the deaths of all that ever lived there, as indeed it was.  I looked through a hole in the wall into an inner chamber where a worn-out driving band went among many wheels, and there this priceless inimitable stuff not merely clothed the walls but hung from bars and ceiling in beautiful draperies, in marvellous festoons.  Nothing was ugly in this desolate house, for the busy artist’s soul of its present lord had beautified everything in its desolation.  It was the unmistakable work of the spider, in whose house I was, and the house was utterly desolate but for him, and silent but for the roar of the Wrellis and the shout of the little stream.  Then I turned homewards; and as I went up and over the hill and lost the sight of the village, I saw the road whiten and harden and gradually broaden out till the tracks of wheels appeared; and it went afar to take the young men of Wrellisford into the wide ways of the earth—­to the new West and the mysterious East, and into the troubled South.

And that night, when the house was still and sleep was far off, hushing hamlets and giving ease to cities, my fancy wandered up that aimless road and came suddenly to Wrellisford.  And it seemed to me that the travelling of so many people for so many years between Wrellisford and John o’ Groat’s, talking to one another as they went or muttering alone, had given the road a voice.  And it seemed to me that night that the road spoke to the river by Wrellisford bridge, speaking with the voice of many pilgrims.  And the road said to the river:  ‘I rest here.  How is it with you?’

And the river, who is always speaking, said:  ’I rest nowhere from doing the Work of the World.  I carry the murmur of inner lands to the sea, and to the abysses voices of the hills.’

‘It is I,’ said the road, ’that do the Work of the World, and take from city to city the rumour of each.  There is nothing higher than Man and the making of cities.  What do you do for Man?’

And the river said:  ’Beauty and song are higher than Man.  I carry the news seaward of the first song of the thrush after the furious retreat of winter northward, and the first timid anemone learns from me that she is safe and that spring has truly come.  Oh but the song of all the birds in spring is more beautiful than Man, and the first coming of the hyacinth more delectable than his face!  When spring is fallen upon the days of summer, I carry away with mournful joy at night petal by petal the rhododendron’s bloom.  No lit procession of purple kings is nigh so fair as that.  No beautiful death of well-beloved men hath such a glory of forlornness.  And I bear far away the pink and white petals of the apple-blossom’s youth when the laborious time comes for his work in the world and for the bearing of apples.  And I am robed each day and every night anew with the beauty of heaven, and I make lovely visions of the trees.  But Man!  What is Man?  In the ancient parliament of the elder hills, when the grey ones speak together, they say nought of Man, but concern themselves only with their brethren the stars.  Or when they wrap themselves in purple cloaks at evening, they lament some old irreparable wrong, or, uttering some mountain hymn, all mourn the set of sun.’