words, and I heard it say, 'We must go on to the sea; we must leave
him now.'

Then the river went away, and both its banks; and the
rushes whispered, 'Yes, we must leave him now.' And they too
departed, and I was left in a great emptiness staring up at the blue
sky. Then the great sky bent over me, and spoke quite softly like a
kindly nurse soothing some little foolish child, and the sky said,
'Goodbye. All will be well. Goodbye.' And I was sorry to lose the
blue sky, but the sky went away. Then I was alone, with nothing
round about me; I could see no light, but it was not dark--there was
just absolutely nothing, above me and below me and on every side. I
thought that perhaps I was dead, and that this might be eternity;
when suddenly some great southern hills rose up all round about me,
and I was lying on the warm, grassy slope of a valley in England. It
was a valley that I had known well when I was young, but I had
not seen it now for many years. Beside me stood the tall flower of
the mint; I saw the sweet-smelling thyme flower and one or two wild
strawberries. There came up to me from fields below me the beautiful
smell of hay, and there was a break in the voice of the cuckoo.
There was a feeling of summer and of evening and of lateness and of
Sabbath in the air; the sky was calm and full of a strange colour,
and the sun was low; the bells in the church in the village were all
a-ring, and the chimes went wandering with echoes up the valley
towards the sun, and whenever the echoes died a new chime was born.
And all the people of the village walked up a stone-paved path under
a black oak porch and went into the church, and the chimes stopped
and the people of the village began to sing, and the level sunlight
shone on the white tombstones that stood all round the church. Then
there was a stillness in the village, and shouts and laughter came
up from the valley no more, only the occasional sound of the organ
and of song. And the blue butterflies, those that love the chalk,
came and perched themselves on the tall grasses, five or six
sometimes on a single piece of grass, and they closed their wings
and slept, and the grass bent a little beneath them. And from the
woods along the tops of the hills the rabbits came hopping out and
nibbled the grass, and hopped a little further and nibbled again,
and the large daisies closed their petals up and the birds began
to sing.

Then the hills spoke, all the great chal