He brought the grey idol forth and mumbled of guarantees, although he put nothing on paper, and she paid him there and then his preposterous price and took the idol away. And on the next wet day that there ever was she prayed to the grey-stone idol that she had bought, the God of Rainy Cheerfulness (who knows with what ceremony or what lack of it?), and so brought down on her in Leafy Green Street, in the preposterous house at the corner, that doom of which all men speak. THE MIST The mist said unto the mist: "Let us go up into the Downs." And the mist came up weeping. And the mist went into the high places and the hollows. And clumps of trees in the distance stood ghostly in the haze. But I went to a prophet, one who loved the Downs, and I said to him: "Why does the mist come up weeping into the Downs when it goes into the high places and the hollows?" And he answered: "The mist is the company of a multitude of souls who never saw the Downs, and now are dead. Therefore they come up weeping into the Downs, who are dead and never saw them." FURROW-MAKER He was all in black, but his friend was dressed in brown, members of two old families. "Is there any change in the way you build your houses?" said he in black. "No change," said the other. "And you?" "We change not," he said. A man went by in the distance riding a bicycle. "He is always changing," said the one in black, "of late almost every century. He is uneasy. Always changing." "He changes the way he builds his house, does he not?" said the brown one. "So my family say," said the other. "They say he has changed of late." "They say he takes much to cities?" the brown one said. "My cousin who lives in belfries tells me so," said the black one. "He says he is much in cities." "And there he grows lean?" said the brown one. "Yes, he grows lean." "Is it true what they say?" said the brown one. "Caw," said the black one. "Is it true that he cannot live many centuries?" "No, no," said the black one. "Furrow-maker will not die. We must not lose furrow-maker. He has been foolish of late, he has played with smoke and is sick. His engines have wearied him and his cities are evil. Yes, he is very sick. But in a few centuries he will forget his folly and we shall not lose furrow-maker. Time out of mind he has delved and my family have got their food from the raw earth behind him. He will not die." "But they say, do they not?" said the brown one, "his cities are noisome, and that he grows sick in them and can run no longer, and that it is with him as it is with us when we grow too many, and the grass has the bitter taste in the rainy season, and our young grow bloated and die." "Who says it?" replied the black one.