As he started toward his window to close the shutters, his eye caught sight of an object hanging from the window sash. A paper was pinned around it. The handwriting was Elinor's. It was a bluejay, brought down by a lucky stone from some cottager's hand. Webster read Elinor's message for him: "Your favourite Kentucky Warbler, From your old friend, Thomas Jefferson." He sat on the side of his bed. The sights and sounds and fragrances of the pasture were all through him; the sunlight warmed his blood still, the young blood of perfect health. He turned in for the night and sleep drew him away at once from reality. And some time during the night he awoke out of his sleep to the reality of a great dream. [Illustration: chapter III--end decoration] [Illustration: chapter IV--title decoration] IV THE BIRD It was in the depths of a wonderful forest, green with summer and hoary with age. He was sitting on the ground in a small open space. No path led to this or away from it, but all around him grew grasses and plants which would be natural coverts for wild creatures. No human tread had ever crushed those plants. The soft vivid light resting on the woods was not morning-light nor evening-light: it was clear light without the hours. Yet the time must have been near noonday; for as Webster looked straight up toward the unseen sky, barred from his eyes by the forest roof of leaves, slender beams of sunlight filtered perpendicularly down, growing mistier as they descended until they could be traced no longer even as luminous vapour; no palest radiance from them reached the grass. He could not see far in any direction. At the edge of the open space where he sat, fallen rotten trees lay amid the standing live ones--parents, grandparents, great-grandparents of the rising forest, passing back into the soil of the planet toward the rocks. Strange as was the spot, stranger was Webster to himself and did not know what had changed him. It seemed that for the first time in his life his eyes were fully opened; never had he seen with such vision; and his feeling was so deep, so intense. The whole scene was enchantment. It was more than reality. _He_ was more than reality. The singing of birds far away--it was so crystal sweet, yet he could see none. A few yards from him a rivulet made its way from somewhere to somewhere. He could trace its course by the growth of plants which crowded its banks and covered it with their leaves. Expectancy weighed heavily on him. He was there for a purpose but could not say what the purpose was.