Manfred, who had cropped all the grass within easy reach, now nibbled sharply at his master’s pocket for sugar; with an impatient gesture Stead turned—and the moment passed; while Brooke, once more sweeping the landscape with her gaze, slowly stretched out her arms toward it unconsciously, and began to climb the hill again. The last detail of it all that lingered in her memory was the ploughman following in the furrow that his strength made true, and as the two walked slowly homeward, the ploughman in his turn stopped, and, lifting his hat to cool his head, stood watching them. Robert Stead stopped at the barn to show the Cub, now in the first enthusiasm of the coming trout season, how to repair an old rod of his father’s that had grown brittle from disuse, and Brooke carried the letters to her mother, reading that from Lucy; but she took the one marked Overveen to her own room presently, where, sitting by the window, she opened it slowly. It held a single sheet that bore these words—random verses from the “Lost Tales of Miletus,” carefully copied—no less, no more! But haunted by the strain, till then unknown, Seeks to re-sing it back herself to charm, Seeks still and ever fails, Missing the key-note which unlocks the music— ... “They gave me work for torture; work is joy! Slaves work in chains, and to the clank they sing! Said Orpheus, ‘Slaves still hope.’ “And could I strain to heave up the huge stone Did I not hope that it would reach the height? There penance ends, and dawn Elysian fields, But if it never reach?” The Thracian sighed, as looming through the mist The stone came whirling back. “Fool,” said the ghost, “Then mine at worst is everlasting hope!” Again up rose the stone. Holding the paper clasped against her breast, again Brooke’s thoughts sought counsel of the river, but now between her and it, a silhouette standing against the water, on the slope below the ploughman guided the horses to and fro unceasingly across the corn-field. CHAPTER XIV THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS April flew by on the wings of the migrating birds, and it was almost the last week, that brought the fragile wind flower to the wood edges and the swallows to the old barn, before Brooke realized that the month had fairly begun. For not more relentless is the rush of the city itself than life on a farm in the springtime, when the power that drives is the vital force of Nature herself, while a day dropped at this time slips back beyond recall.