They knew nothing but life and
flight and mating, and the gold of the sun. So they sing." That she had
once said.
He listened until the jewelled rain seemed to have fallen into his soul.
Then he went on his way smiling as he knew he had never smiled in his
life before. He knew it because he realised that he had never before
felt the same vigorous, light normality of spirit, the same sense of
being as other men. It was as though something had swept a great clear
space about him, and having room for air he breathed deep and was glad
of the commonest gifts of being.
The bathing pool had been the greatest pleasure of his uncared-for
boyhood. No one knew which long passed away Mount Dunstan had made it.
The oldest villager had told him that it had "allus ben there," even in
his father's time. Since he himself had known it he had seen that it was
kept at its best.
Its dark blue depths reflected in their pellucid clearness the water
plants growing at its edge and the enclosing shrubs and trees. The turf
bordering it was velvet-thick and green, and a few flag-steps led down
to the water. Birds came there to drink and bathe and preen and dress
their feathers. He knew there were often nests in the bushes--sometimes
the nests of nightingales who filled the soft darkness or moonlight of
early June with the wonderfulness of nesting song.
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