one foot to the other.

They felt her as "Aunty," a poor old muddled thing, always looking in

ridiculous places without the smallest notion she was wrong. Tim saw

her suddenly "all dressed up on purpose" as for a game. Judy thought

"She's bubbling inside--really."

"There's WEEDEN in there," Tim mentioned, pointing to the wood behind

her.

Something uncommonly like a smile passed into Aunt Emily's eyes, then

vanished as suddenly as it came. Judy thought it was like a bubble that

burst the instant it reached the sunlight on the surface of a pond.

"And how often," came the rebuke, automatically rather, "has your

Mother told you _not_ to be familiar with the Gardener? Play if you

want to, but do not play with your inferiors. Play with your Uncle

Felix, with Colonel Stumper, or with me--"

Another bubble had risen, caught the sunshine, reflected all the

colours of the prism, then burst and vanished into airy spray.

"But they're looking with us," Tim insisted eagerly. "We're all looking

together for something--Uncle Felix, Come-Back Stumper, everybody. It's

wonderful. It never ends."

Aunt Emily's hand, still clutching the umbrella, stole up and put her

bonnet straight. It was done to gain a little time apparently. There

was a certain hesitation in her. She seemed puzzled. She betrayed

excitement too.

"Looking, are you?" she exclaimed, and her voice held a touch of

mellowness that was new. "Looking!"

She stopped. She tried to hide the mellowness by swallowing it.

"Yes," said Tim. "There's some one hiding. It's Hide-and-Seek, you see.

We're the seekers. It's enormous."

"Will you come with us and look too?" suggested Judy simply. Then while

Aunt Emily's lips framed themselves as from long habit into a negative

or a reprimand, the child continued before either reached delivery:

"There are heaps of signs about; anything lovely or beautiful is a

sign--a sign that we're getting warm. We've each got ours. Mine's air.

What's yours, Aunty?"

Aunt Emily stared at them; her bewilderment increased apparently; she

swallowed hard again. The children returned her stare, gazing

innocently into her questioning eyes as if she were some strange bird

at the Zoo. The new feeling of kinship with her grew stronger in their

hearts. They knew quite well she was looking just as they were;

_really_ she longed to play their game of Hide-and-Seek. She was very

ignorant, of course, they saw, but they were ready and willing to teach

her how to play, and would make it easy for her into the bargain.

"Signs!" she repeated, in a voice that was gentler than they had ever

known it. There was almost a sound of youth in it. Judy suddenly

realised that Aunt Emily had once been a girl. A softer look shone in

the colourless eyes. The lips relaxed. In a hat she might have been

even pretty. No one in a bonnet could be jolly. "Signs!" she repeated;

"deep and beautiful! Whatever in the world--?"

She stopped abruptly, started by the exquisite trilling of a bird that

was perched upon a branch quite close behind her. The liquid notes

poured out in a stream of music, so rich, so lovely that it seemed as

if no bird had ever sung before and that they were the first persons in

the world who had ever heard it.

"My sign!" cried Judy, dancing round her disconcerted and bewildered

relative. "One of my signs--that!"

"Mine is rabbits and rats and badgers," Tim called out with

ungrammatical emphasis. "Anything that likes the earth are mine." He

looked about him as if to point one out to her. "They're everywhere,

all over the place," he added, seeing none at the moment. "Aunty,

what's yours? Do tell us, because then we can go and look together."

"It's _much_ more fun than looking alone," declared Judy.

No answer came. But, caught by the astounding magic of the singing

bird, Aunt Emily had turned, and in doing so the hand behind her back

became visible for the first time since their meeting. The children saw

it simultaneously. They nudged each other, but they said no word. The

same moment, having failed to discover the bird, Aunt Emily turned back

again. She looked caught, they thought. But, also she looked as if she

had found something herself. The secret joy she tried to hide from them

by swallowing it, rose to her wrinkled cheeks and shone in both her

eyes, then overflowed and rippled down towards her trembling mouth. The

lips were trembling. She smiled, but so softly, sweetly, that ten years

dropped from her like a dissolving shadow. And the hand she had so long

kept hidden behind her back stole forth slowly into view.

"How did you guess that I was looking for anything?" she inquired

plaintively in an excited yet tremulous tone. "I thought no one knew

it." She seemed genuinely surprised, yet unbelievably happy too. A

great sigh of relief escaped her.

"We're all the same," one of them informed her; "so you are too!

Everybody's looking." And they crowded round to examine the objects in

her hand--a dirty earth-stained trowel and a fern. They knew she

collected ferns on the sly, but never before had they seen her bring

home such a prize. Usually she found only crumpled things like old bits

of wrinkled brown paper which she called "specimens." This one was

marvellously beautiful. It had a dainty, slender stalk of ebony black,

and its hundred tiny leaves quivered like a shower of green water-drops

in the air. There was actual joy in every trembling bit of it.

"That's my sign," announced Aunt Emily with pride: "Maidenhair! It'll

grow again. I've got the roots." And she said it as triumphantly as

Stumper had said "snail-shell."

"Of course, Aunty," Judy cried, yet doubtfully. "_You_ ought to know."

She twiddled it round in her fingers till the quivering fronds emitted

a tiny sound. "And you can use it as a feather too." She lowered her

head to listen.

"We've each got a feather," mentioned Tim. "It's a compass. Shows the

way, you know. You hear him calling--that way."

"The Tramp explained that," Judy added. "He's Leader. Come on, Aunty.

We ought to be off; the others went ages ago. We're going to the End of

the World, and they've already started."

For a moment Aunt Emily looked as rigid as the post beside a

five-barred gate. The old unbending attitude took possession of her

once again. Her eyes took on the tint of soapy water. Her elastic nose

looked round the corner. She frowned. Her black dress crackled. The

mention of a tramp and the End of the World woke all her savage

educational instincts visibly.

"He's a singing tramp and shines like a Christmas Tree," explained

Judy, "and he looks like everybody in the world. He's extror'iny." She

turned to her brother. "Doesn't he, Tim?"

Tim ran up and caught his Aunt by the umbrella hand. He saw her

stiffening. He meant to prevent it if he could.

"Everybody rolled into one," he agreed eagerly; "Daddy and Mother and

the Clergyman and you."

"And me?" she asked tremulously.

"Rather!" the boy said vehemently; "as you are now, all rabbity and

nice."

Aunt Emily slowly removed one big golosh, then waited.

"Cleaned up and young," cried Judy, "and smells delicious--like flowers

and hay--"

"And soft and warm--"

"And sings and dances--"

"And is positive that if we go on looking we shall find--exactly what

we're looking for."

Aunt Emily removed the other golosh--a shade more quickly than the

first one. She kicked it off. The stiffness melted out of her; she

smiled again.

"Well," she began--when Judy stood on tip-toe and whispered in her ear

some magic sentence.

"Dawn!" Aunt Emily whispered back. "At dawn--when the birds begin to

sing!"

Something had caught her heart and squeezed it.

Tim and Judy nodded vehemently in agreement. Aunt Emily dropped her

umbrella then. And at the same moment a singing voice became audible in

the trees behind them. The song came floating to them through the

sunlight with a sound of wind and birds. It had a marvellous quality,

very sweet and very moving. There was a lilt in it, a laughing, happy

lilt, as though the Earth herself were singing of the Spring.

And Aunt Emily made one last vain attempt: she struggled to put her

fingers in her ears. But the children held her hands. She crackled and

made various oppressive and objecting sounds, but the song poured into

her in spite of all her efforts. Her feet began to move upon the grass.

It was awful, it was shocking, it was forbidden and against all rules

and regulations: yet--Aunt Emily danced!

And a thin, plaintive voice, like the voice of her long-forgotten

youth, slipped out between her faded lips--and positively sang:

"The world is young with laughter; we can fly

Among the imprisoned hours as we choose...."

But to Tim and Judy it all seemed merely right and natural.

"Come on," cried the boy, pulling his Aunt towards the wood.

"We can look together now. You've got your sign," exclaimed Judy,

tugging at her other hand. "Everything's free and careless, and so are

we."

"Aim for a path," Tim shouted by way of a concession. "Aunty'll go

quicker on a path."

But Aunty was nothing if not decided. "I know a short-cut," she sang.

"Paths are for people who don't know the way. There's no time--to lose.

Dear me! I'm warm already!" She dropped her umbrella.

And, actually dancing and singing, she led the way into the wood,

holding the fern before her like a wand, and happy as a girl let out of

school.

But as they went, Judy, knowing suddenly another thing she didn't know,

made a discovery of her own, an immense discovery. It was bigger than

anything Tim had ever found. She felt so light and swift and winged by

it that she seemed almost to melt into the air herself.

"I say, Tim," she said.

"Yes."

She took her eyes from the sky to see what her feet were doing; Tim

lifted his from the earth to see what was going on above him in the air.

Judy went on: "I know what," she announced.

"What?" He was not particularly interested, it seemed.

Judy paused. She dropped a little behind her dancing Aunt. Tim joined

her. It all happened as quickly as a man might snap his fingers; Aunt

Emily, her heart full of growing ferns, noticed nothing.

"We've found her out!" whispered Judy, communicating her immense

discovery. "What she really is, I mean!"

He agreed and nodded. It did not strike him as anything wonderful or

special. "Oh, yes," he answered; "rather!" He did not grasp her

meaning, perhaps.

But his sister was bursting with excitement, radiant, shivering almost

with the wonder of it.

"But don't you see? It's--a sign!" she exclaimed so loud that Aunt

Emily almost heard it. "She's found herself! She was hiding--from

herself. That's part of it all--the game. It's the biggest sign of all!"

She was so "warm" that she burned all over.

"Oh, yes," repeated Tim. "I see!" But he was not particularly

impressed. He merely wanted his Aunt to find an enormous fern whose

roots were growing in the sweet, sticky earth _he_ loved. Her sign was

a fern; his was the ground. It made him understand Aunt Emily at last,

and therefore love her; he saw no further than that.

Judy, however, _knew_. She suddenly understood what the Tramp meant by

"deep." She also knew now why Stumper, WEEDEN, Uncle Felix too, looked

at him so strangely, with wonder, with respect, with love. Something

about the Tramp explained each one to himself. Each one found--himself.

And she--without realising it before, had acquired this power too,

though only in a small degree as yet. The Tramp believed in everybody;

she, without knowing it, believed in her Aunt. It was another thing she

didn't know she knew.

And the real, long-buried, deeply-hidden Aunt Emily had emerged

accordingly. All her life she had been hiding--from herself. She had

found herself at last. It was the biggest sign of all.

Tim caught her hand and dragged her after him. "Come on," he cried,

"we're getting frightfully warm. Look at Aunty! Listen, will you?"

Aunt Emily, a little way in front of them, was digging busily with her

dirty trowel. Her bonnet was crooked, her skirts tucked up, her white

worsted stockings splashed with mud, her elastic-sided boots scratched

and plastered. And she was singing to herself in a thin but happy voice

that was not unlike an old and throaty corncrake: "The birds are

singing....Hark! Come out and play....Life is an endless

search...._I've_ just begun...!"

They listened for a little while, and then ran headlong up to join her.

SIGNS EVERYWHERE!

IX

And it was somewhere about here and now--the exact spot impossible to

determine, since it was obviously a circular experience without

beginning, middle or end--that the gigantic character of the Day

declared itself in all its marvellous simplicity. For as they dived

deeper and deeper towards its centre, they discovered that its centre,

being everywhere at once, existed--nowhere. The sun was always

rising--somewhere.

In other words, each seeker grasped, in his or her own separate way,

that the Splendour hiding from them lay actually both too near and far

away for any individual eye to see it with completeness. Someone,

indeed, had come; but this Someone, as Judy told herself, was "simply

all over the place." To see him "distinkly is an awful job," according

to Uncle Felix; or as Come-Back Stumper realised in the middle of

another clump of bramble bushes, "Perspective is necessary to proper

vision." "He" lay too close before their eyes to be discovered fully.

Tim had long ago described it instinctively as "an enormous hide," but

it was more than that; it was a universal hide.

Alone, perhaps, Weeden's lost optic, wandering ubiquitously and

enjoying the bird's-eye view, possessed the coveted power. But, like

the stars, though somewhat about, it was invisible. WEEDEN made no

reference to it. He attended to one thing at a time, he lived in the

present; one eye was gone; he just looked for truffles--with the other.

Yet this did not damp their ardour in the least; increased it rather:

the gathering of the clues became more and more absorbing. Though not

seen, the hider was both known and felt; his presence was a certainty.

There was no real contradiction.

For signs grew and multiplied till the entire world seemed overflowing

with them, and hardly could the earth contain them. They brimmed the

sunny air, flooded the ponds and streams, lay thick upon the fields,

and almost choked the woods to stillness. They trickled out, leaked

through, dripped over everywhere in colour, shape, and sound. The hider

had passed everywhere, and upon everything had left his exquisite and

deathless traces. The inanimate, as well as the animate world had known

the various touch of his great passing. His trail had blazed the entire

earth about them. For the very clouds were dipped in snow and gold, and

the meanest pebble in the lane wore a self-conscious gleam of shining

silver. So-called domestic creatures also seemed aware that a

stupendous hiding-place was somewhere near--the browsing cow, contented

and at ease, the horse that nuzzled their hands across the gate, the

very pigs, grubbing eternally for food, yet eternally unsatisfied; all

these, this endless morning, wore an unaccustomed look as though they

knew, and so were glad to be alive. Some knew more than others, of

course. The cat, for instance, defending its kittens single-pawed

against the stable-dog who pretended to be ferocious; the busy

father-blackbird, passing worms to his mate for the featherless mites,

all beak and clamour in the nest; the Clouded Yellow, sharing a spray

of honeysuckle with a Bumble-bee, and the honeysuckle offering no

resistance--one and all, they also were aware in their differing

degrees. And the seekers, noting the signs, grew warmer and ever

warmer. An ordinary day these signs, owing to their generous profusion,

might have called for no remark. They would, probably, have drawn no

attention to themselves, merely lying about unnoticed, undiscovered

because familiar. But this was not an ordinary day. It was unused,

unspoilt and unrecorded. It was the Some Day of humanity's long

dream--an Extra Day. Time could not carry it away; it could not end;

all it contained was of eternity. The great hider at the heart of it

was real. These signs--deep, tender, kind and beautiful--were part of

him, and in knowing, recognising them, they knew and recognised him

too. They drew near, that is, brushed up closer, to his hiding-place

from which _he_ saw them. They approached within knowing distance of a

Reality that each in his or her particular way had always yearned for.

They held--oh, distinkly held--that they were winning. They won the

marvellous game as soon as it began. They never had a doubt about the

end.

But their supreme, superb discovery was this: They had always secretly

longed to find the elusive hider; they now realised that _he_--wanted

them to find him, and that from his hiding-place he saw them easily.

That was the most wonderful thing of all....

To describe the separate adventures of each seeker would involve a

series of bulky trilogies no bookshelves in the world could carry; they

can, besides, be adequately told in three simple words that Tim

used--shouted with intense enthusiasm when he tripped over a

rabbit-hole and tumbled headlong against that everlasting Tramp: "I'm

still looking!" He dived away into another hole. "I'm looking still."

"So am I," the Tramp answered, also in three words. "I'm _very_ warm,"

growled Stumper; "I'm getting on," Aunt Emily piped; and while Judy was

for ever shouting out "I've found him!" Uncle Felix, puffing and

panting, could only repeat with rapture each time he met another

seeker: "A lovely day! A _lovely_ day!" They said so

little--experienced and felt so much!

From time to time, too, others joined them in the tremendous game. It

seemed the personality of the Tramp attracted them. Something about

him--his sincerity, perhaps, or his simplicity--made them realise

suddenly what they were about: as though they had not noticed it

before, not understood it quite, at any rate. They found themselves. He

did and said so little. But he possessed the unique quality of a

Leader--natural persuasion.

Thompson, for instance, cleaning the silver at the pantry window,

looked up and saw them pass. They caught him unawares. His pompous

manner hung like a discarded mask on a nail beside his livery. He wore

his black and white striped waistcoat, and an apron. Of course he

looked proper, as an old family servant ought to look, but he looked

cheerful too. He was humming to himself as he polished up the covers

and the candelabra.

"Well, I never!" he exclaimed, as the line of them filed by. "I never

did. And Mr. Weeden with 'em too!"

The Tramp passed singing and looked through the open window at the

butler. No more than that. Their eyes met between the bars. They

exchanged glances. But something incalculable happened in that instant,

just as it had happened to Stumper, Aunt Emily, and the rest of them.

Thompson put several questions into his look of sheer astonishment.

"Why not?" the Tramp replied, chuckling as he caught the butler's eye.

"It's a lovely morning. We're just looking!"

Thompson was flabbergasted--as if all the old-fashioned families of the

world had suddenly praised him. All his life he had never done anything

but his ordinary duty.

"It's 'oliday time," said Weeden, coming next, "and all my flowers and

vegitubles is a-growin' nicely." He too seemed singing, dancing.

Something had happened. The whole world seemed out and playing.

Thompson forgot himself in a most unusual way, forgot that he was an

old family servant, that the apron-string met round his middle with

difficulty, that the Authorities were away and his responsibilities

increased thereby; forgot too, that for twenty years he had been

answering bells, over-hearing conversations without pretending to do

so, and that visitors wanted hot water and early tea at "7:30 sharp."

He remembered suddenly that he was a man--and that he was very fond of

some one. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, the flowers were

out upon the lawn, and it was Spring.

An amazing longing in him woke and stirred to life. There was a

singular itching in his feet. Something in his butler-heart began to

purr. "Looking, eh!" he thought. "There's something I've been looking

for too. I'd forgot about it."

"No one can make the silver shine as I can," he mumbled, watching the

retreating figures, "but it is about finished now,"--he glanced down at

it with pride--"and fit to set on the table. Why shouldn't I take a

turn in the garden too?"

He looked out a moment. The magic of the spring came upon him suddenly

like a revelation. He knew he was alive, that there was something he

wanted somewhere, something real and satisfying--if only he could find

it--find out what it was. For twenty years he had been living

automatically. Alfred Thompson suddenly felt free and careless. The

butler--yearned!

He hesitated, gave the dish-cover an extra polish, then called through

the door to Mrs. Horton:

"There's a tramp in the garden, Bridget, and Mr. Weeden's with him. Mr.

Felix is halso taking the air, and Master Tim--"

He stopped, hearing a step in the pantry. Mrs. Horton stood behind him

with a shawl about her shoulders. Her red face was smiling.

"Alfred, let's go out and take a look," she said. "Mary can see to the

shepherd's-pie. I've been as quick as I could," she added, as if

excusing herself. Moreover, she said distinctly, "shepherd's-_poie_."

"_I_ haven't been 'calling,'" replied the butler, "except only just

now--just this minute." He spoke as though he was being scolded for not

answering a bell. But he cast an admiring glance, half wild, half

reckless, at the cook.

"An' you shouting to me to come this last 'arf hour and more!" cried

Mrs. Horton. She, too, apparently, was in a "state."

"You are mistaken, Bridget, I have been singing, as I often do when

attending to the silver, but as for--"

"You can do without a hat," she interrupted. "Come on! I want to go and

look for--for--" She broke off, taking his arm as though they were

going down the Strand or Oxford Street. Her red face beamed. She looked

very proud and happy. She wanted to look for something too, but she

could not believe the moment had really come. She had put it away so

long--like a special dish in a cupboard.

"I don't know what's come over me," she went on very confidentially, as

she moved beside him through the scullery door, "but--but I don't feel

satisfied--not satisfied with meself as I used to be."

"No, Bridget?" It was in his best "7:30" manner. There was a struggle

in him.

"No," said Mrs. Horton, with decision. "I give satisfaction--that I

know--"

"We both do that," said Thompson proudly. "And no one can do a suet

pudding to a turn as you can. Only the other day I heard Sir William

a-speaking of it--"

She held his arm more tightly. They were on the lawn by now. The flood

of sunlight caught them, showed up the worn and shabby places in his

suit of broadcloth, gleamed on her bursting shoes she "fancied" for her

kitchen work. They heard the birds, they smelt the flowers, the air

bathed them all over like a sea.

"And the silver, Alfred," she said in a lower tone. "Who in the world

can make it look as you do? But what I've been feeling lately--since

this morning, that is to say--and feeling for the first time in me

life, so to speak--"

"Bridget, dear, you've got it!" he interrupted with excitement, "I've

felt it too. Felt it this morning first, when I woke up and remembered

that nobody wanted hot-water nor early tea, and I said to myself,

'There's more than that in it. I'm not doing all this just only for a

salary. I'm doing it for something else. What is it?'"

He spoke very rapidly for a butler. He looked down at her red and

smiling face.

"What is it?" he repeated, curiously moved.

She looked up at him without a word.

"It's something 'idden," he said, after a pause. "That's what it is."

"That's it," agreed Mrs. Horton. "Like a recipe."

There was another pause. The butler broke it. They stood together in

the middle of the field, flowers and birds and sunshine all about them.

"A mystery--inside of us," he said, "I think--"

"Yes, Alfred," the cook murmured softly.

"_I_ think," he continued, "it's a song and dance we want. A little

life." He broke off abruptly, noticing the sudden movement of her

bursting shoes. She took a long step forwards, then sideways. She

opened her arms to the air and sun. She almost pirouetted.

"Life!" she cried, "'ot and fiery. Life! That's it. Hark, Alfred, d'ye

hear that singing far away?" She felt the Irish break out of her.

"Listen!" she cried, trying to drag him faster. "Listen, will ye? It

makes me wild entirely! Give me yer hand! Come on and dance wid me!

It's in me hearrt I feel it, in me blood. To the devil with me suet

puddings and shepherd-poies--that singing's real, that's loife, that's

lovely as a dhream! It's what I've been looking for iver since I can

remember. I've got it!"

And Thompson felt himself spinning through the air. Old families were

forgotten. The world was young with laughter. They could fly. They did.

The silver was beautifully cleaned. He had earned his holiday.

"That singing!" he gasped, feeling his heart grow big. He followed her

across the flowered world. "I believe it is a bird! It would not

surprise me to be told--"

"A birrd!" cried Mrs. Horton, turning him round and round. "It's a

birrd from Heaven then! I've heard it all the morning. It's been

singing in me heart for ages. Now it's out! Come follow it wid me!

We'll go to the end of the wurrld to foinde it."

Her kitchen energy--some called it temper--had discovered a greater

scope than puddings.

"There is no hurry," the butler panted, moving along with her, and

trying hard to keep his balance. "We'll look together. We'll find it!"

And as they raced across the field among the flowers after the line of

disappearing figures, the Tramp looked back at them and waved his hand.

"It's a lovely morning," he said, as they came up with the rest of the

party. "So you're looking too?"

Too much out of breath to answer, they just nodded, and the group

accepted them without more to-do. Their object evidently was the same.

Aunt Emily glanced up from her ferns, nodded and said, "Good morning,

it's a lovely day"--and resumed her digging again. It was like shaking

hands! They all went forward happily, eagerly, across the wide, wide

world together.

The absence of surprise the children knew had now become a

characteristic everybody shared. All were in the same state together.

The whole day flowed, there were no limitations or conditions, least of

all surprise. Even WEEDEN had forgotten hedges and artificial

boundaries. No one, therefore, ejaculated nor exclaimed when they ran

across the Policeman. He, too, was looking for some one, but, having

mislaid his notebook and pencil stub, was unable to mention any names,

and was easily persuaded to join the body of eager seekers. Being a

policeman, he was naturally a seeker by profession; he was always

looking for somebody somewhere--somebody who was going in the wrong

direction.

"That's just it," he said, the moment he saw the Tramp, taking his

helmet off as though an odd respect was in him. "That's just what I've

always felt," he went on vaguely. "I'm looking for some one wot's

a'looking for something else--only looking wrong."

"In the wrong places," suggested Stumper, remembering his Indian

scouting days.

"In the wrong way," put in Uncle Felix, full of experience by now.

The Policeman listened attentively, as though by rights he ought to

enter these sentences laboriously in his notebook.

"That's it, per'aps," he stated. "It takes 'em longer, but they finds

out in the end. If I was to show 'em the right way of looking instead

of arresting 'em--I'd be _reel_!" And then he added, as if he were

giving evidence in a Court of Justice and before a County Magistrate,

"There's no good looking for anything where it ain't, now is there?"

"Precisely," agreed Colonel Stumper, remembering happily that his

pockets were full of snail-shells. He knew _his_ sign.

Thompson, Mrs. Horton, Weeden, and the Policeman glanced at him

gratefully. But it was the last mentioned who replied:

"Because every one," he said with conviction at last, "has his own way

of looking, and even the burgular is only looking wrong." He, too, it

seemed, had found himself.

Their search, their endless hunt, their conversation and adventures

thus might be reported endlessly, if only the book-shelves of the world

were built more stoutly, and everybody could find an Extra Day lying

about in which to read it all. Each seeker held true to his or her

first love, obeying an infallible instinct. The adventure and romance

that hid in Tim and Judy, respectively, sent them headlong after

anything that offered signs of these two common but seductive

qualities. Judy lived literally in the air, her feet, her heart, her

eyes all off the ground; Tim, filled with an equally insatiable

curiosity, found adorable danger in every rabbit-run, and rescued

things innumerable. Off the ground he felt unsafe, unsure, and lost

himself. Stumper, faithful to his scouting passion, disappeared into

all kinds of undesirable places no one else would have dreamed of

looking in, yet invariably--came back; and while Uncle Felix tried a

little of everything and found "copy" in a puddle or a dandelion,

Weeden carried his empty sack without a murmur, knowing it would be

filled with truffles at the end. Aunt Emily, exceedingly particular,

but no longer interfering with the others, was equally sure of herself.

A touch of fluid youth ran in her veins again, and in her heart grew a

fern that presently she would find everywhere outside as well--a

maiden-hair.

Each, however, in some marvellous way, shared the adventures of the

others, as though the Tramp merged all seven of them into one single

being, unified them, at any rate, into this one harmonious, common

purpose with himself. For, while everybody had a different way of

looking, everybody's way--for that particular individual--was exactly

right.

"Smell, then follow," was the secret. "Find your own sign and stick to

it," the clue. Each sign, though by different routes, led straight

towards the marvellous hiding-place. To urge one's own sign upon

another was merely to delay that other; but to point out better signs

of his own particular kind was to send him on faster than before. Thus

there was harmony among them all, for every seeker, knowing this,

had--found himself.

REALITY

X

But, while there was no hurry, no passing, and, most certainly of all,

no passing away, there was a sense of enormous interval. There were

epochs, there were interludes, there was--duration.

Though everything had only just begun, it was yet complete, if not

completed.

At any point of an adventure that adventure could be taken over from

the very start, the experience holding all the thrill and wonder of the

first time.

Cake could be had and eaten too. Tim, half-way down a rabbit-hole,

could instantly find himself at the opening again, bursting with all

the original excitement of trembling calculations. With the others it

was similar.

There was no end to anything. Yet--there was this general consciousness

of gigantic interval. It turned in a circle round them--everywhere....

They came together, then, all eight of them, into that place of

singular enchantment known as the End of the World, sitting in a group

about the prostrate elm that on ordinary days was Home. What they had

been doing each one knew assuredly, even if no one mentioned it. Tim,

who had been to India with Come-Back Stumper, had a feeling in his

heart that expressed itself in one word, "everywhere," accompanied by a

sigh of happy satisfaction; Judy felt what she knew as "Neverness"; she

had seen the Metropolis inside out, with Uncle Felix apparently. And

these two couples now sat side by side upon the tree, gazing

contentedly at the colony of wallflowers that flamed in the sunshine

just above their heads. WEEDEN, cleaning his spade with a great nailed

boot, turned his good eye affectionately upon the sack that lay beside

him, full now to bursting. Aunt Emily breathed on her gold-rimmed

glasses, rubbed them, and put them on her elastic nose, then looked

about her peacefully yet expectantly, ready, it seemed, to start again

at any moment--anywhere. She guarded carefully a mossy bundle in her

black silk lap. A little distance from her Thompson was fastening a

flower into Mrs. Horton's dress, and close to the gate stood the

Policeman, smoking a pipe and watching everybody with obvious

contentment. His belt was loose; both hands stuck into it; he leaned

against the wooden fence.

On the ground, between the tree and the fence, the Tramp had made a

fire. He lay crouched about it. He and the fire belonged to one

another. It seemed that he was dozing.

And this sense of lying in the heart of an enormous circular interval

touched everybody with delicious peace; each had apparently found

something real, and was content merely to lie and--be with it. All came

gradually to sitting or reclining postures. Yet there was no sense of

fatigue; any instant they would be up again and looking.

Occasionally one or other of them spoke, but it was not the kind of

speech that struggled to express difficult ideas with tedious sentences

of many words. There was very little to _say_: mere statements of

indubitable reality could be so easily and briefly made.

"Now," said Tim, unafraid of contradiction.

"Then," said Judy, equally certain of herself.

"Now then," declared Uncle Felix, positive at last of something.

"Naturally," affirmed Aunt Emily.

"Of course," growled Come-Back Stumper. And while WEEDEN, looking

contentedly at his bursting sack, put in "Always," the Policeman,

without referring to his notebook, added from the fence, "That's

right." The remarks of Thompson and Mrs. Horton were not audible, for

they were talking to one another some little distance away beside the

Rubbish Heap, but their conversation seemed equally condensed and

eloquent, judging by the satisfied expression on their faces. Thompson

probably said, "Well," the cook adding, "I never!"

The Tramp, stretched out beside his little fire of burning sticks,

however, said more than any of them. He also said it shortly--as

shortly as the children. There was never any question who was Leader.

"Yes," he mentioned in a whisper that flowed about them with a sound

like singing wind.

It summed up everything in a single word. It made them warm, as though

a little flame had touched them. All the languages of the world, using

all their sentences at once, could have said no more than that

consummate syllable--in the way _he_ said it: _"Yes!"_ It was the word

the whole Day uttered.

For this was perfectly plain: Each of the group, having followed his or

her particular sign to the end of the world, now knew exactly where the

hider lay. The supreme discovery was within reach at last. They were

merely waiting, waiting in order to enjoy the revelation all the more,

and--waiting in an ecstasy of joy and wonder. Seven or eight of them

were gathered together; the hiding-place was found. It was now, and

then, and natural, and always, and right: it was Yes, and life had just

begun....

There happened, then, a vivid and amazing thing--all rose as one being

and stood up. The Tramp alone remained lying beside his little fire.

But the others stood--and listened.

The precise nature of what had happened none of them, perhaps, could

explain. It was too marvellous; it was possibly the thing that nobody

understands, and possibly the thing they didn't know they knew; yet

_they_ both knew and understood it. To each, apparently, the

hiding-place was simultaneously revealed. Their Signs summoned them.

The hider called!

Yet all they heard was the singing of a little bird. Invisible

somewhere above them in the sea of blazing sunshine, it poured its

heart out rapturously with a joy and a passion of life that seemed

utterly careless as to whether it was heard or not. It merely sang

because it was--alive.

To Judy, at any rate, this seemed what they heard. To the others it

came, apparently--otherwise. Their interpretations, at any rate, were

various.

Thompson and Mrs. Horton were the first to act. The latter looked about

her, sniffing the air. "It's burning," she said. "Mary don't know

enough. That's my job, anyhow!" and moved off in the direction of the

house with an energy that had nothing of displeasure nor of temper in

it. It was apparently crackling that she heard. Thompson went after

her, a willing alacrity in his movements that yet showed no sign of

undignified hurry. "I'll be at the door in no time," he was heard to

say, "before it's stopped ringing, I should not wonder!" There was a

solemn joy in him, he spoke as though he heard a bell. WEEDEN turned

very quietly and watched their disappearing figures. He shouldered his

heavy sack of truffles and his spade. No one asked him anything aloud,

but, in answer to several questioning faces, he mumbled cautiously,

though in a satisfied and pleasant voice, "My garden wants me--maybe;

I'll have a look"--obviously going off to water the apricots and rose

trees. He heard the dry leaves rustling possibly.

"Keep to the gravel paths," began Aunt Emily, adjusting her gold

glasses; "they're dry"--then changed her sentence, smiling to herself:

"They're so beautifully made, I mean." And gathering up her bundle of

living ferns, she walked briskly over the broken ground, then straight

across the lawn, waving her trowel at them as she vanished in the shade

below the lime trees. The shade, however, seemed deeper than before. It

concealed her quickly.

"I'll be moving on now," came the deep voice of the Policeman. He

opened the gate in the fence and consulted a notebook as he did so. He

passed slowly out of sight, closing the gate behind him carefully. His

heavy tramp became audible on the road outside, the road leading to the

Metropolis. "There's some one asking the way--" his voice was audible a

moment, before it died into the distance. The road, the gateway, the

fence were not so clear as hitherto--a trifle dim.

These various movements took place so quickly, it seemed they all took

place at once; Judy still heard the bird, however. She heard nothing

else. It was singing everywhere, the sky full of its tender and

delicious song. But the notes were a little--just a little--further

away she thought, nor could she see it anywhere.

And it was then that Come-Back Stumper, limping a trifle as usual,

approached them. He looked troubled rather, and though his manner was

full of confidence still, his mind had mild confusion in it somewhere.

He joined Uncle Felix and the children, standing in front of them.

"Listen!" he said in low, gruff voice. He held out an open palm, three

snail-shells in it, signifying that they should take one each.

"Listen!" he repeated, and put the smallest shell against his own ear.

"D'you hear that curious sound?" His head was cocked sideways, one ear

pressed tight against the shell, the other open to the sky. "The

Ganges..." he mumbled to himself after an interval, "but the stones are

moving--moving in the river bed.... That long, withdrawing roar!" He

was just about to add "down the naked shingles of the world," when

Uncle Felix interrupted him.

"Grating," he said, listening intently to his shell; "a metallic,

grating sound. What is it?" There was apprehension in his tone, a touch

of sadness. "It's getting louder too!"

"Footsteps," exclaimed Tim. "Two feet, not four. It's _not_ a badger or

a rabbit." He went on with sudden conviction--"and it's coming nearer."

There was disappointment and alarm in him. "Though it might be a

badger, p'r'aps," he added hopefully.

"But I hear singing," cried Judy breathlessly, "nothing but singing.

It's a bird." Her face was radiant. "It _is_ a long way off, though,"

she mentioned.

They put their shells down then, and listened without them. They

glanced from one another to the sky, all four heads cocked sideways.

And they heard the sound distinctly, somewhere in the air about them.

It had changed a little. It was louder. It _was_ coming nearer.

"Metallic," repeated Uncle Felix, with an ominous inflection.

"Machinery," growled Stumper, a fury rising in his throat.

"Clicking," agreed Tim. He looked uneasy.

"I only hear a bird," Judy whispered. "But it comes and goes--rather."

And then the Tramp, still lying beside his little fire of burning

sticks, put in a word.

"It's _we_ who are going," he said in his singing voice. "We're moving

on again."

They heard him well enough, but they did not understand quite what he

meant, and his voice died into the distance oddly, far away already,

almost on the other side of the fence. And as he spoke they noticed

another change in the world about them. Three of the party noticed

it--the males, Uncle Felix, Tim, and Come-Back Stumper.

For the light was fading; it was getting darker; there was a slight

sense of chill, a growing dimness in the air. They realised vaguely

that the Tramp was leaving them, and that with him went the light, the

heat, the brilliance out of their happy day.

They turned with one accord towards him. He still lay there beside his

little fire, but he seemed further off; both his figure and the burning

sticks looked like a picture seen at the end of a corridor, an

interminable corridor, edged and framed by gathering shadows that were

about to cover it. They stretched their hands out; they called to him;

they moved their feet; for the first time this wonderful day, there was

hurry in them. But the receding figure of the Tramp withdrew still

further and further, until an inaccessible distance intervened. They

heard him singing faintly "There is no hurry, Life has just begun...The

world is young with laughter...We can fly..." but the words came

sighing towards them from the inaccessible region where he lay,

thousands of years ago, millions of miles away, millions of miles....

"You won't forget," were the last words they caught. "You know now.

You'll never forget...!"

When a sudden cry of joy and laughter sounded close behind them, and

they turned to see Judy standing on tiptoe, stretching her thin, slim

body as if trying to reach the moon. The light was dim; it seemed the

sun had set and moonlight lay upon the world; but her figure, bright

and shining, stood in a patch of radiant brilliance by herself. She

looked like a white flame of fire ascending.

"I've got it!" she was crying rapturously, "I've got it!" Her voice was

wild with happiness, almost like the singing of a bird.

The others stared--then came up close. But, while Tim ran, Stumper and

Uncle Felix moved more slowly. For something in them hesitated; their

attitudes betrayed them; there was a certain confusion in the minds of

the older two, a touch of doubt. The contrast between the surrounding

twilight and the brilliant patch of glory in which Judy stood

bewildered them. The long, slim body of the child, every line of her

figure, from her toes to the crown of her flying hair, pointing upwards

in a stream of shining aspiration, was irresistible, however. She

looked like a lily growing, nay rushing, upwards to the sun.

They followed the direction of her outstretched arms and hands. But it

was Tim who spoke first. He did not doubt as they did:

"Oh, Judy, where?" he cried out passionately. "Show me! Show me!"

The child raised herself even higher, stretching her toes and arms and

hands; her fingers lengthened; she panted; she made a tremendous effort.

"There!" she said, without looking down. Her face was towards the sky,

her throat stretched till the muscles showed and her hair fell

backwards in a stream.

Then, following the direction of her eyes and pointing fingers, the

others saw for the first time what Judy saw--a small wild rose hung

shining in the air, dangling at the end of a little bending branch. The

bush grew out of the rubbish-heap, clambering up the wall. No one had

noticed it before. At the end of the branch hung this single shining

blossom, swinging a little in the wind. But it was out of reach--just a

shade too high for her eager fingers to take hold of it. Beyond it grew

the colony of wall-flowers, also in the curious light that seemed the

last glory of the fading day. But it was the rose that Judy wanted. And

from somewhere near it came the sweet singing of the unseen bird.

"Too high," whispered Uncle Felix, watching in amazement. "You can't

manage it. You'll crick your back! oh--oh!" The sight of that blossom

drew his heart out.

"Impossible," growled Stumper, yet wondering why he said it. "It's out

of reach."

"Go it!" cried Tim. "You'll have it in a second. Half an inch more!

There--you touched it that time!"

For an interval no one could measure they watched her spellbound; in

each of them stirred the similar instinct--that they could reach it,

but that she could not. A deep, secret desire hid in all of them to

pick that gleaming wild rose that swung above them in the air. And,

meanwhile, the darkness deepened perceptibly, only Judy and the blossom

framed still in shining light.

Then, suddenly, the child's voice broke forth again like a burst of

music.

"I've got it! I've got it!"

There was a breathless pause. Her finger did not stretch a fraction of

an inch--but the rose was nearer. For the bird that still sang

invisibly had fluttered into view and perched itself deliberately upon

the prickly branch. It lowered the rose towards the human hands. It

hopped upon the twig. Its weight dropped the prize--almost into Judy's

fingers. She touched it.

"I've found him!" gasped the child.

She touched it--and sank with the final effort in a heap upon the

ground. The bird fluttered an instant, and was gone into the darkness.

The twig, released, flew back. But at the end of it, swinging out of

reach, still hung the lovely blossom in mid-air--unpicked.

There was confusion then about the four of them, for the light faded

very quickly and darkness blotted out the world; the rose was no longer

visible, the bush, the wall, the rubbish-heap, all were shrouded. The

singing-bird had gone, the Tramp beside his little fire was hidden,

they could hardly see one another's faces even. Voices rose on every

side. "She missed it!" "It was too lovely to be picked!" "It's still

there, growing....I can smell it!"

Yet above them all was heard Judy's voice that sang, rose out of the

darkness like a bird that sings at midnight: "I touched it! My airy

signs came true! I know the hiding-place! I've--found him!"

The voice had something in it of the Tramp's careless, windy singing as

well.

"Look! He's touched me...! Look...!"

For in that instant when the rose swung out of reach again, in that

instant when she touched it, and before the fading light hid

everything--all saw the petal floating down to earth. It settled

slowly, with a zigzag, butterfly course, fluttering close in front of

their enchanted eyes. And it was this petal, perhaps, that brought the

darkness, for, as it sank, it grew vast and spread until it covered the

entire sky. Like a fairy silken sheet of softest coloured velvet it lay

on everything, as though the heavens lowered and folded over them. They

felt it press softly on their faces. A curtain, it seemed--some one had

let the curtain down.

Beneath it, then, the confusion became extraordinary. There was tumult

of various kinds. Every one cried at once "I've found him! Now _I_

know!" At the touch of the petal, grown so vast, upon their eyelids,

each knew his "sign" had led him to the supreme discovery. This flower

was born of the travail of a universe. Child of the elements, or at

least blessed by them, this petal of a small wild-rose made all things

clear, for upon its velvet skin still lay the morning dew, air kissed

it, its root and origin was earth, and the fire of the sun blazed in

its perfect colouring.... Yet in the tumult and confusion such curious

behaviour followed. For Come-Back Stumper, crying that he saw a purple

beetle pass across the world, proceeded to curl up as though he crawled

into a spiral snail-shell and meant to go to sleep in it; Tim shouted

in the darkness that he was riding a huge badger down a hole that led

to the centre of the earth; and Uncle Felix begged every one to look

and see what he saw, darkness or no darkness--"the splash of misty blue

upon the body of a dragon-fly!"

They might almost have been telling their dreams at breakfast-time....

But while the clamour of their excited voices stirred the world beneath

the marvellous covering, there rose that other sound--increasing until

it overpowered every word they uttered. In the world outside there was

a clicking, grating, hard, metallic sound--as though machinery was

starting somewhere....

And Judy, managing somehow or other to lift a corner and peer out, saw

that the dawn was breaking in the eastern sky, and that a new day was

just beginning. The sun was rising.... She went back again to tell the

others, but she could not find them. She did not try very hard; she did

not look for them. She just closed her eyes.... The swallows were

chattering in the eaves, a robin sang a few marvellous bars, then

ceased, and an up-and-under bird sent forth its wild, high bugle-call,

then dived out of sight below the surface of the pond.

Judy did likewise--dived down and under, drawing the soft covering

against her cheek, and although her eyes were already closed she closed

them somehow a second time. "Everything's all right," she had a

butterfly sort of thought; "there's no hurry. It's not time...

yet...!"--and the petal covered her again from head to foot. She had

noticed, a little further off, a globular, round object lying

motionless beneath another corner of the covering. It gave her a

feeling of comfort and security. She slid away to find the others. It

seemed she floated, rather. "Everything's free and careless...and so

are--so am I...for we shall never...never forget...!" she remembered

sweetly--and was gone, fluttering after the up-and-under bird ...into

some hidden world she had discovered....

The old Mill House lay dreaming in the dawn. Transparent shades of pink

and gold stole slowly up the eastern sky. A stream of amber diffused

itself below the paling stars. Rising from a furnace below the horizon

it reached across and touched the zenith, painting mid-heaven with a

mystery none could understand; then sank downwards and dipped the

crests of the trees, the lawn, the moss-grown tiles upon the roof in

that sea of everlasting wonder which is light.

Dawn caught the old sleeping world once more in its breathless beauty.

The earth turned over in her sleep, gasped with delight--and woke.

There was a murmur and a movement everywhere. The spacious, stately

life that breathes o'er ancient trees came forth from the wood without

a centre; from the lines emanated that gracious, almost tender force

they harvest in the spring. There was a little shiver of joy among the

rose trees. The daisies blinked and stared. And the earth broke into

singing.

Then, in this chorus, came a pause; the thousand voices hushed a

moment; the robin ceased its passionate solo in the shrubbery. All

listened--listened to another and far sweeter song that stirred with

the morning wind among the rose trees. It was very soft and tender, it

died away and returned with a faint, mysterious murmur, it rose and

fell so gently that it may have been only the rustling of their

thousand leaves that guard the opening blossoms.

Yet it ran with power across the entire waking earth:

My secret's in the wind and open sky,

There is no longer any Time--to lose;

The world is young with laughter; we can fly

Among the imprisoned hours as we choose.

The rushing minutes pause; an unused day

Breaks into dawn and cheats the tired sun.

The birds are singing: Hark! Come out and play!

There is no hurry; life has just begun.

And as it died away the sun itself came up and shouted it aloud as with

a million golden trumpets.