oon; but,
even so, it was easy to see that it was something a good deal larger
than himself, and with a much more powerful flight.

Fortunately, it did not seem this time to be actually on his trail, for
it swept by at a great pace, and was soon lost in the darkness far
ahead. Perhaps it was only searching for him, and his great height had
proved his safety. But in any case he was exceedingly terrified, and at
once turned round, pointed his head for the earth, and shot downwards in
the direction of the Empty House as fast as ever he could.

But when he spoke to the governess she made light of it, and told him
there was nothing to be afraid of. It might have been a flock of
hurrying night-birds, she said, or an owl distorted by the city's light,
or even his own reflection magnified in water. Anyhow, she felt sure it
was not chasing him, and he need pay no attention to it.

Jimbo felt reassured, but not quite satisfied. He knew a flying monster
when he saw one; and it was only when he had been for many more flights
alone, without its reappearance, that his confidence was fully restored,
and he began to forget about it.

Certainly these lonely flights were very much to his taste. His Older
Self, with its dim hauntings of a great memory somewhere behind him,
took possession then, and he was able to commune with nature in a way
that the presence of the governess made impossible. With her his Older
Self rarely showed itself above the surface for long; he was always the
child. But, when alone, Nature became alive; he drew force from the
trees and flowers, and felt that they all shared a common life together.
Had he been imprisoned by some wizard of old in a tree-form, knowing of
the sunset and the dawn only by the sweet messages that rustled in his
branches, the wind could hardly have spoken to him with a more intimate
meaning; or the life of the fields, eternally patient, have touched him
more nearly with their joys and sorrows. It seemed almost as if, from
his leafy cell, he had gazed before this into the shining pools with
which the summer rains jewelled the meadows, sending his soul in a
stream of unsatisfied yearning up to the stars. It all came back dimly
when he heard the wind among the leaves, and carried him off to the
woods and fields of an existence far antedating this one----

And on gentle nights, when the wind itself was half asleep and dreaming,
the pine trees drew him most of all, for theirs was the song he