------------------------------------------------------------------------ “Il faut d’abord rendre l’organe de la vision analogue et semblable à l’objet qu’il doit contempler.” _Maeterlinck._ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Watcher ON the following day we went out soon after breakfast and walked up and down a grass path between two yew hedges; the dew was not yet off the grass that lay in shadow; and thin patches of gossamer still hung like torn cambric on the yew shoots on either side. As we passed for the second time up the path, the old man suddenly stooped and pushing aside a dock-leaf at the foot of the hedge lifted a dead mouse, and looked at it as it lay stiffly on the palm of his hand, and I saw that his eyes filled slowly with the ready tears of old age. “He has chosen his own resting-place,” he said. “Let him lie there. Why did I disturb him?”––and he laid him gently down again; and then gathering a fragment of wet earth he sprinkled it over the mouse. “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes,” he said, “in sure and certain hope”––and then he stopped; and straightening himself with difficulty walked on, and I followed him. “You seemed interested,” he said, “in my story yesterday. Shall I tell you how I saw a very different sight when I was a little older?” And when I had told him how strange and attractive his story had been, he began. “I told you how I found it impossible to see again what I had seen in the glade. For a few weeks, perhaps months, I tried now and then to force myself to feel that Presence, or at least to see that robe, but I could not, because it is the gift of God, and can no more be gained by effort than ordinary sight can be won by a sightless man; but I soon ceased to try.