“Oi hear you writ a piece about Daniel,” he began tactfully, as they crossed the bridge. Will frowned. He had forgotten Martha’s misunderstanding. “Has he been round telling you?” he asked angrily. “Me!” Caleb stared. “Oi bain’t howly enough for wisions.” Will was puzzled in his turn. “You mean he can’t walk so far!” “Oi wouldn’t say that: happen he can fly if he wants to.” “Fly!” “Surely! A man so howly in his life—him what——” Dead! So suddenly! Will stood still. This altered many things. The winged image of the Gaffer faded before the picture of a lonely Jinny. “When did he die?” “You know that better than me,” said Caleb meekly. At this the thought that his “epistle” had over-excited the patriarch and stilled that aged heart, shot up, agitating the young man. That was why relief mingled with a vague disappointment when Caleb went on: “They lions couldn’t kill him, but Oi reckon he had to die some time. But many of them what sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, he tells us, and maybe”—he added with a flash—“they’ll wake up in that golden city.” Will grunted a vague “Maybe.” “Touching that there city,” said Caleb, “the gold of the street thereof will be transparent.” “I know,” murmured Will, suppressing a yawn. He knew! And the contradiction did not strike him! Instantly, as by another flash, the text solved itself in the old man’s mind—gold in those millennial days, while it retained its sacred splendour would also lose its gross opaqueness, becoming rarefied, disembodied, spiritualized, so that gold was as brass since both were like glass, making thus a harmony of light with the jasper wall, clear as crystal, and the twelve giant pearls of the gates. “It’ll be a pritty sight!” he mused aloud. “Yes, like the Crystal Palace,” sneered Will. “You seen that?” asked Caleb eagerly. “A man couldn’t be in London and escape seeing it,” said Will. “Every cad drags you into his omnibus bound for Hyde Park. Such a crowd!” “Yes, the chimney-sweep got his pocket picked, Bundock’s buoy-oy was a-tellin’,” said Caleb, “but the streets thereof, be they of gold?” “The streets of London?” said Will, smiling. “Noa, the streets of the Crystal City?” “No, of course not, father.” “Then they can’t be brass neither?” “More like grass,” Will laughed. “For there’s real trees left standing inside.” Caleb joined in the boy’s laugh. Though he had never really believed that the Crystal Palace represented the Millennial City, it was well to have the danger finally cleared away. And, abandoning the gold-brass puzzle, his mind flew back illogically but passionately to his Peculiar Brethren and the joy of the awaiting ritual. “Ah, here’s Plashy Hall!” said Will. “And the dog seems having his Sunday nap.” He threw open the white gate marked “No thoroughfare!” “But that’s closed.” “Closed!” said Will in fiery accents. “I shan’t even close it after us.” “I count they won’t mind _you_ in your Parlyment coat, but——”