And now, what is this? A sound from the trees themselves,—no multitudinous murmur this time, but a single note, small and clear and sweet, breaking like a golden arrow of sound through the cloudy depths.
Chirp, twitter! and again from the next tree, and the next, and now from all the trees, short triads, broken snatches, and at last the full chorus of song, choir answering to choir, the morning hymn of the forest.
Now, in the very tree beneath which the man lay, Chrysostom, the thrush, took up his parable, and preached his morning sermon; and if it had been set to words, they might have been something like these:—
"Sing! sing, brothers, sisters, little tender ones in the nest! Sing, for the morning is come, and God has made us another day. Sing! for praise is sweet, and our sweetest notes must show it forth. Song is the voice that God has given us to tell forth His goodness, to speak gladly of the wondrous things He hath made. Sing, brothers and sisters! be joyful, be joyful in the Lord! all sorrow and darkness is gone away, away, and light is here, and morning, and the world wakes with us to gladness and the new day. Sing, and let your songs be all of joy, joy, lest there be in the wood any sorrowing creature, who might go sadly through the day for want of a voice of cheer, to tell him that God is love, is love. Wake from thy dream, sad heart, if the friendly wood hold such an one! Sorrow is night, and night is good, for rest, and for seeing of many stars, and for coolness and sweet odours; but now awake, awake, for the day is here, and the sun arises in his might,—the sun, whose name is joy, is joy, and, whose voice is praise. Sing, sing, and praise the Lord!"
So the bird sang, praising God, and the other birds, from tree and shrub, answered as best they might, each with his song of praise; and the man, lying motionless beneath the great tree, heard, and listened, and understood.
Still he lay there, with wide open eyes, while the golden morning broke over him, and the light came sifting down, through the leaves, checkering all the ground with gold. The wood now glowed with colour, russet and green and brown, wine-like red of the tree-trunks where the sun struck aslant on them, soft yellow greens where the young ferns uncurled their downy heads. The air was sweet, sweet, with the smell of morning; was the whole world new since last night?
Suddenly from the road near by (for he had gone round in a circle, and the wooded hollow where he lay was out of sight but not out of hearing of the country road which skirted the woods for many miles), from the road near by came the sound of voices,—men's voices, which fell strange and harsh on his ears, open for the first time to the music of the world, and still ringing with the morning hymn of joy. What were these harsh voices saying?
"They think she'll live now?"
"Yes, she'll pull through, unless she frets herself bad again about
Jacques. Nobody'd heerd a word of him when I come away."
"Been out all night, has he?"