The elder hunter bethinks him of a solution for this problem. The broken blade will do to gnaw off this bough, and it will serve to make a split in the end of it. And if one be fortunate, and if this split bestride the tail of the concealed animal, and if the stick be twisted—

“I’ve got him!” cried this philosopher for his “Eureka.” And then there was twisting and pulling, and scratching and squeaking, and bitten fingers and tears; but after all was over, there lay the squirrel vanquished, at the feet of these young barbarians who had wandered out from home into the unknown lands of earth. Cruel barbarians, thoughtless, relentless! But how much has the world changed?

The moon was over Ajalon when these two hunters, after all the perils of the long, black road, marched up into the dooryard, bearing on a pole between them their quarry, well suspended by the gambrels. “My boys, I feared that you were lost!” exclaims the tearful mother who stands waiting in the door. But the silent father, standing back of her in the glow of the lamplight, sees what the pole is bearing, and in his eye there is a smile. After that, motherly reproach, fatherly inquiry, plenteous bread and milk, many eager explanations and much descriptive narrative simultaneously uttered by two mouths eager both to eat and to talk.

“I see it all,” I said to the Singing Mouse. “It all comes back again. No chase was ever or will ever be so great as this one—back there, near the Delectable Mountains, in those days gone by, those incomparable days of youth! I thank you, Singing Mouse; but I beg you do not go for yet a time. The heads upon the wall grin much, and the dust lies thick upon them all.”

The Passing
of Men

Onenight the moon was shining brightly upon the curtain, which had beendrawn tight across the window. Within the room the light was dim, sothat there could be seen clearly the pictures which the moon was drawingon the curtain, figures which marched, advanced, receded. One mightalmost have thought these the shadows of some moving boughs, had one notknown the ways the moon has at certain times.

It chanced that high up in the curtain there was a tiny hole, andthrough this opening the moonlight streamed, falling upon the table in asmall, silvery ellipse,of a size which one might cover ten times with one’s hand. It wasnatural that in this little well of pale and dreamlike radiance theSinging Mouse should find it fit to manifest itself. I knew notwhen it came, but as I looked, the spot had found a tenant. The small,transparent paws of the Singing Mouse displayed no shadow as they wavedand swung across this pencil of the pale, mysterious light. Yet its eyesshone opaline and brilliant as it sat, so that I could hardly gazewithout a shiver of surprise akin to fear, fascinated as though I lookedupon a thing unreal. Thus surrounded, almost one might say thuspenetrated, by the translucent shaft of radiance which came through thewindow, the Singing Mouse told me of the figures on the curtain, whichnow began to have more distinct semblances.

“Do you see the figures there?” said the Singing Mouse. “Do you see the marching men? Have you never heard the hoofs ring on the roof when the wind blows high? Have you not seen their ranks sweep swift across the sky when storms arise? Have you never seen them marching through the long aisles of the wood at night? These are the warriors of the past. Now earth has always loved the warriors.”

I looked, and indeed it was the truth. There was a panorama on the curtain. History had unrolled her scroll. The warriors of the nations and the times were passing.