cried, and answered, and cried again: and no peace came.

The night passed. As it drew to a close, all sound, all motion, died
away; the darkness folded him close, like a mantle; the silence pressed
upon him like hands that held him down. Like a log the man lay at the
foot of the great tree, and his soul lay dead within him.

At last a change came; or did he sleep, and dream of a change? A faint
trembling in the air, a faint rustling that lost itself almost before
it reached the ear. It was gone, and all was still once more; yet with
a difference. The darkness lay less heavily: one felt that it hid many
things, instead of filling the world with itself alone.

Hark! the murmur again, not lost this time, but coming and going,
lightly, softly, brushing here and there, soft dark wings fanning the
air, making it ever lighter, thinner. Gradually the veil lifted;
things stood out, black against black, then black against grey;
straight majesty of tree-trunks, bending lines of bough and spray,
tender grace of ferns.

And now, what is this? A sound from the trees themselves,--no
multitudinous murmur this time, but a single note, small and clear and
sweet, breaking like a golden arrow of sound through the cloudy depths.

Chirp, twitter! and again from the next tree, and the next, and now
from all the trees, short triads, broken snatches, and at last the full
chorus of song, choir answering to choir, the morning hymn of the
forest.

Now, in the very tree beneath which the man lay, Chrysostom, the