And I said to myself: "None of those
thoughts of yours are new, and in a vague way even you have thought them
before; but all the same, they have given you some little feeling of
tranquillity."
And at that word of fear I rose and invited my companion to return toward
the town. But as we stealthy crept by the "Osteria di Tranquillita," our
friend in the bowler hat came out with a gun over his shoulder and waved
his hand toward the Inn.
"You come again in two week--I change all that! And now," he added, "I
go to shoot little bird or two," and he disappeared into the golden haze
under the olive-trees.
A minute later we heard his gun go off, and returned homeward with a
prayer.
1910.
MAGPIE OVER THE HILL
I lay often that summer on a slope of sand and coarse grass, close to the
Cornish sea, trying to catch thoughts; and I was trying very hard when I
saw them coming hand in hand.
She was dressed in blue linen, and a little cloud of honey-coloured hair;
her small face had serious eyes the colour of the chicory flowers she was
holding up to sniff at--a clean sober little maid, with a very touching
upward look of trust. Her companion was a strong, active boy of perhaps
fourteen, and he, too, was serious--his deep-set, blacklashed eyes looked
down at her with a queer protective wonder; the while he explained in a
soft voice broken up between two ages, that exact process which bees
adopt to draw honey out of flowers.
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