When he woke it was late in the afternoon, and the children, fresh from school, had come out to play in the dusk.  Far and near, across the town-square, the boy could hear their merry voices, but he felt sad, for his stomach had forgotten the baker’s breakfast, and he did not see where he was likely to get any supper.  So he pulled out his pipe, and made a mournful song to himself of the dancing gnats and the bitter odour of the bonfires in the townsfolk’s gardens.  And the children drew near to hear him sing, for they thought his song was pretty, until their fathers drove them home, saying, “That stuff has no educational value.”

“Why haven’t you a message?” they asked the boy.

“I come to tell you that the grass is green beneath your feet and that the sky is blue over your heads.”

“Oh I but we know all that,” they answered.

“Do you!  Do you!” screamed the boy.  “Do you think you could stop over your absurd labours if you knew how blue the sky is?  You would be out singing on the hills with me!”

“Then who would do our work?” they said, mocking him.

“Then who would want it done?” he retorted; but it’s ill arguing on an empty stomach.

But when they had tired of telling him what a fool he was, and gone away, the tailor’s little daughter crept out of the shadows and patted him on the shoulder.

“I say, boy!” she whispered.  “I’ve brought you some supper.  Father doesn’t know.”  The boy blessed her and ate his supper while she watched him like his mother and when he had done she kissed him on the lips.

“There, boy!” she said.

“You have nice golden hair,” the boy said.

“See! it shines in the dusk.  It strikes me it’s the only gold I shall get in this town.”

“Still it’s nice, don’t you think?” the girl whispered in his ear.  She had her arms round his neck.

“I love it,” the boy said joyfully; “and you like my songs, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes, I like them very much, but I like you better.”

The boy put her off roughly.

“You’re as bad as the rest of them,” he said indignantly.  “I tell you my songs are everything, I am nothing.”

“But it was you who ate my supper, boy,” said the girl.

The boy kissed her remorsefully.  “But I wish you had liked me for my songs,” he sighed.  “You are better than any silly old songs!”

“As bad as the rest of them,” the boy said lazily, “but somehow pleasant.”

The shadows flocked to their evening meeting in the square, and overhead the stars shone out in a sky that was certainly exceedingly blue.

IV

Next morning they arrested the boy as a rogue and a vagabond, and in the afternoon they brought him before the magistrate.

“And what have you to say for yourself!” said the magistrate to the boy, after the second policeman, like a faithful echo, had finished reading his notes.