The Spring Song

Leaning back against the leather cushion of the railway-carriage, Griffith Weston was conscious of an endless panorama of fields and meadows, of green hedges and white hawthorn,...

‘Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures, Whilst the landscape round it measures; Russet lawns, and fallows gray, Where the nibbling flocks do stray; * * * * * Meadows trim...

Grif wandered out on to the croquet-lawn, where the others were knocking balls against hoops in a desultory fashion, all playing at once, and arguing at the tops of their voices.

Pan and Syrinx, the two stable cats, glided like ghosts from their hiding-place, pausing guiltily, every yard or two, as they crossed the lawn, bent on secret deeds that would n...

‘I have been here before, But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door, The sweet keen smell, The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.’

‘And storied windows richly dight Casting a dim religious light: There let the pealing organ blow * * * * * In service high and anthems clear, As may with sweetness, through min...

The sight of the croquet-hoops, looking lonely and deserted on the grey lawn, where they were now scarcely distinguishable, reminded him of the tournament, and when, very shamef...

The day promised badly from the beginning. During breakfast a slight drizzle began to fall, and it was decided that the croquet tournament, which was now nearing its finish, had...

The circus was but a sorry affair――a poor travelling show, with a few lean horses, a troup of performing dogs, a sick monkey in a cage, and several dubious specimens of humanity...

‘But who that beauteous Boy beguil’d, That beauteous Boy to linger here? Alone, by night, a little child, In place so silent and so wild―― Has he no friend, no loving mother near?’

Ann had followed Grif a little way down the road, but she soon turned aside to hunt for Pouncer on her own account. Not that she had much hope of finding him: it was indeed more...

Grif was awakened by a din of many voices. He opened his eyes in the sweet colourless light of dawn, and his ears to the loud choristers who sang above him, pouring out a stream...

‘Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of...

Grif, clutching his Bible under one arm, ran across the graveyard, but Palmer was already speeding down the road like a hunted deer, while Mr. Bradley leaned over the gate wavin...

‘It’ was a brownish, extremely unattractive-looking preparation, of a treacly nature, which Palmer had compounded with the intention of smearing the trunks of the trees after da...

Next morning Grif declared himself better, but Aunt Caroline drew her own conclusions from the fact that he showed no great eagerness to get up. She had sent Edward for Doctor O...

Doctor O’Neill called again that evening, simply, he said, because he happened to be passing. Yet he stayed some little time, and when he came downstairs with Aunt Caroline he d...

‘Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes, Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose On this afflicted prince; fall like a cloud, In gentle showers; give nothing that is loud...

The doctor had expected him to betray some surprise, but judging from his manner Palmer might have been granting mysterious interviews all his life. His unruffled serenity, inde...

‘Accept at our hands, we pray you, These mean presents, to express Greater love than we profess. * * * * * Gifts these are, such as were wrought By their hands that them have br...

In full view of the Weston family Palmer took his seat in the car, closed the door, and nodded reply to the chauffeur’s “All right, sir?”――nevertheless, this was not the way he...

‘The dogs they do bay, and the timbrels play, The spindle is now a-turning; The moon it is red, and the stars are fled, But all the sky is a-burning.’

‘And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams Are where thy dark eye glances, And where thy footstep gleams―― In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams.’

Owing to what the doctor had said it was decided that Grif was not to go to school till an answer should have been received to Aunt Caroline’s letter:――Edward and Palmer would b...