“When Love wants this, and Pain wants that,
And all our hearts want Tit for Tat.”
Matthew Browne
Gratian almost danced along the moor path on his way home that evening; he felt so happy. Never had he loved Fergus and his mother so much—he could not now understand how he had ever lived without them, and like a child he did not think of how he ever could do so. He let the future take care of itself. It was cold of course. He rather fancied that White-wings was not far off, and once or twice he stood still to listen. It was some little time now since he had heard anything of his friends. But at first nothing Suddenly a breath—a waft rather of soft air blew over his face. It was not White-wings, and most certainly not Gray-wings. Gratian looked up in surprise—he could hardly expect the soft western sister “Yes, it is I,” she said; “you can hardly believe it, can you? I am only passing by—no one else will know I have been here. I don’t generally come when you are in such merry spirits—I don’t feel that you need me then. But as I was not so very far off, I thought I’d give you a kiss on my way. So you told them.” “Yes,” said Gratian, “they did, indeed. But, Green-wings, I’m glad you’ve come, for I wanted to ask you, if they ask me if I made it all up myself, what can I say? I’m so afraid of telling what isn’t true; but you know I couldn’t explain about you and the others. I couldn’t if I tried.”
“You are not meant to do so,” replied she quickly. “What have you said when Fergus has asked you about other stories?”
“I have said I couldn’t explain how I knew them—that sometimes they were a sort of dream. I didn’t want to say I had made them all myself, though I have partly made them—you know I have, Green-wings.”
“Certainly—it was not I for instance, who told you the very remarkable fact of natural history that you related at the end of the story?” said Green-wings with her soft laugh. “You may quite take the credit of that. But I won’t laugh at you, dear. It is true that they are your stories, and yet a sort of dream.
No one but you could hear them—no one would say that the whispers of the wind talking language to you, are anything but the reflection of your own pretty fancies. It will be all right—you will see.”
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