THE TREASURE AND THE LAW

SONG OF THE FIFTH RIVER

When first by Eden Tree,

The Four Great Rivers ran,
To each was appointed a Man
Her Prince and Ruler to be.

But after this was ordained, (The ancient legends tell), There came dark Israel,

For whom no River remained.

Then He That is Wholly Just,
Said to him: 'Fling on the ground
A handful of yellow dust,

And a Fifth Great River shall run,
Mightier than these Four,

In secret the Earth around;

And Her secret evermore,

Shall be shown to thee and thy Race.'

So it was said and done.

And, deep in the veins of Earth,
And, fed by a thousand springs
That comfort the market-place,
Or sap the power of Kings,
The Fifth Great River had birth,
Even as it was foretold-
The Secret River of Gold!

And Israel laid down

His sceptre and his crown,
To brood on that River bank,
Where the waters flashed and sank,
And burrowed in earth and fell,
And bided a season below;

For reason that none might know.
Save only Israel.

He is Lord of the Last

The Fifth, most wonderful, Flood.
He hears her thunder past
And Her Song is in his blood.
He can foresay: 'She will fall,'
For he knows which fountain dries,
Behind which desert belt

A thousand leagues to the South.
He can foresay: 'She will rise.'
He knows what far snows melt;
Along what mountain wall
A thousand leagues to the North.
He snuffs the coming drouth
As he snuffs the coming rain,
He knows what each will bring forth
And turns it to his gain.

A Prince without a Sword,
A Ruler without a Throne;
Israel follows his quest:-
In every land a guest.
Of many lands the lord.
In no land King is he.
But the Fifth Great River keeps
The secret of her deeps
For Israel alone,

As it was ordered to be.

THE TREASURE AND THE LAW

NOW it was the third week in November,

and the woods rang with the noise of pheasant-shooting. No one hunted that steep, cramped country except the village beagles, who, as often as not, escaped from their kennels and made a day of their own. Dan and Una found a couple of them towling round the kitchen-garden after the laundry cat. The little brutes were only too pleased to go rabbiting, so the children ran them all along the brook pastures and into Little Lindens farm-yard, where the old sow vanquished them and up to the quarry-hole, where they started a fox. He headed for Far Wood, and there they frightened out all the pheasants who were sheltering from a big beat across the valley. Then the cruel guns began again, and they grabbed the beagles lest they should stray and get hurt.

'I wouldn't be a pheasant-in Novemberfor a lot,' Dan panted, as he caught Folly by the neck. 'Why did you laugh that horrid way?'

'I didn't,' said Una, sitting on Flora, the fat lady-dog. 'Oh, look! The silly birds are going back to their own woods instead of ours, where they would be safe.'

An

'Safe till it pleased you to kill them.' old man, so tall he was almost a giant, stepped