of hell or heaven? I won't go
(he is dying of curiosity all the while); I won't. I have no wish to
endanger my soul: besides, the wood yonder is haunted. Many's the time
that things unfit to see have been found on the moor. Haven't you
heard about Jacqueline, who was there one evening looking for one of
her sheep? Well, when she returned, she was crazy. I won't go."

Thus unknown to each other, many of the men at least went thither. For
as yet the women hardly dared so great a risk. They remark the dangers
of the road, ask many questions of those who return therefrom. The new
Pythoness is not like her of Endor, who raised up Samuel at the prayer
of Saul. Instead of showing you the ghosts, she gives you cabalistic
words and powerful potions to bring them back in your dreams. Ah, how
many a sorrow has recourse to these! The grandmother herself,
tottering with her eighty years, would behold her grandson again. By
an unwonted effort, yet not without a pang of shame at sinning on the
edge of the grave, she drags herself to the spot. She is troubled by
the savage look of a place all rough with yews and thorns, by the
rude, dark beauty of that relentless Proserpine. Prostrate,
trembling, grovelling on the ground, the poor old woman weeps and
prays. Answer there is none. But when she dares to lift herself up a
little, she sees that Hell itself has been a-weeping.

* * * * *

It is simply Nature recovering herself. Proserpine blushes
self-indignantly thereat. "Degenerate soul!" she calls herself, "why
this weakness? You came hither with the firm desire of doing nought
but evil. Is this your master's lesson? How he will laugh at you for
this!"

"Nay! Am I not the great shepherd of the shades, making them come and
go, opening unto them the gate of dreams? Your Dante, when he drew my
likeness, forgot my attributes. When he gave me that useless tail, he
did not see that I held the shepherd's staff of Osiris; that from
Mercury I had inherited his caduceus. In vain have they thought to
build up an insurmountable wall between the two worlds; I have wings
to my heels, I have flown over. By a kindly rebellion of that
slandered Spirit, of that ruthless monster, succour has been given to
those who mourned; mothers, lovers, have found comfort. He has taken
pity on them in defiance of their new god."

The scribes of the Middle Ages, being all of the priestly class, never
cared to acknowledge the deep but