stands close beside it--and these are the only landmarks--he did not
even trouble to charge his gun. For the miracle was happening
already.

It began--as perhaps most miracles do--very slowly and gently,
without his perceiving it; quite trivially, too, and even absurdly.
It started within him, upon a thought that wren-pie was a foolish
dish after all! His mother, who prided herself upon making it, did
but pretend to enjoy it after it was cooked. His father did not even
pretend: the mass of little bones in it cheated his appetite and
spoiled his temper. From this, young John went on to consider.
"Was it worth while to go on killing wrens and shamming an appetite
for them, only because a wren had once informed against St. Stephen?
How were _these_ wrens guilty? And, anyway, how were the titlarks
guilty?" Young John reasoned it out in this simple fashion. He came
to the Main-Stone, and seating himself on the turf, leaned his back
against one of the blocks which support the huge monolith. He sat
there for a long while, puckering his brows, his gun idle beside him.
At last he said to himself, but firmly and aloud:

"Parson and the rest say 'tis true. But I can't believe it, and
something inside says 'tis wrong. . . . There! I won't shoot another
bird--and that settles it!"

"Halleluia!" said a tiny voice somewhere above him.

The voice, though' tiny, was shrill and positive. Young John
recognised, and yet did not recognise it. He stared up at the wall
of the old mine-house from which it had seemed to speak, but he could
see no one. Next he thought that the word must have come from his