e
had not been forced to hold the creed: Be healthy, or die! This was no
doubt perfectly explicable and in accordance with the Supreme Equation;
yet we, enjoying life, and health, and ease of money, felt horror and
revolt on, this evening of such beauty. Nor at the moment did we derive
great comfort from the thought that life slips in and out of sheath, like
sun-sparks on water, and that of all the cloud of summer midges dancing
in the last gleam, not one would be alive to-morrow.

It was three evenings later that we heard uncertain footfalls on the
flagstones of the verandah, then a sort of brushing sound against the
wood of the long, open window. Drawing aside the curtain, one of us
looked out. Herd was standing there in the bright moonlight, bareheaded,
with roughened hair. He came in, and seeming not to know quite where he
went, took stand by the hearth, and putting up his dark hand, gripped the
mantelshelf. Then, as if recollecting himself, he said: "Gude evenin',
sir; beg pardon, M'm." No more for a full minute; but his hand, taking
some little china thing, turned it over and over without ceasing, and
down his broken face tears ran. Then, very suddenly, he said: "She's
gone." And his hand turned over and over that little china thing, and
the tears went on rolling down. Then, stumbling, and swaying like a man
in drink, he made his way out again into the moonlight. We watched him
across the lawn and path, and through the gate, till his footfalls died
out there in the field, and his figure was lost in the black shadow of
the holly hedge.

And the night was so beautiful, so utterly, glamourously beautiful, with
its star-flowers, and its silence, and its trees clothed in moonlight.
All was tranquil as a dream of sleep. But it was long before our hearts,
wandering with poor Herd, would let us remember that she had slipped away
into so beautiful a dream.

The dead do not suffer from their rest in beauty. But the living---!
1911.

THRESHING

When the drone of the thresher breaks through the autumn sighing of trees
and wind, or through that stillness of the first frost, I get restless
and more restless, till, throwing down my pen, I have gone out to see.
For there is nothing like the sight of threshing for making one feel
good--not in the sense of comfort, but at heart. There, under the pines
and the already leafless elms and beech-trees, close to the great stacks,
is the big, busy creature, with its