story and began a free development of its own in the realms of the
Ideal. By the time it reached the Press it had become a fiction far more
imposing than any fact, and far more worthy of belief. Things that never
happened filled the foreground, and the thing that did happen had fallen
so far into the background as to be almost invisible. The incident of
the kettle had exfoliated into a whole sequence of imposing mysteries,
becoming in the process a mere germ or point of departure of no more
significance in itself than are the details in Saxo Grammaticus to a
first-class performance of _Hamlet_. Thus transfigured, the story was
indeed a drama rather than a narrative; and those who remember reading
it in that form will hardly believe that it had its origin in the humble
facts which these pages relate. The excitement it caused lasted for some
weeks, and it was almost a public disappointment when the Society for
the Investigation of Mysterious Phenomena blew a cold blast upon the
whole thing.

* * * * *

When Snarley Bob met Shepherd Toller at Valley Head, he found him
accoutred in a manner which verified his private theory as to the
levitation of the kettle. Coiled round Toller's left arm were three
slings, made from strips of raw oxhide, with pouches, large and small,
for hurling stones of various size. Slung over his back was a big bag,
also of leather, which contained his ammunition--smooth pebbles gathered
from the torrent bed, the largest being the size of a man's fist.
Strapped round his waist was a flint axe, the head being a beautiful
celt, which Toller had discovered long ago on Clun Downs, and skilfully
fixed in a handle bound with thongs.

In the days of Toller's first madness, it had been his habit to wander
over Clun Downs, equipped in this manner, He had lived in some fastness
of his own devising, and supplied his larder by the occasional slaughter
of a stolen sheep, whose skull he would split with a blow from the flint
axe. The slings were rather for amusement than hunting, though his
markmanship was excellent, and he was said to be able at any time to
bring down a rabbit, or even a bird. All day long he would wander in
unfrequented uplands, slinging stones at every object that tempted his
eye, and roaring and dancing with delight whenever he hit the mark. He
was inoffensive enough and had never been known to deliberately aim at a
human being, though more than one shooting pa