He hung for a long time over the railing, thinking of a vast number of things, mostly vague, flitting things, looking into the clear depths of the brook, and listening to the delicious liquid note of a blackbird swinging on the willow. Red lilies starred the grass with fire, and golden-rod and chicory grew everywhere; purple and orange and yellow-green the prevailing tints. Suddenly a water-snake wriggled across the dark pool above the ford and the minnows disappeared under the shadow of the bridge. Then Will sighed, lifted his head and walked on. There seemed to be something prophetic in it, and he drew a long breath. That's the way his plans broke and faded away. Human life does not move with the regularity of a clock. In living there are gaps and silences when the soul stands still in its flight through abysses--and there come times of trial and times of struggle when we grow old without knowing it. Body and soul change appallingly. Seven years of hard, busy life had made changes in Will. His face had grown bold, resolute, and rugged; some of its delicacy and all of its boyish quality was gone. His figure was stouter, erect as of old, but less graceful. He bore himself like a man accustomed to look out for himself in all kinds of places. It was only at times that there came into his deep eyes a preoccupied, almost sad, look which showed kinship with his old self. This look was on his face as he walked toward the clump of trees on the right of the road. He reached the grove of popple trees and made his way at once to the spring. When he saw it, he was again shocked. They had allowed it to fill with leaves and dirt! Overcome by the memories of the past, he flung himself down on the cool and shadowy bank, and gave himself up to the bitter-sweet reveries of a man returning to his boyhood's home. He was filled somehow with a strange and powerful feeling of the passage of time; with a vague feeling of the mystery and elusiveness of human life. The leaves whispered it overhead, the birds sang it in chorus with the insects, and far above, in the measureless spaces of sky, the hawk told it in the silence and majesty of his flight from cloud to cloud. It was a feeling hardly to be expressed in words--one of those emotions whose springs lie far back in the brain. He lay so still the chipmunks came curiously up to his very feet, only to scurry away when he stirred like a sleeper in pain. He had cut himself off entirely from the life at The Corners. He had sent money home to John, but had concealed his own address carefully. The enormity of his folly now came back to him, racking him till he groaned. He heard the patter of feet and the half-mumbled monologue of a running child. He roused up and faced a small boy, who started back in terror like a wild fawn. He was deeply surprised to find a man there, where only boys and squirrels now came. He stuck his fist in his eye, and was backing away when Will spoke.