“Oh, they’ll all come if you want them,” Aunt Caroline assured him. “He doesn’t,” said her father. “It is only the reckless Palmer who has fascinated him.” The doctor nodded. “I admit it. After all, it was rather a big thing, you know, to bring off at his age. It’s quite interesting. I’ve often wondered if coolness and courage of that sort spring from insensibility, or if they can exist along with more domestic qualities. This Palmer, for instance, may really have in him the makings of a first-class criminal――not one like the poor devil he collared, but the real genuine superior article.” “Don’t, doctor; you oughtn’t to say such things,” murmured Aunt Caroline, a little shocked. “Oh, I’m only joking: any one can see he’s a decent little chap.... However, I’ll not keep you out of bed any longer.” “You’re not keeping me,” Aunt Caroline assured him. “I shan’t get a wink till Grif comes home.” “Well, I’ll look in during the day and hear the news.” CHAPTER XII THE SPRING SONG ‘I heard among the solitary hills Low breathings coming after me, and sounds Of undistinguishable motion, steps Almost as silent as the turf they trod.’ ――_Wordsworth._ ‘Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child.’ ――_Blake._ Grif was awakened by a din of many voices. He opened his eyes in the sweet colourless light of dawn, and his ears to the loud choristers who sang above him, pouring out a stream of joyous, careless notes, and exulting each one in his own music. He could see some of the singers as they flitted between the branches, he could hear the brushing of their wings:――the light grew stronger and more silvery. Pouncer slept on through all the clamour, but Grif rose and stretched himself and climbed out of the hollow. Though his bed had been soft and warm enough, he felt rather stiff and uncomfortable. Below him, about a hundred yards away, lay the river――grey, with a whitish mist above it:――and beyond the river were fields, looking strangely solitary in the new daylight. Close to him a large grey hare squatted on his haunches, gazing at him more in surprise than alarm; a squirrel gambolled in the branches of a fir-tree; and the birds fluttered about him, darting over the grass, as if quite heedless of his presence.