Webster looked crestfallen: he returned empty-handed but not empty-minded: he had had a great rich day; they thought it an idle wasted one.
"Some of the boys have been here for you," said his mother. "They left word you must be certain to meet them, in the morning for the game. Freshen yourself up and I'll give you your supper."
Elinor said nothing--a bad sign with her. She sat with her sharp little chin resting on her palms and with her eyes on him with calculating secrecy. He stepped around her.
His room had never seemed so cramped after those hours in the woods under the open sky. The whole cottage seemed so unnatural, everything in the City so unnatural, after that day in the forest.
At supper he had not much to say; his mother talked to him:
"I put my berries away to eat with you for company." They ate their berries together.
He felt tired and said he would go to bed. His room was darkened when he returned to it; he felt sure he had left his lamp burning; someone had been in it. He lighted his lamp again.
As he started toward his window to close the shutters, his eye caught sight of an object hanging from the window sash. A paper was pinned around it. The handwriting was Elinor's. It was a bluejay, brought down by a lucky stone from some cottager's hand. Webster read Elinor's message for him:
He sat on the side of his bed. The sights and sounds and fragrances of the pasture were all through him; the sunlight warmed his blood still, the young blood of perfect health.
He turned in for the night and sleep drew him away at once from reality. And some time during the night he awoke out of his sleep to the reality of a great dream.
[Illustration: chapter III--end decoration]
[Illustration: chapter IV--title decoration]
It was in the depths of a wonderful forest, green with summer and hoary with age. He was sitting on the ground in a small open space. No path led to this or away from it, but all around him grew grasses and plants which would be natural coverts for wild creatures. No human tread had ever crushed those plants.
The soft vivid light resting on the woods was not morning-light nor evening-light: it was clear light without the hours. Yet the time must have been near noonday; for as Webster looked straight up toward the unseen sky, barred from his eyes by the forest roof of leaves, slender beams of sunlight filtered perpendicularly down, growing mistier as they descended until they could be traced no longer even as luminous vapour; no palest radiance from them reached the grass.