“Yes, I know it’s his,” said the boy; “if he didn’t send messengers down there it would be all inky black and dreadful; but they won’t let his messengers get through, only a few of them, a little yellowish, greenish light.”
“Is out-of-doors his kingdom too?” then said the man.
“Of course it’s his,” said the child; “if he wasn’t there it would be dark, and the wind would sob and the trees shake their branches.”
“And what about your kingdom?”
“Oh, he makes that for me,” said the child, “to be all my own.”
The man sat a moment looking at the water and was silent; a starling chattered on the boughs above; far away came the cry of the cuckoo; at the right hand of them there was a little rustle as a snake slipped over dead leaves and through the new living shoots of spring, and paused.
The man turned to the child.
“But is it real?” he said.
“It’s just as real as the sun and the water and out-of-doors,” said the boy steadily.
“But you said some day you would get in,” answered the man, tempting him.