Gently and
cleverly they restored it to the bush whence Stumper had removed it.
It went to join the snail-shell and the beetle. They stood a moment in
silence and watched the quiet way it hid itself among the waves of
green the wind stirred to and fro. It seemed to melt away. It hid
itself. It left them. It was gone.
And Stumper turned and looked at them with the air of a man who has
justified himself. He had certainly discovered definite signs.
But there was bewilderment among the group as well as pleasure. For
signs, they began to realise now, were everywhere indeed. The world
was smothered with them. There was no one clear track that they could
follow. All Nature seemed organised to hide the thing they looked for.
It was a conspiracy. It was, indeed, an "enormous hide," an endless
game of hide-and-seek. The interest and the wonder increased sensibly
in their hearts. The thing they sought to find, the Stranger, "It," by
whatever name each chose to call the mysterious and evasive "hider,"
was so marvellously hidden. The glimpse they once had known seemed
long, long ago, and very far away. It lay like a sweet memory in each
heart, half forgotten, half remembered, but always entirely believed
in, very dear and very exquisite.
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