He somehow felt that it was not yet the human hour. All the creatures seemed to know this and to ignore him. Above the fields a delicate scarlet flush was rising, staining the sky, spreading rapidly, and always growing brighter. The scarlet faded into a green cloud of light, and streaks of gold fire shot up, like the streaming banners of the approaching sun. To Grif, standing there on the bank above the river, the sound of the tremendous chariot wheels was clearly audible, and the beating hoofs of the great flaming horses, rushing upward, an immense wind and fire in their manes. Before their headlong course the white mist broke and fled in a host of shadowy phantoms, with waving arms and pale tossing hair. He saw them as a white army retreating in disorder: and the light, dazzling, glorious, flowed on and on, spread abroad, resistless, effortless, as an incoming tide. The fields reflected it; the dew on the grass blazed like a carpet of precious gems; it beat downward and upward; the last lingering remnant of the misty host vanished; and Grif stood, a solitary witness of their rout, on the golden threshold of the summer morning. His eyes were filled with a flickering, unearthly beauty; his whole being was possessed by it as by a soundless, smokeless flame. The birds had ceased to sing: it was the hour of breakfast and all were busy. But Grif’s own voice arose and he sang the song of the river. The hare had disappeared, and Grif returned to Pouncer. Curiously enough he had no feeling of loneliness or anxiety. It was a sign perhaps of that independence, or detachment, of which Miss Johnson had warned Aunt Caroline, when she had alluded to his habit of picking up with strangers. It is true he knew more or less where he was, and had no doubt but that an hour or two’s walking would bring him safely to the Glebe; but he was conscious of no particular eagerness to start; the adventure had come to him, and he felt perfectly content to see it out. When he awoke for the second time it was in the full heat of day. Above him a dark horse-chestnut spread its broad branches like a gigantic umbrella, through which the sun streamed in green bands of fire. The brown soil showed between thin blades of tender green grass. From somewhere behind him came the monotonous crooning of a ring-dove. He called to Pouncer and ran down to the river.