r it leaves its cradle
heights, a stream of clear pools and long bright shallows, winding by
moorland steadings and upland meadows; but in its last half-mile it
goes mad, and imitates its childhood when it tumbled over granite
shelves. Down in that green place the crystal water gushed and
frolicked as if determined on one hour of rapturous life before joining
the sedater sea.

Heritage flung himself on the turf.

"This is a good place! Ye gods, what a good place! Dogson, aren't you
glad you came? I think everything's bewitched to-night. That village
is bewitched, and that old woman's tea. Good white magic! And that
foul innkeeper and that brigand at the gate. Black magic! And now here
is the home of all enchantment--'island valley of Avilion'--'waters
that listen for lovers'--all the rest of it!"

Dickson observed and marvelled.

"I can't make you out, Mr. Heritage. You were saying last night you
were a great democrat, and yet you were objecting to yon laddies
camping on the moor. And you very near bit the neb off me when I said
I liked Tennyson. And now..." Mr. McCunn's command of language was
inadequate to describe the transformation.

"You're a precise, pragmatical Scot," was the answer. "Hang it, man,
don't remind me that I'm inconsistent. I've a poet's licence to play
the fool, and if you don't understand me, I don't in the least
understand myself. All I know is that I'm feeling young and jolly, and
that it's the Spring."

Mr. Heritage was assuredly in a strange mood. He began to whistle with
a far-away look in his eye.

"Do you know what that is?" he asked suddenly.

Dickson, who could not detect any tune, said "No."

"It's an aria from a Russian opera that came out just before the war.
I've forgotten the name of the fellow who wrote it. Jolly thing, isn't
it? I always remind myself of it when I'm in this mood, for it is
linked with the greatest experience of my life. You said, I think,
that you had never been in love?"

Dickson replied in the native fashion. "Have you?" he asked.

"I have, and I am--been for two years. I was down with my battalion on
the Italian front early in 1918, and because I could speak the language
they hoicked me out and sent me to Rome on a liaison job. It was Easter
time and fine weather, and, being glad to get out of the trenches, I
was pretty well pleased with myself and enjoying life.... In the place
where I stayed there was a girl. She was a Russian,