study and told her she might have her bit of earth. He had been in
the most beautiful places in Europe, though he had remained nowhere
more than a few days. He had chosen the quietest and remotest spots. He
had been on the tops of mountains whose heads were in the clouds and
had looked down on other mountains when the sun rose and touched them
with such light as made it seem as if the world were just being born.
But the light had never seemed to touch himself until one day when he
realized that for the first time in ten years a strange thing had
happened. He was in a wonderful valley in the Austrian Tyrol and he had
been walking alone through such beauty as might have lifted, any man s
soul out of shadow. He had walked a long way and it had not lifted his.
But at last he had felt tired and had thrown himself down to rest on a
carpet of moss by a stream. It was a clear little stream which ran
quite merrily along on its narrow way through the luscious damp
greenness. Sometimes it made a sound rather like very low laughter as
it bubbled over and round stones. He saw birds come and dip their heads
to drink in it and then flick their wings and fly away. It seemed like
a thing alive and yet its tiny voice made the stillness seem deeper.
The valley was very, very still.
As he sat gazing into the clear running of the water, Archibald Craven
gradually felt his mind and body both grow quiet, as quiet as the
valley itself. He wondered if he were going to sleep, but he was not.
He sat and gazed at the sunlit water and his eyes began to see things
growing at its edge. There was one lovely mass of blue forget-me-nots
growing so close to the stream that its leaves were wet and at these he
found himself looking as he remembered he had looked at such things
years ago. He was actually thinking tenderly how lovely it was and what
wonders of blue its hundreds of little blossoms were. He did not know
that just that simple thought was slowly filling his mind filling and
filling it until other things were softly pushed aside. It was as if a
sweet clear spring had begun to rise in a stagnant pool and had risen
and risen until at last it swept the dark water away. But of course he
did not think of this himself. He only knew that the valley seemed to
grow quieter and quieter as he sat and stared at the bright delicate
blueness. He did not know how long he sat there or what was happening
to him, but at last he moved as if he were awakening and he got up
slowly and stood on the moss carpet, drawing a long, deep, soft breath
and wondering at himself. Something seemed to have been unbound and
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