he woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate.
(They fear not men in the woods
Because they see so few)
You will hear the beat of a horse's feet
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods....
But there is no road through the woods.

Marklake Witches

When Dan took up boat-building, Una coaxed Mrs. Vincey, the farmer's
wife at Little Lindens, to teach her to milk. Mrs. Vincey milks in the
pasture in summer, which is different from milking in the shed, because
the cows are not tied up, and until they know you they will not stand
still. After three weeks Una could milk _Red Cow_ or _Kitty Shorthorn_
quite dry, without her wrists aching, and then she allowed Dan to look.
But milking did not amuse him, and it was pleasanter for Una to be alone
in the quiet pastures with quiet-spoken Mrs. Vincey. So, evening after
evening, she slipped across to Little Lindens, took her stool from the
fern-clump beside the fallen oak, and went to work, her pail between her
knees, and her head pressed hard into the cow's flank. As often as not,
Mrs. Vincey would be milking cross _Pansy_ at the other end of the
pasture, and would not come near till it was time to strain and pour
off.

Once, in the middle of a milking, _Kitty Shorthorn_ boxed Una's ear with
her tail.

'You old pig!' said Una, nearly crying, for a cow's tail can hurt.

'Why didn't you tie it down, child?' said a voice behind her.

'I meant to, but the flies are so bad I let her off--and this is what
she's done!' Una looked round, expecting Puck, and saw a curly-haired
girl, not much taller than herself, but older, dressed in a curious
high-waisted, lavender-coloured riding-habit, with a high hunched collar
and a deep cape and a belt fastened with a steel clasp. She