efore they were all gone.

"O the dear birds--they are all gone!" cried Martin. "Mother, where
are they going?"

She told him of a far-away land in the south, from which, when
autumn comes, the birds migrate north to a warmer country hundreds
of leagues away, and that birds of all kinds were now travelling
north, and would be travelling through the sky above them for many
days to come.

Martin looked up at the sky, and said he could see no birds now that
the buzzards were all gone.

"I can see them," she returned, looking up and glancing about the sky.

"O mother, I wish I could see them!" he cried. "Why can't I see them
when you can?"

"Because your eyes are not like mine. Look, can you see this?" and
she held up a small stone phial which she took from her bosom.

He took it in his hand and unstopped and smelt at it. "Is it honey?
Can I taste it?" he asked.

She laughed. "It is better than honey, but you can't eat it!" she
said. "Do you remember how the honey made you feel like a snake?
This would make you see what I see if I put some of it on your eyes."
He begged her to do so, and she consenting poured a little into the
palm of her hand. It was thick and white as milk; then taking some
on her finger tip, she made him hold his eyes wide open while she
rubbed it on the eye-balls. It made his eyes smart, and everything
at first looked like a blue mist when he tried to see; then slowly
the mist faded away and the air had a new marvellous clearness, and
when he looked away over the plain beneath them he shouted for joy,
so far could he see and so distinct did distant objects appear. At
one point where nothing but the grey haze that obscured the distance
had been visible, a herd of wild cattle now appeared, scattered about,
some grazing, others lying down ruminating, and in the midst of the
herd a very noble-looking, tawny-coloured bull was standing.

"O mother, do you see that bull?" cried Martin in delight.

"Yes, I see him," she returned. "Sometimes he brings his herd to
feed on the hillside, and when I see him here another time I shall
take you to him, and put you on his back. But look now at the sky,
Martin."

He looked up, and was astonished to see numbers of great birds
flying north, where no birds had appeared before. They were miles
high, and invisible to ordinary sight, but he could see them so
distinctly, their shape and colours, that all the birds he knew were
easily recognized. There were swans,