Once or twice his reverence woke, to thrust his head out at the window and ask where we were. Wherever we were when he did so, *twas certain never to be far enough for his fancy, and he condemned the driver for a snail until the whip cracked wickedly and the horses laboured more strenuously than ever, so that our vehicle swung upon its springs till it might well seem we were upon a ship at sea. For me he had but the one comment--“I wonder what's for _déjeuner._” He said it each time solemnly as it were his matins, and then slid into his swinish sleep again. The night seemed interminable, but by-and-by the day broke. I watched it with eagerness as it gradually paled the east, and broke up the black bulk of the surrounding land into fields, orchards, gardens, woods. And the birds awoke--God bless the little birds!--they woke, and started twittering and singing in the haze, surely the sweetest, the least sinless of created things, the tiny angels of the woods, from whom, walking in summer fields in the mornings of my age as of my youth, I have borrowed hope and cheer. Father Hamilton wakened too, and heard the birds; indeed, they filled the ear of the dawn with melodies. A smile singularly pleasant came upon his countenance as he listened. “_Pardieu!_” said he, “how they go on! Has't the woodland soul, _Sieur Croque-mort_? Likely enough not; I never knew another but myself and thine uncle that had it, and 'tis the mischief that words will not explain the same. 'Tis a gift of the fairies”--here he crossed himself devoutly and mumbled a Romish incantation--“that, having the said woodland spirit--in its nature a Pagan thing perchance, but _n'importe!_--thou hast in the song of the tiny beings choiring there something to make the inward tremor that others find in a fiddle and a glass of wine. No! no! not that, 'tis a million times more precious; 'tis--'tis the pang of the devotee, 'tis the ultimate thrill of things. Myself, I could expire upon the ecstasy of the thrush, or climb to heaven upon the lark's May rapture. And there they go! the loves! and they have the same ditty I heard from them first in Louvain. There are but three clean things in this world, my lad of Scotland--a bird, a flower, and a child's laughter. I have been confessor long enough to know all else is filth. But what's the luck in waiting for us at Azincourt? and what's the _pot-au-feu_ to-day?” He listened a little longer to the birds, and fell asleep smiling, his fat face for once not amiss, and I was left again alone as it were to receive the day.