of a dulcimer. Far off, an owl hooted, an
otter barked; and then as he crossed the middle of the orchard he was
hearing nothing but apples fall with solemn thud, until the noise of the
lock-gate swallowed all lighter sounds. Here the mist had temporarily
dissolved, and in the moonlight he could see water gushing forth like an
arch of lace and the long bramble-sprays combing the shallows below.
Soon the orchard was left behind and he was in the mist of a wide
meadow, where all was silent again except for the faint sobbing of the
grass to his footsteps. He walked straight into the moon's face,
stumbling from time to time over molehills with an eery fragrance of
fresh-turned soil, and wishing he could ever say in verse a little of
the magic this autumnal night was shedding upon his fancy.

"By gad! if I can't write here, I ought to be shot," he declared.

The church clock struck the half-hour as appositely as if his own father
had said something about the need for hurrying up and showing what he
could do.

"Ah, but I'm not going to be hurried," said Guy, aloud. And since the
clock could not answer him again, it was as good as having the best of
an argument.

Guy walked on, and after a while could hear once more the purling of the
stream. He thought there was something strangely human about this river
in the way it wandered so careless of direction. When he had left these
banks, they had been going away from him: now here they were coming back
like himself towards the moon, so that presently he was able without
changing his course to walk under their border of willows. The mist had
drifted away from the stream, leaving the spires of loosestrife plainly
visible, and more dimly on the other side the forms of huge cattle at
pasture. There was, too, a smell of meadowsweet softening with a summer
languor the sharp September night. The willows gave way to overhanging
thickets of hawthorn, as the river suddenly swept round to make a noose
that was completed but a few yards ahead of where he was standing. He
could not see on account of the bushes the size of the peninsula so
formed, and when suddenly he heard from the depths a sound of laughter,
so full was his brain of moonshine that if he had come face to face with
a legendary queen of fairies, he would hardly have been surprised. It
was with the deliberate encouragement of a vision surpassing all the
fantasies of moon and mist that Guy stopped; and, indeed, on a sensuous
im