Then he stumped along to the river side, giving a majestic twirl to his wooden leg with every step he took through the long grass. How he would have loved a bathe! The pool where he had so enjoyed himself with Lubin was not far off--the pool of Daphnis, as he had christened it; but he hesitated to venture in alone. So he lay down on the bank and watched the yellow water-lilies from afar, dreaming of many things. How clever Lubin was, and what a lot he knew! Why geese should dance for rain he couldn't even imagine; but the rain had actually come, and it was all a most suggestive mystery. How many other curious connections there must be among natural occurrences that nobody ever dreamt of! It was in the country one learnt about such things; in the fields and woods, and by the side of rivers. Nature was the great school, after all. History and geography were all very well in their way, but what food for the soul was there in knowing whether Norway was an island or a peninsula, or on what date some silly king had had his crown put on? What did it matter, after all? Those were the facts he despised; facts that had no significance for him whatever, that left him exactly as they found him first. The sky and the birds and the flowers taught him lessons that were worth more than all the histories and geographies that were ever written. The schoolroom was a desert, arid and unsatisfying; whereas the garden, the enclosed space which held stained cups of beauty and purple gold-eyed bells, that was a jewelled sanctuary. Lubin was nearer the heart of things than Freeman and Macaulay, though they would have disdained him as a clod. Virgil and Theocritus were greater philosophers than either Comte or Hegel. Daphnis and Corydon represented the finest flower, the purest type of human evolution, and Herbert Spencer was nothing better than a particularly silly old man. Having disposed of the education question thus conclusively, it occurred to Austin that it must be about time for tea; so he struggled to his legs and turned his footsteps homeward. Just as he arrived at the house he met Lubin outside the gate with a wheelbarrow. "Off already?" he asked. "Ay," said Lubin. "I say, Master Austin, there's something I want to tell you. I see a magpie not an hour ago!" "A magpie? I don't think I ever saw one in my life. What was it like?" enquired Austin. "Don't matter what it was like," replied Lubin, sententiously. "But it was just outside your bedroom window. You'd better be on the look-out." "What for?" asked Austin. "Did it say it was coming back?" "'Tain't nothing to laugh at," said Lubin, nodding his head. "A magpie bodes ill-luck. That's well known, that is. So you just keep your eye open, that's all I've got to say. It's a warning, you see. Did ye never hear that before?"