PASSING (From the _Westminster Gazette_, 1914.) I was standing on the Bridge before dawn of the summer morning; heat-mist down on the water, and the bright face of Big Ben up there, disjoint, set as it were in sky—so dark it was. I had been there some time, seeking what air there might be in the town, staring vaguely down the broadway of blackness between the misted lights of the river banks, thinking idle thoughts, dreaming perhaps a little, when suddenly I became conscious of something on the parapet. It seemed to be perching there, a thin, gray shape, without face or limbs; and, peering at it, I sidled along, till I found that I was getting no nearer! Startled, I said: “What is that? Who is it?” Only a faint sigh answered. I called again: “Who are you?” A soft voice replied: “Don’t be alarmed, sir, I am the Plumage Bill.” Its shape had grown no clearer; but in sheer amazement I went on speaking as though it were a being. “What are you doing out here? Why aren’t you in there?” And I pointed to Big Ben. The voice answered again: “They have no time for me, sir. I am resting a moment before I pass.” “But,” I said, “you ‘pass’ in there, not out here!” I could have sworn I heard it laugh, much as a dying child will laugh if you show it a jumping toy: “Oh! no, sir! It is here we pass into nothing and the summer night.” And, as it spoke, around me came the most extraordinary beating and vibration in the air, a kind of white-gray wonder of invisible wings wheeling and hovering. The whole of dark space seemed full of millions of these invisible wings, so that I stood utterly bewildered. Then from out of that noiseless swirl rose suddenly hundreds of thousands of tiny voices as of birds too young to fly, calling, crying, calling. And, flinging up my hands, I pressed them against the drums of my ears till I thought I should break them in; but still I heard the hundreds of thousands of shrill little voices crying, and crying. “Hush!” I called out: “For heaven’s sake, hush!” But on they went, feeble and shrill amid that invisible swirl of winged mothers trying to reach and feed them; then, just when I thought I could bear it no longer, the mist on the water curled over and broke like a wave, something sighed out “Farewell!” and the thin gray shape was no longer there. All was still once more. The Bridge stretched empty. Big Ben glowed in the sky. I drew a long breath and turned to look down at the water. There, on the parapet, was that thin gray shape again! “Not gone?” I cried. A voice answered: “Sir, I have only just come. I am the Bill of the Worn-out Horses.” “What!” I cried; “had they no time even for you?” And, as I spoke, I heard the sound of thousands of hoofs, and saw, passing me slowly on the dark air, the gaunt shapes of horses. From side to side, up, down—horses dragging worn feet, halting, passing—their heads lower than their hoofs.