and many fine decorations on his coat.

But the spirit of the slain bird fled away from that inhospitable
city, and went back to the Princess and told her what had befallen.





IV.




As for the poet, he went on his way alone into the open country,
and saw the peasants in the fields, reaping and gleaning and gathering
fruit and corn, for it was harvest time. And he passed through
many hamlets and villages, and sometimes he rested a night or two
at an inn; and on Sundays he heard the parish parson say prayers
and preach in some quaint little Norman or Saxon church.

And at last he came to a brand-new town, where all the houses were
Early English, and all the people dressed like ancient Greeks, and
all the manners Renaissance, or, perhaps, Gothic. The poet thought
they were Gothic, and probably he was right.

In this town the talk was mostly about Art, and many fine things
were said in regard to "sweetness and light." Everybody claimed
to be an artist of some kind, whether painter, musician, novelist,
dramatist, verse-maker, reciter, singer, or what not. But although