The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories

athised wit

llings,' every one said; '

thing in that town that was good for a soul to see. For it did not know that beauty was to be desired; so it made many things by machinery, a

had had lodgings found

and passed to the troubled spaces of the sea, at six o'clock the factory uttered a prolonged howl and gathered the workers together

ke strip with iron, rasping hands. And all day long they roared as they sat at their soulless work. But the work of

creature smaller, but i

it had twisted it into hard thin thread. Then it would make a clutch with fingers of steel

o pick up the ends if a piece of the thread broke, in order to tie them together again. For this a human soul was required, and it was

was neither the green of the grass nor yet the green of the rushes, b

pillars and temples of old Greece, pretending to one another to be that which they were not. And emerging from these houses and going in, and seeing the pretenc

smoke. Then she would have gone abroad and beheld the night, but this the old woman to whom she was confided would not let her do. And the days multiplied themselves by seven and became weeks, and the weeks passed

ave a soul that cried for beautiful things and found not one. From that day she determined

hey do soulless work; surely some of t

o her: 'All the poor have s

henever she saw them, and vainly

r to sing, and a wild song came from her lips, hymning the marshlands. And into her song came crying her yearning for home, and for the sound of the shout of the North Wind, masterful and proud, with his lovely lady the Snow; and she sang of tales that the rushes murmured to one an

lish tenor, happened to go by with a friend. They s

g like this in Europe

mps

me into the li

arranged that she should take a leading par

t to Londo

et still Mary Jane was not free to go and live as she liked by the edge of the marshlands, and she

not listen to her as Miss Rush, and was asked wha

lled Terrible North Wi

f the

was suggested, she acquiesced at once, as she had acquiesced when they

era came round, and it wa

appeared on the stage

rina Russ

nd the longing pervaded that Italian song as the infinite mystery of the hills is borne along the sound of distant sheep-bells. Then in the souls that

that listened, as though they stood on the bo

rthly joy,-then suddenly the song went wailing away like the winds

house, breaking in upon the end of a chatty conversation that

m the stage; she appeared again running among

of music and can imagine Paradise. And if you go to the marshlands with it you will see beaut

ed. Everyone was sta

ano, 'it is a b

d there was the soul shining in her hand, with the green and blu

winds, each one by his name, and the songs of the birds at dawn. I do not want

ding up, and Lady Birmin

t to some one e

souls already,' sai

ing up. And Lady Birmingham

t is lucky

at she want

t the soul to her left breast a little above the heart, and

hose who were born in the dusk hour might have seen a little brown thing leaping free from the c

then found the door, and prese

ever the streets ran northwards and eastwards, disappearing from human sight as it pa

it and gave chase, an

all born in the dusk hour, h

then to the desolate lands, where market gardens grow, which are neither town nor country. Till at last the good black trees came into view, with their demoniac shapes in the night, and t

sky, and could distinguish no longer its unlovel

an owl it overtook as they drifted through the night, a people friendly to the Elf-folk. Sometimes it crossed wide rivers, leaping

enturous geese; while the rushes bent before him chaunting plaintively and low, like enslaved rowers of so

en mosses grew, and there plunged downward and downward into the dear dark water till it felt the homely ooze once more coming up between its

I saw the marsh-fires come leaping up from all the perilous places. And they came up by flocks th

great rejoicing all that night

High

line of the farther and lonelier downs beyond them; or in hollows far below him, out of the pitiless wind, he might see the grey smoke of hamlets arising from black valleys. But all alike wa

n they took from him the green fields and the sky, men's voices and the laughter of women, and had

s from off his lips, and scoffs that he had long since scoffed at God fell from his tongue, and there rotted old bad lusts out of his heart, and from his fingers the stains of deeds that were evil; and they all fell to the ground and grew there in pallid r

ind blew

ecrated acres, would go by beating up wind to Paradise past the

llow sockets, till his dead hair grew and covered his poor dead face

and beat and beat against the iron chains, but coul

ows branches and chirrupped to the soul of Tom, the soul that might not go free. All the thoughts that he had ever uttered! And the evil thoughts rebuked the soul th

s that he had had of others were the only companions that his soul had to soothe it in the night as it swung to and fro. And they twittere

ind blew

it howled in lonely tree-tops up upon the downs, but came with gentle breezes, orchard scented, over the low lands from Paradise from the southwards, and played about forget-me-nots and grasses in the consecrated land where lay the Rep

ind blew

Joe and Will and the gypsy Puglioni; none other names had they, for of

of them had incurred the sorrow of God and the enmity of man. They sat at a table with a pack of cards before them, all greasy with the marks of cheating thumbs. And they whispered t

their friendship had been given had nothing else besides, saving some bones that swung in

pulchre Paul, Archbishop of Alois and Vayence. At the edge of the graveyard, but outside the consecrated ground, they dug a hasty

he place of tombs. And the three friends trembled at the horror of such an hour in such a plac

cursed the rain aloud. And so they came to the spot where they had hidden a ladder and a lantern. There they held long debate whether they should light the lantern, or whether they should go without it for fear of the King's men. But in the end it seemed to them b

the Gallows Tree, and Will carried the lantern and Joe the ladder, but Puglioni carried a great sword wherewith to do the work which must be done. When they came close, they saw how bad was the case with Tom,

ess, at the peril of their lives, came the three friends that his soul had won before it swung in chains. Thus the seeds of Tom's own soul that he had sown all his life had grown into a Gallows Tree that b

gs the terrible remains of their friend, and hastened away wet through with the rain, with the fear of phantoms in their hearts and horror lying before them on the ladder. By two o'clock they were down again in the valley out of the bitter wind, but they went on past the open grave into the graveyard all among the tombs, with their lantern and their ladder and the terrible thing upon it, which kept their friendship still. Then these three, that had robbed the Law of its due and pr

old haunts of childhood, passed on and came to the wide lands beyond the clustered homesteads. There, there met with it all the kindly thoughts that

bed and cheated again in the tavern of foul repute, and knew not that i

e Twi

he contrary. My past life never occurred to my mind, but I thought of many trivial things that I might not do or see again if I were drowned. I swam up in a slanting direction, hoping to avoid the boat that I had struck. Suddenly I saw all the boats in the lock quite clearly just above me, and every one of their curved varnished planks and the scratches and chips upon their keels. I saw several gaps among the boats where I might have swam up to the surface, but it did not seem worthwhile to try and get there, and I had forgotten why I wanted to. Then all the people leaned over the sides of their boats: I saw the light flannel suits of the men and the coloured

England. It was a valley that I had known well when I was young, but I had not seen it now for many years. Beside me stood the tall flower of the mint; I saw the sweet-smelling thyme flower and one or two wild strawberries. There came up to me from fields below me the beautiful smell of hay, and there was a break in the voice of the cuckoo. There was a feeling of summer and of evening and of lateness and of Sabbath in the air; the sky was calm and full of a strange colour, and the sun was low; the bells in the church in the village were all a-ring, and the chimes went wandering with echoes up the valley towards the sun, and whenever the echoes died a new chime was born. And all the people of the village walked up a stone-paved path under a black oak porch and went

that I loved, and with a deep and solemn voice

ey were draining it. I was with an old friend whom I was glad to see again, for they had told me that he died some years ago. He seemed strangely young, but what surprised me most was that he stood upon a piece of bright green moss which I had always learned to think would never bear. I was glad, too, to see the old bog again, and all the lovely things that grew there-the scarlet mosses and the green mosses and the firm and friendly heather, and the deep silent water. I saw a little stream that wandered vaguely through the bog, and little white shells down in the clear depths of it; I saw, a little way off, one of the great pools where no islands are, with rushes round its borders, where the duck love to come. I looked long at that untroubled world of heather,

ut Hector stepped down out of a ground-floor window, and in the schoolroom were all Priam's sons and the Ach?ans and fair Helen; and a little farther away the Ten Thousand drifted across the playground, going up into the heart of Persia to place Cyrus on his brother's throne. And the boys that I knew called to me from the field

this a white highway with darkness and stars below it that led into darkness and stars, but at the near end of the road were common fields and gardens, and there I stood close to a large number of people, men and women. And I saw a man walking alone down the road away from me towards the darkness and the stars, and all the people called him by his name, and the man would not hear them, but walked on down the road, and the people went on calling him by his name. But I became irritated with the

Gh

whom I hope may be attracted by the experiment that I undertook, and by the strange things that befell me in that hazard

s cling strange growths to some sea-defying rock. Here, like the shells of long-dead limpets, was armour that men encased themselves in long ago; here, too, were tapestries of many colours, beautiful as seaweed; no modern flotsam ever drifted hither, no early Victorian furniture, no electric light. The great trade routes that littered the years with empty meat tins and cheap novels were far from here. Well, well, the centuries will shatter it and drive its fragments on to distant shores. Meanwhile, while it yet stood, I went on a visit there to my brother, and we argued about ghosts. My brother's intelligence on this subject seemed to me to be in need of correction. He mistook things imagined for things having an actual existence; he argued that second-hand evidence of persons having seen ghosts

stant corners old masses of darkness sat still like chaperones and never moved. Over there, in the darkest part of the room, stood a door that was always locked. It led into the hall, but no one ever used it; near that door something had happened once of which the family are not proud. We do not speak of it. There in the firelight stood the venerable forms of the old chairs; the hands

d not be hurried, and the chill that is with the small hours had come upon me, and I had nearly abandoned myself to sleep, when in the hall adjoining there arose the rustling of silk dresses that I had waited for and expected. Then there entered two by two the high-born ladies and their gallants of Jacobean times. They were little more than shadows-very

st and regained its balance. I was not frightened, but uneasy. The pattering came straight towards the room that I was in, then I heard the sniffing of expectant nostrils; perhaps 'uneasy' was not the most suitable word to describe my feelings then. Suddenly a herd of black creatures larger than bloodhounds came galloping in; they had large pendulous ea

undred years from their hated sins, how many excuses they must have given for their presence, and the sins were with them still-and still unexplained. Suddenly one of them seemed to scent my living blood, and bayed horribly, and all the others left their ghosts at once and dashed up to the sin that had given tongue. The brute had picked up my scent near the door by which I had entered, and they moved slowly nearer to me sniffing along the floor, and uttering every now and then their fearful cry. I saw that the whole thing had gone too far. But now they had seen me, now they were all about me, they sprang up trying to reach my throat; and whenever their claws touched me, horrible thoughts came into my mind and unutterable desires dominated my heart. I planned bestial things as these creatures leaped around me, and planned them with a masterly cunning. A great red-eyed murder was among the foremost of those furr

D equals CEB. In the same way CEA equals DEB. QED.' It was proved. Logic and reason re-established themselves in my mind, there were

Whir

I came upon the Whirlpool lying prone upon the

him: 'Who

he s

ship comes gliding on with the sound of the sailors singing on her decks, all singing songs of the islands and carrying the rumour of their cities to the lonely seas, till they see me suddenly astride athwart their course, and are caught in the waters as I whirl them round my head. Then I draw in the waters of the Straits towards me and downwards, nearer and nearer to my terrible feet, and hear in my ears above the roar of my waters the ultimate cry of the ship; for just before I drag them to the floor of ocean and stamp them asunder with my wrecking feet, ships utter their ultimate cry, and with it go the lives of all the sailors and passes the soul of the ship. And in the ultimate cry of ships are the songs the sailors sing, and their hopes and all their loves, and the song of the wind among the masts and timbers when they stood in the forest lon

ships may go through the unguarded Straits and find the Happy Isles. And the Happy Isles stand midmost among the smiles of the sunn

orchards high above the fields facing the sunlight, and for a while again to speak with the souls of old. But about the dawn dreams twitter and arise, and circling thrice around the Happy Isles set out again to find the world of men, then follow the souls of the sailors, as, at evening, wi

that I can plant them fair and bent upon the floor of ocean, then I go back to take a new grip upon the waters of the Straits, and to guard the Further Sea

Hurr

tance and glared at me with its furnaces and lighted factory windows. Suddenly I became aware that I was not the only enemy of that city, for I perceived the colossal form of the Hurricane wa

rest when we wrecked the nations and drave

Earthquake, drow

they have built them constantly. My four children the Winds suffocate with the fumes of them, the val

the city, blinking at the lights, while the tall

ies utterly and drive the people forth, and I will smite them in the shelterless places and sweep their desecrations from the sea. Wilt thou come forth with me and do thi

he crept to his cleft again, and head

p cautiously to the same spot. There I found the huge grey form of the Hurricane alone, with his head bowe

vanquishable, S

bes of the beasts or of the race of the fairies and the elves and the little sacred spirits of trees and streams. Moreover, the village people had peace among themselves and between them and their lord, Lorendiac. In front of the village was a

ssumed dominion of men's minds and led them in watches of the night through the cindery plains of Hell. Then the magician of that village made spells against those fell dreams; yet st

worn and pale, some through the want of rest, and others fr

t away to the forest's edge, and uttered there the spell that he had made. And the spell was a compulsive, terrible thing, having a power over evil dreams and over spirits of ill; for it was a verse of forty lines in many languages, both living and dead, and had in it th

all that were human or of the tribes of the beasts; and that since it had not availed the dreams must come from Gaznak, the greatest magician among the spaces of the stars. And he read to the people out of the Book of Magicians, which tells the comings of the comet and foretells his

of the villagers when they found

rendiac, and twenty years old was he: '

such sword as yet is wrought, for it lies as yet i

is Tharagavverug, and whe

y be neither cleft nor molten, and there is nothing in the world that may avail to break it, nor even leave a scratch upon its surface. It is of the length of a good sword, and of the breadth thereof. Shouldst thou prevail against Tharagavverug, his hide may be melted away from Sacnoth in a furnace; but there is only one thing that may sharpen Sacnot

on Leothric, but th

able, yet in one spot he may take hurt, for his nose is only of lead. A sword would merely lay bare the uncleavable bronze beneath, but if his nose

d: 'What is Thara

f Allathurion said

set out through the forest northwards towards the marshes. For some hours he moved through the gloom of the forest, and when he emerged from it the sun was above the horizon shining on pools of water in the waste land. Presently he

ck him tirelessly, like a doom. Nothing availed them against Tharagavverug. Once they climbed the trees when he came, but Tharagavverug went up to one, arching his back and leaning over slightly, and rasped against the trunk until it fell. And when Leothric came near, Tharagavverug saw him out of one of his small steel eyes and came towards him leisurely, and the echoes of his heart swirled up through his open mouth. And Leothric stepped sideways from his onset, and came between him and the village and smote him on the nose, and

nd he drove him farther and farther from his prey, with hi

bed rapidly at Leothric, but could not seize him, and for a long while neither of them would retire. But at last the pain of the stick on his leaden nose overcame the hunger of the dragon-crocodile, and he turned from it howling. From that moment Tharagavverug weakened. All that day Leothric drove him with his stick, and at night both held their ground; and when the dawn of the third day was come the heart of Tharagavverug beat slower and fainter. It was as though a tired man was ringing a bell. Once Tharagavverug nearly seized a frog, but Leothric snatched it away just in time. Towards noon the dragon-crocodile lay still for a long while, and Leothric stood near him and leaned on his trusty stick. He was very tired and sleepless, but had more leisure now for eating his provisions. With Tharagavverug the end was coming fast, and in the afternoon his breath came hoarsely, rasping in his throat. It was as the sound of many huntsmen blowing blasts on horns, and towards evening his breath came faster but fainter, like the sound of a hunt going furious to the distance and dying away, and he made desperate rushes towards the village; but Leothric still leapt about him, battering his leaden nose. Scarce audible n

dark forest till the dawn, and all the morning and till the afternoon. But in the afternoon he came into the open and saw

t upon them. And near the top of it a few white clouds were floating, but above them some of its pinnacles reappeared. Then Leothric advanced into the marshes, and the eye of Tharagavverug looked out warily from t

d above every window were terrible gargoyles of stone; and the name of the fortress shone o

gargoyles grinned, and the grin went flickering fro

d it was mightier than the marble quarry, Sacremona, from which of old men cut enormous slabs to build the Abbey of the Holy Tears. Day after day they wrenched out the very ribs of the hill until the Abbey was builded, and it was more beautiful than anything in stone. Then the priests blessed

s in the fortress barked. And when the baying of the remotest dragon had faintly joined in the tumult, a window opened far up among

eel of the Porte Resonant, the Way of Egress for War, that was temp

nt in through the hole that he had hewn in the

. When the sound of the feet of the elephant had died away in the remo

halls became musical with the sound

rom the interior of the fortress, and they were armed with scimitars of Assyrian make and were all clad with mail, and chain-mail hung from their helmets about their fa

eased to come with us, and we can discourse by the way of the

hain of iron that was coiled upon

th you, for I am co

y, disturbing the vampires that were asleep in the

reth armour that is proof even against Sacnoth himself,

'I am the Lord of

and climbed steadily up the stairway for five minutes. Little light was there in the great hall through which Leothric ascended, for it only entered through arrow slits here and there, and in the world outside evening was waning fast. The stairway led up to two folding doors, and they stood a little ajar, and through the crack Leothric entered and tried to continue straight on, but could get no farther, for the whole room seemed to be full of festoons of ropes which swung from wall to wall and were looped and draped from the ceiling. The whole chamber was thick and black with them. They were soft and light to the touch, like fine silk, but Leothric was unable t

he labour of years all do

ed: 'I am Leothric,

I will make a rope at

e spider as he sat making his rope, and the spider, looking up from

c said: 'It

he handle far up out of his reach, he hewed his way through it with Sacnoth in the same way as he had through the Porte Resonant, the Way of Egress for War. And so Leothric came into a well-lit chamber, where Queens and Princes were banqueting together, all at a great table; and thousands of candles were glowing all about, and their light shone in the wine that the Princes drank and on the huge gold candelabra, and the royal faces were irradiant with the glow, and the white table-cloth and the silver plates and the jew

you see

swered: 'I seek

ted all the way to the table

e down the line of footm

stood opposite too

d: 'Take him away where we

n till it came to the last two, a

is is Sacnoth,' and both of them said to the man ne

Hurriedly then arose the Queens and Princes, and fled out of the chamber. And the goodly table, when they were all gone, looked small and disorderly and awry. And to Leothric, pondering

hat it was to slay Gaznak, they all besought him to tarry among them, saying that Gaznak was immortal, save for Sacnoth, and also that they had need of a knight to protect them from the wolves that rushed round and round the wainscot all the night and sometimes broke in upon them throu

ak and with Sacnoth,' and pa

en screamed, and the flames of their

, hewing with Sacnoth, pass

hrough the whole Earth and revealed the under sky; and threading its course between them went the way, and it sloped upward and its sides were sheer. And beyond the abysses, where the way led up to the farther chambers of the fortress, Leothric heard the musicians playing their magical tune. So he stepped on to the way, which wa

im, and when he was quite c

this momentary eclipse of a few stars was all that remained in the world of the body of Thok. And Lunk, the brother of Thok, who had lain a little behind him, saw that this must be Sacnoth and fled lumbering away. And all the while that he walked between the abysses, the mighty vault of the roof of the for

windows small and closely barred, and between the bars there showed

one below the abysses, and here and there in the chamber through th

from the way, and ente

a tiny dwarf as he walked unde

urs commemorating the achievements of Satan upon Earth. High up in the wall the w

of Tharagavverug that peered restlessly about it from the hilt of Sacnoth.

f Sacnoth in front of him feeling for a foe, a

ng st

of the colonnade that held aloft the

gical musicians sou

eft and right. For some moments Leothric saw nothing move, and wait

guard of Gaznak, and came from sl

to treat him, giving him often in his fingers

ice against Leothric out of his faithful breast, and behind him roared the armoury o

for it had been his wont to prophesy quietly to himself

into the blast of his breath,

Tharagavverug in the butt of the hilt beh

one so, the severed end of the tail had still come hurtling on, as some pine tree that the avalanche has hurled point foremost from the cliff right through the broad breast of some mountaineer. So had Leothric been transfixed; but Sacnoth smote sideways with the flat of his blade, and sent the tail whizzing over Leothric's left shoulder; and it rasped upon his armour as

And for a while it was like all the ploughshares in a county working together in one field behi

open gates, and Sacnoth drip

nd near to his head, and the width of each brazen bell was from wall to wall, and they were one behind the other. And as he passed under each the bell uttered, and its voice was mournful and deep, like to the voice of a bell speaking to a man for the last time when he is newly dead. Each bell uttered once as Leothric came under it, and the

the sound of the magical musicians. They

hind him was full of the echoes of the tolling, and they all muttered to one another about the ceremony; and the dirge of the m

und himself in the open air in a wide court paved with marble. H

all playing upon strings. And, even sleeping, Gaznak was cla

he dark, where swart uncertain shapes went to and fro. All these were the dreams of Gaznak, and issued from his mind, and, becoming gleaming marble, passed over the edge of the abyss as the musicians played. And all the while out of the mind of Gaznak, lulled by that strange music, went spires and pinnacles beautiful and s

from the black door, G

left nor right, but s

thr

ade of Sacnoth as he turned the spell aside. When Leothric dropped not down, and they heard the

whenever the sword of Gaznak smote on the blade of Sacnoth it rebounded gleaming, as hail from off slated roofs; but whenever it fell upon the armour of Leothric, it stripped it off in sheets. And upon Gaznak's armour Sacnoth fell oft and furiously, but ever he came back snarling, leaving no mark behind, and as Gaznak fought he held his left hand hovering close over his head. Presently Leothric smote fair and fiercely at

nd the marble was splashed with his blood, and the sword of Gaznak was notched like a

ad by the hair; but not at his throat flew Sacnoth, for Leothric struck instead at the lifted hand, an

cles went down into the earth, and the wide fair terraces all rolled away, and the court was gone like the dew, and a wind came and the colonnades drifted th

y, and there was no fortress nor sound of dragon or mortal, only beside him lay an

it came, like to the peal of an organ played by a master's hand, growing louder and love

d the light of the dawn ascending lit him upon his way. And into Allathurion he came ere noon, and

* *

ishable, Save For Sacnoth, and of its passing away, as it i

urion, and went away; and that this same fever drove Leothric into the m

hath been no town of Allathurion

leaves. Who shall see them again, or who wot of them? And

rd of

of Somerset and the downs of Wilts spread out along the horizon. Suddenly I saw underneath me the village of Wrellisford, with no sound in its street but the voice of the Wrellis roaring as he tumbled over a weir above the village. So I followed my road down over the crest of the hill, and the road became more languid as I descended, and less and less concerned with the cares of a highway. Here a spring broke out in the middle of it, and here another. The road never heeded. A stream ran right across it, still it straggled on. Suddenly it gave up the minimum property that a road should possess, and, renouncing its connection with High Streets, its lineage of Piccadilly, shrank to one side and became an unpretentious footpath. Then it led me to the old bridge over the stream, and thus I came to Wrellisford, and found after travelling in many lands a village with no wheel tracks in its street. On the other side of the bridge, my friend the road struggled a few yards up a grassy slope, and there ceased. Over all the village hung a great stillness, with the roar of the Wrellis cutting right across it, and there came occasionally the bark of a dog that kept watch over the broken stillness and over the sanctity of that untravelled road. That terrible and wasting fever that, unlike so many plagues, comes not from the East but from the West, the fever of hurry, had not come h

hand to hand among merchants. I looked at the wonderful complexity of its infinite threads, my finger sank into it for more than an inch without feeling the touch; so black it was and so carefully wrought, sombrely covering the whole of the wall, that it might have been worked to commemorate the deaths of all that ever lived there, as indeed it was. I looked through a hole in the wall into an inner chamber where a worn-out driving band went among many wheels, and there this priceless inimitable stuff not merely clothed the walls but hung from bars and ceiling in beautiful draperies, in marvellous festoons. Nothing was ugly in this des

d to me that the travelling of so many people for so many years between Wrellisford and John o' Groat's, talking to one another as they went or muttering alone, had given the road a voice. And

from doing the Work of the World. I carry the murmur of inn

take from city to city the rumour of each. There is nothing hi

days of summer, I carry away with mournful joy at night petal by petal the rhododendron's bloom. No lit procession of purple kings is nigh so fair as that. No beautiful death of well-beloved men hath such a glory of forlornness. And I bear far away the pink and white petals of the apple-blossom's youth when the laborious time comes for his work in the world and for the bearing of apples. And I am robed each day and eve

een by Man's eye. Or if your rhododendron blossom was beautiful for a moment, it soon withered and was drowned, and spring soon passes away; beauty can only live on in the mind of Man. I bring thought into the mind of Man swiftly from

e,' said the river, 'used to make w

t cheaper ones from distant cities. Nothing is

a very, very wonderful place. I know all about it; I have heard shepherd boys singing of it, and sometimes before a storm the gulls come up. It is a place all blue and shining and full of pearls, and has in it coral islands and isles of spice, and st

not do that,'

and I have much to do besides. There is my song to sing, for instan

rning, year in, year out, in the ears of men that are born in Wrellisford; at night it is part of their dreams, at morning it is the voice of day, and so it becomes part of their souls. But the song is not beautiful in itself. I take these men with your song

ystery and sound of sheep bells and murmur of mist-hidden hills, which we streams shall have brought him, that there will be no more music or beauty left in the world, and all the world will end; and perhaps the streams shall gather at the last, we all together, to the sea. Or perhaps the sea will give us

Man,' said the road. 'For Ma

ome near on utt

ht, who, having come into this valley, is a guest in

e spider

; then I inhabit it, and hide away all that is ugly, and draw beautiful lines about it to and fro. There is nothing so beautiful as cities and palaces; they are the loveliest places in the world, because they are the stillest, and so most like the stars. They are noisy at first, for a little, before I come to them; they have ugly corners not yet rounded off, and coarse tapestries, and then they become ready for me and my exquisite work, and are quite silent and beautiful. And there I enterta

m of La

judged. And it seemed to me, as I watched from my place of dreaming, when La Traviata came and stood before the seat of judgment, that clouds came rushing up from the far Paradisal hills and gathered together over the head of God, and became one black cloud; and the clouds moved swiftly as shadows of the night when a lantern is swung in the hand, and more and more clouds rushed up, and ever more and more, and, as they gathered, the cloud a little above the head of God became no larger, but only grew blacker and blacker. And the halos of the saints settled lower upon their heads and narrowed and became pale, and the singing of the choirs of the seraphim faltered and sunk low, and the converse of the blessed suddenly ceased. Then a stern look came into the face of God, so that the seraphim turned away and left Him, and the saints. Then God

gels, as they swept He

that the Paradisal gates were clamped and barred against La Traviata. And they would have taken her to a valley in the world where there were a great many flowers and a loud sound of streams, where birds were singing always and church bells rang on Sabbaths, only this they durst not do. So they swept onwards nearer and nearer Hell. But when they were come quite close and the glare was on their faces, and they saw the gates already divide and prepare to open outwards, they said: 'Hell is a terrible city, and she is tired of cities;' then suddenly they dropped her by the side of the road, and wheeled and flew away. But into a great pink flower that was horrible and lovely grew the soul

, and scattered His disobedient a

e Dry

all his wandering bands of nomad stars, and hi

cold, the first clear pallor of dawn was co

at the man whom he had led for so long through the marshes, and saw t

eary on the grass, for they had wandered in the marshes for many year

the old man, 'I w

made no answer,

art, and he said: 'You must not be sorry that I

was good in you, but perplexed you by leading you up and down the perilous marshes. And I was so heartless that, had you

such a one as any should be sorry for when I go,

but wept softly; and Love griev

, and I have used it unjustly. Often I pushed you from the causeway through the marshes, and cared not if you drowned. Often I mocked

you, but am so frivolous and silly that I laughed at your noble dreams and hindered all your deeds. See now, you have found me

and safety, and there

old man we

is grief in my heart for you. Old friend of perilous ventures, I must leave you now. But I will send my brother soon to you-my little b

went down to the night and to the marshes, looking backward over his shoulder as he went, and smiling beautifully about his eyes. And in the marshes w

ful, and with a faint smile shadowy on his lips, and lifted in his arms the lonely man, being gentle w