Then he stumbled over a parasol which lay across the path.
He looked up.
"I beg your pardon," he said, looking into a pair of blue eyes--or were they grey, or hazel? He was not quite sure, but they seemed, at any rate, Hibernian.
"It was quite my fault; I am so sorry."
"Nay, I was dreaming," said the poet.
"And, sure, so was I, too."
"I have not hurt it, I trust."
"Not at all, but it must be quite late."
"It is four o"clock."
"Good gracious, where can the child have got to?"
"You have lost some one?"
"My pupil."
The poet bowed.
"A sorrow that befalls all leaders of disciples," he observed.
Miss Gerald stared, and the poet continued, "The young will only learn when they have fledged their wings and found them weak."
"And then?"
"They come to us older ones for a remedy. Knowledge is a.s.sociated, madam, with broken wings."
"But I cannot take philosophy home to her mother--she will most certainly require Madge--and can you tell me where this path leads?"
The poet waved his hand.
"Up-stream to the village--down-stream to the mill," he said.
Miss Gerald thought a moment.
"She will have gone down stream," she exclaimed.
The poet meditated.
"I, too, have lost a boy," he said.
Miss Gerald looked surprised.
"The son of a friend," explained the poet.
"I must look for Madge at once," cried Miss Gerald, gathering up her books.
"May we search together--you know the proverb about the heads?"
She laughed.
"If you like," she said, and they followed the stream together.
"You are the poet, are you not?" asked Miss Gerald presently.
"A mere amateur."
"Lady Chantrey has a copy of your works. I have read some of them."
"I trust they gave you pleasure--at any rate amus.e.m.e.nt."
"A little of both," said Miss Gerald.
"You are very frank."
"Some of them puzzled me a little--and--and I think you belie your writings."
"For instance?"
"You sing of action, and Spring, and achievement--and love. But you live in dreams, and books, and solitude."
"I believe what I write, nevertheless."
Miss Gerald was silent, and in a minute the poet spoke again.
"You think my writings lack the ring of conviction?" he asked.
She laughed.
"They would be stronger if they bore the ring of experience," she said.
"_Experientia docet_, you know, and the poets are supposed to teach us ordinary beings."
"I don"t pretend to teach."
"Then you ought to. Is it not the duty of "us older ones," as you said just now?--The old leaves living over again in the new, you know," and she smiled. "That"s quite poetical, isn"t it, even if it is a bit of a plat.i.tude?"
"And be laughed at for our pains, even as those hopeful young debutantes are laughing at the dowdy old leaves, on that dead tree yonder."
"I knew you were no true singer of Spring."
Two children wandered back along the path.