are the darkest of shades, that impart to the
forest an atmosphere of dreary coldness. Usually I hie away with haste
at sunset, but there are occasions when I have dallied longer than I
have intended, and only realised my error when it has been too late. I
have then, controlled by the irresistible fascination of the woods,
waited and watched. I well recollect, for example, being caught in this
way in a Hampshire spinney, at that time one of my most frequented
haunts. The day had been unusually close and stifling, and the heat, in
conjunction with a hard morning's work--for I had written, God only
knows how long, without ceasing,--made me frightfully sleepy, and on
arriving at my favourite spot beneath a lofty pine, I had slept till,
for very shame, my eyelids could keep closed no longer. It was then nine
o'clock, and the metamorphosis of sunset had commenced in solemn
earnest. The evening was charming, ideal of the heart of summer; the air
soft, sweetly scented; the sky unspotted blue. A peaceful hush, broken
only by the chiming of some distant church bells, and the faint, the
very faint barking of dogs, enveloped everything and instilled in me a
false sensation of security. Facing me was a diminutive glade padded
with downy grass, transformed into a pale yellow by the lustrous rays of
the now encrimsoned sun. Fainter and fainter grew the ruddy glow, until
there was nought of it left but a pale pink streak, whose delicate
marginal lines still separated the blue of the sky from the quickly
superseding grey. A barely perceptible mist gradually cloaked the grass,
whilst the gloom amid the foliage on the opposite side of the glade
intensified. There was now no sound of bells, no barking of dogs; and
silence, a silence tinged with the sadness so characteristic of summer
evenings, was everywhere paramount. A sudden rush of icy air made my
teeth chatter. I made an effort to stir, to escape ere the grotesque and
intangible horrors of the wood could catch me. I ignominiously failed;
the soles of my feet froze to the ground. Then I felt the slender,
graceful body of the pine against which I leaned my back, shake and
quiver, and my hand--the hand that rested on its bark--grew damp and
sticky.

I endeavoured to avert my eyes from the open space confronting them. I
failed; and as I gazed, filled with the anticipations of the damned,
there suddenly burst into view, with all the frightful vividness
associated only with the occult, a t