V

We have no means of looking into the Pigeon's mind; we may go
wrong in conjuring up for it deep thoughts of love and welcome
home; but we are safe in this, we cannot too strongly paint, we
cannot too highly praise and glorify that wonderful
God-implanted, mankind-fostered home-love that glows unquenchably
in this noble bird. Call it what you like, a mere instinct
deliberately constructed by man for his selfish ends, explain it
away if you will, dissect it, misname it, and it still is there,
in overwhelming, imperishable master-power, as long as the brave
little heart and wings can beat.

Home, home, sweet home! Never had mankind a stronger love of home
than Arnaux. The trials and sorrows of the old pigeon-loft were
forgotten in that all-dominating force of his nature. Not years
of prison bars, not later loves, nor fear of death, could down
its power; and Arnaux, had the gift of song been his, must surely
have sung as sings a hero in his highest joy, when sprang he from
the 'lighting board, up-circling free, soaring, drawn by the only
impulse that those glorious wings would honor,--up, up, in
widening, heightening circles of ashy blue in the blue, flashing
those many-lettered wings of white, till they seemed like jets of
fire--up and on, driven by that home-love, faithful to his only
home and to his faithless mate; closing his eyes, they say;
closing his ears, they tell; shutting his mind,--we all
believe,--to nearer things, to two years of his life, to one half
of his prime, but soaring in the blue, retiring, as a saint might