no need of revolution; if the simplicity of republics could ever be so grand, there would be no need of kings.

I, too, lay down upon my back, with my hands clasped loosely behind my head and watched him climb, quivering step by quivering step, up that long ladder of light. And ceaselessly with every breath, in-taken or out-spent, he poured forth his tireless song of praise. Up into the bright air that song rose with him; then, like a fountain playing in the heat, fell fast in glittering drops of sound that splashed upon our ears till we were drenched in it.

"I wonder who taught him," said Bellwattle, presently, below her breath.

"Surely there's no teaching in that," I replied. "It's just the unlearnt power to be one's self. If a man could make his home of dried grass and twigs and be content to build it fresh with every year; if he could live so close to the earth and be so little chained to it—he could do something as simply and as grandly as that without being taught."

Bellwattle looked round at me. There is a quality in her which is truly engaging. Whenever one talks seriously to her, she takes it seriously. She takes it literally, too.

"Would he be able to sing like that?" she asked.

"There are some men I know," said I, "who wouldn't."

"What could he do, then?"

"Among other things, be contented."

"Why don't you live like that, then?" she asked. "Cruikshank does. I don't think he'd care if the house fell to the ground to-morrow."

"So long as his garden was not destroyed," I suggested.

"No, he wouldn't mind if his garden was ruined, too. It's making a garden he likes. Building his nest afresh, I suppose. There's a little cottage up behind the farm that belongs to us. It stands in a hollow on the cliffs. I'll show it you one day. He's going to make a garden there. If he were shipwrecked on a desert island, he'd begin the next day to choose a site. Is it site? How do you spell it? S-i-g-h-t?"

"It can be spelt that way," said I.

"Well, it's very silly," she continued. "I should 

 Prev. P 58/182 next