They eagerly plied the man with questions.  He told them that he had killed it the day before, really.  It had been prowling for the last week or more about Kernore’s bush; probably it was a straggler from up north.

This was all intensely fascinating to Yan, but in it was a jarring note.  Evidently this man considered the Glen—­his Glen—­as an ordinary, well-known bit of bush, possibly part of his farm—­not by any means the profound mystery that Yan would have had it.

The Lynx was a fine large one.  The stripes on its face and the wide open yellow eyes gave a peculiarly wild, tiger-like expression that was deeply gratifying to Yan’s romantic soul.

It was not so much of an adventure as a might-have-been adventure; but it left a deep impress on the boy, and it also illustrated the accuracy of his instincts in identifying creatures that he had never before seen, but knew only through the slight descriptions of very unsatisfactory books.

XIV

Froth

From now on to the spring Yan was daily gaining in strength, and he and his mother came closer together.  She tried to take an interest in the pursuits that were his whole nature.  But she also strove hard to make him take an interest in her world.  She was a morbidly religious woman.  Her conversation was bristling with Scripture texts.  She had a vast store of them—­indeed, she had them all; and she used them on every occasion possible and impossible, with bewildering efficiency.

If ever she saw a group of young people dancing, romping, playing any game, or even laughing heartily, she would interrupt them to say, “Children, are you sure you can ask God’s blessing on all this?  Do you think that beings with immortal souls to save should give rein to such frivolity!  I fear you are sinning, and be sure your sin will find you out.  Remember, that for every idle word and deed we must give an account to the Great Judge of Heaven and earth.”

She was perfectly sincere in all this, but she never ceased, except during the time of her son’s illness, when, under orders from the doctor, she avoided the painful topic of eternal happiness and tried to simulate an interest in his pursuits.  This was the blessed truce that brought them together.

He found a confidante for the first time since he met the collarless stranger, and used to tell all his loves and fears among the woodfolk and things.  He would talk about this or that bird or flower, and hoped to find out its name, till the mother would suddenly feel shocked that any being with an immortal soul to save could talk so seriously about anything outside of the Bible; then gently reprove her son and herself, too, with a number of texts.

He might reply with others, for he was well equipped.  But her unanswerable answer would be:  “There is but one thing needful.  What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”