It certainly came from the wall.
He looked again, and, scanning it in this strange, new light, was
aware of a wren in one of the crevices.
"Will he? will he?" piped another voice, pretty close behind his ear.
Young John, now he had learnt that wrens can talk, had no difficulty
in recognising this other voice: it was the half-hearted note of the
titlark. He turned over on his side and peered into the shadow of
the Main-Stone; but in vain, for the titlark is a hesitating, unhappy
little soul that never quite dares to make up its mind. It used to
be the friend of a race that inhabited Cornwall ages ago. It builds
in their cromlechs, and its song remembers them. It is the bird,
too, in whose nest the cuckoo lays; so it knows all about losing
one's children and being dispossessed.
"We will give him a gift," chirruped the wren, "and send him about
his business. He is the first man that has the sense to leave us to
ours."
"But will he?--will he?" the titlark piped back ghostlily. "One can
never be sure. I have known men long, long before ever you came
here. I knew King Arthur. This rock was his table, and he dined
here with seven other kings on the night after they had beaten the
Danes at Vellandruchar.
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