“For a year and a day this joy was his. Then the fountain ceased to rise, and the dove to beat its pinions in the spray, and the wild fawn to drink at the water’s edge. The rumour went from mouth to mouth that this was because the plague had come again. The king was heavy with sorrow, for he had taken his deepest happiness in the beauty of these three lovely things, as, of yore, in the beauty of his aged mother, and in the beauty of the woman whom he loved, and in the beauty of his little son. So once again he remembered how he had been helped. With shame at his heart he upbraided himself because he had lived too much to the things of the moment and so had lost touch with those which were of the enduring life. That night he spent in unspoken prayer and prolonged meditation; and at dawn on the morrow he went slowly and sadly forth, hoping against hope that his life might be gladdened again. “The sun rose as he crossed the glade of ilex and pine. There was no fountain, as he well knew; but where the fountain had been he saw a garth of wild hyacinths, of a blue so wonderful that no Maytide sky was ever more delicately wrought of azure and purple. And above this were two little brown birds, which sang with so sweet voice and bewildered rapture that his heart melted within him. “Then he knew that in these new joys he had found again the beauty he had lost. “When, in the change of the days, the hyacinths spilt their blue wave into the rising green of the fern, and the birds ceased singing their lovely aerial songs, the king no longer grieved, for now he knew that what was beautiful would not perish but drift from change to change. “And so it was. For when, weary of his pain, he went forth one night to the lovely glade of ilex and pine, he saw the ground white with the little blooms we call Stars of Bethlehem, and among these a glow-worm lay and glowed like a lamp in a white wilderness, and from an ancient ilex came the voice of a nightingale. “Thus the king was comforted. “And so you too, Peterkin,” added Ian Mor, “need not sorrow too much for your little dead bird. It will live again mayhap in the fragrance of a lily or in the beauty of a rose. It will rise again, Peterkin.” This tale had sunk deeply into the child’s mind, and perhaps all the more so because the words, and the meaning behind the words, were sometimes beyond him. But he understood well the drift of what Ian Mor had told him. He was prepared for any miracle. If his little bird should rise through the brown earth and ascend singing towards the stars; or if he should hear a song and see no bird; or if a fount should well from where its body lay; or if a rare bloom should spring from the earth; or if a fragrance, new and sweet, should reach him--if one of these things should happen, or anything akin, it would be no surprise to him. But while he was still wondering, he heard voices. “Peterkin! Peterkin!”