But now hope was there none. His doom, his end, were fixed andchangeless. Never more could he be anything but what he was; andchange there could be none till weather and time should have donetheir work on him, and he be rotting on the wet earth, a shatteblackand worm-eaten wreck.

Day broke--a gloomy, misty morning.

From where he was crucified upon the tree-trunk he could no longereven see his beloved home, the studio; he could only see a dawny,intricate tangle of branches all about him, and below the wall offlint, with the Banksia that grew on it, and the hard muddyhighway, drenched from the storm of the evening.

A man passed in a miller's cart, and stood up and swore at him,because the people had liked to come and shoot and trap the birdsof the master's wooded gardens, and knew that they must not do itnow.