'Open!' cried another voice, 'for I am a crone of the grey
hawk, and I watch over his nest in the darkness of the great wood.'
The nurse opened the door again, though her fingers could scarce hold
the bolts for trembling, and another grey woman, not less old than
the other, and with like feathers instead of hair, came in and stood
by the first. In a little, came a third grey woman, and after her a
fourth, and then another and another and another, until the hut was
full of their immense bodies. They stood a long time in perfect
silence and stillness, for they were of those whom the dropping of
the sand has never troubled, but at last one muttered in a low thin
voice: 'Sisters, I knew him far away by the redness of his heart
under his silver skin'; and then another spoke: 'Sisters, I knew him
because his heart fluttered like a bird under a net of silver cords
'; and then another took up the word: 'Sisters, I knew him because
his heart sang like a bird that is happy in a silver cage.' And after
that they sang together, those who were nearest rocking the cradle
with long wrinkled fingers; and their voices were now tender and
caressing, now like the wind blowing in the great wood, and this was
their song:
Out of sight is out of mind:
Long have man and woman-kind,
Heavy of will and light of mood,
Taken away our wheaten food,
Taken away our Altar stone;
Hail and rain and thunder alone,
And red hearts we turn to grey,
Are true till Time gutter away.
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