"Against the earth spirits and the three hundred years," she said.
Now she lifted the jar into the hole, and together they filled the hole with earth, treading it in with their feet.
"And when you would return," said the nurse, "you know the way."
"Do I?"
"You lay the rattle, the seal, and the moon-seeds as before, and listen to the voices."
And then Dickie lay down in the cloth cloak, and the nurse sat by him and held his hand till he fell asleep. It was June now, and the scent of the roses was very sweet, and the nightingales kept him awake awhile. But the sky overhead was an old friend of his, and as he lay he could see the shining of the dew among the grass blades of the lawn. It was pleasant to lie again in the bed with the green curtains.
When he awoke there was his old friend the starry sky, and for a moment he wondered. Then he remembered. He raised himself on his elbow. There were houses all about—little houses with lights in some of the windows. A broken paling was quite close to him. There was no grass near, only rough trampled earth; the smell all about him was not of roses, but of dust-bins, and there were no nightingales but far away he could hear that restless roar that is the voice of London, and near at hand the foolish song and unsteady footfall of a man going home from the "Cat and Whistle." He scratched a cross on the hard ground with a
