“The clouds were like gentle spirits,” he repeated slowly. “They were coming from eternity and could not stay. The fields were wet with dew for them. But they could not stay. The hazel-bushes were sobbing with sap for them. But they could not stay. The daisies were white with love for them. But they could not stay.”

As the man spoke, he placed his knife and fork carefully side by side, drank what was left of his great tankard, and replaced it on the table as scrupulously and softly as if it had been a living thing.

“They were going to eternity,” he added in a low voice. And then, while his melancholy grey eyes assumed a look of such abysmal sorrow that Wolf wondered to behold it, “God comes and God goes,” he said, “but no one feels Him except moles and worms. And they are blind and can’t see. They are dumb and can’t speak. I thought this morning, Darnley, that my poetry is no better than the tunnels of moles and worms.”