Her charioteer also was as much a child of nature and a part of it all as the big gray squirrels that raced along the fence-tops, while his simple and positive faith in the goodness of all created things, and his intense love and kinship with the wild brotherhood, opened a new world to Brooke, banishing for the time all care and responsibility and replacing it with the wholesome pleasure of the hour, born of the pure joy of mere living. When one has known trouble, and then felt this touch of peace, is it not the new Revelation of God, fitted to meet the needs and greeds of to-day, even as nineteen centuries ago the single-hearted Messenger brought his spiritual message to the material Oriental world? They would travel a mile, perhaps, in entire silence, the pieman merely pulling up now and then, and pointing with his whip to a warm spot, where a group of silver-green ferns slowly unfolded and stretched their winter-cramped paws, or else, with finger raised, caution silence while the song of some elusive bird thrilled the air,—“Whitethroat,” “Fox-sparrow,” or “Oven-bird,” being his only words. Then a settlement of half a dozen houses, and a period of bustle, barter, and exchange of news would interrupt, and so on until, as the “peepers” began to tune up, and the sun called the warmth of the day swiftly after him, they turned into Sairy Ann’s yard. After a keenly relished supper, Brooke and her guide stole out to the edge of a strip of woods that separated some grass meadows from a brawling trout stream running its downhill course a dozen miles before the Moosatuk received it. There, seated on a log, they waited as the twilight began to cast its mysterious spell. Presently a strange cry sounded through the gloom, was repeated, and echoed by others a second and a third time. Next a rush of wings, as if a bird was flung suddenly into the air, opening its wings at the same time. A sharp whirring sound followed, increasing as the wings that made it vanished skyward. Bending forward to watch the wonderful flight, until eye could not see it, in a moment Brooke was startled by the falling as of a bolt from the clouds close beside her, followed by a sweet musical whistle. “First one’s down again,—see, he’s doin’ it over!” said the pieman, and the call and lunge were repeated as before. But this time the girl’s eye did not follow; the wonder and rush of it all was thrilling her from head to foot. She had seen the sky-dance of the woodcock, the free Walpurgis night’s festival of the American river woods, with wild flowers for bracken and hemlock boughs for witches’ brooms. Once more her toes tingled, music rang in her ears, sorrow and love both slipped away, and she was again the little girl playing at gypsy queen in her River Kingdom. That night Brooke slept deeply, but it was the sleep of dreams that comes from being drowned in a “best room” feather-bed for the first time, an experience both fearful and wonderful.