CHAPTER XVI

* * * * * I awaked in an ancient garden girt fast with four walls of peace. Not a bird-note, not a sound disturbed the profound silence. I lay on the grass dreaming myself back into childhood, the hunter of butterflies, the companion of water-rats, rabbits, and all the secret shy creatures haunting the deep green silence of English woods and waters. I knew where the yellow water-lilies raised golden heads above the ripple and the white water-lily floated, an embodied prayer with pure cha…