the edge, but within the edge it was all glossy
green.

"What bird is this that sings so sweet before day in the bitter cold?"
said the Abbot. "Surely no bird at all, but an Angel from heaven
waking us from the death of sleep."

"It is the blackbird, Domine Abbas," said the young monk; "often they
sing thus in February, however cold it may be."

"O soul, O Diarmait, is it not wonderful that the senseless small
creatures should praise God so sweetly in the dark, and in the light
before the dark, while we are fain to lie warm and forget His praise?"
And afterwards he said, "Gladly could I have listened to that singing,
even till to-morrow was a day; and yet it was but the singing of a
little earth wrapped in a handful of feathers. O soul, tell me what it
must be to listen to the singing of an Angel, a portion of heaven
wrapped in the glory of God's love!"

Of the forty days thirty went by, and oftentimes now, when no wind
blew, it was bright and delightsome among the rocks, for the sun was
gaining strength, and the days were growing longer, and the brown trees
were being speckled with numberless tiny buds of white and pale green,
and wild flowers were springing between the boulders and through the
mountain turf.

Hard by the cave there was a low wall of rock covered with ivy, and as
Diarmait chanced to walk near it, a brown bird darted out from among
the leaves. The young monk looked at the place from which it had
flown, and behold! among the leaves and the hairy sinews of the ivy
there was a nest lined with grass, and in the nest there were three
eggs--pale-green with reddish spots. And Diarmait knew the bird and
knew the eggs, and he told the Abbot, who came noiselessly, and looked
with a great love at the open house and the three eggs of the mother
blackbird.

"Let us not walk too near, my son," he said, "lest we scare the mother
from her brood, and so silence beforehand some of the music of the cold
hours before the day." And he lifted his hand and blessed the nest and
the bird, saying, "And He shall bless thy bread and thy water." After
that it was very seldom they went near the ivy.

Now after days of clear and benign weather a shrill wind broke out from
beneath the North Star, and brought with it snow and sleet and piercing
cold. And the woods howled for distress of the storm, and the grey
stones of the mountain chattered with discomfort. Harsh cold and
sleeplessness were their lot in the cave, an