dinner, over the walnuts and the wine, Sir Nathaniel returned to
the subject of the local legends.

"It will perhaps be a less dangerous topic for us to discuss than more
recent ones."

"All right, sir," said Adam heartily. "I think you may depend on me now
with regard to any topic. I can even discuss Mr. Caswall. Indeed, I may
meet him to-morrow. He is going, as I said, to call at Mercy Farm at
three o'clock--but I have an appointment at two."

"I notice," said Mr. Salton, "that you do not lose any time."

The two old men once more looked at each other steadily. Then, lest the
mood of his listener should change with delay, Sir Nathaniel began at
once:

"I don't propose to tell you all the legends of Mercia, or even to make a
selection of them. It will be better, I think, for our purpose if we
consider a few facts--recorded or unrecorded--about this neighbourhood. I
think we might begin with Diana's Grove. It has roots in the different
epochs of our history, and each has its special crop of legend. The
Druid and the Roman are too far off for matters of detail; but it seems
to me the Saxon and the Angles are near enough to yield material for
legendary lore. We find that this particular place had another name
besides Diana's Grove. This was manifestly of Roman origin, or of
Grecian accepted as Roman. The other is more pregnant of adventure and
romance than the Roman name. In Mercian tongue it was 'The Lair of the
White Worm.' This needs a word of explanation at the beginning.

"In the dawn of the language, the word 'worm' had a somewhat different
meaning from that in use to-day. It was an adaptation of the Anglo-Saxon
'wyrm,' meaning a dragon or snake; or from the Gothic 'waurms,' a
serpent; or the Icelandic 'ormur,' or the German 'wurm.' We gather that
it conveyed originally an idea of size and power, not as now in the
diminutive of both these meanings. Here legendary history helps us. We
have the well-known legend of the 'Worm Well' of Lambton Castle, and that
of the 'Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh' near Bamborough. In both these
legends the 'worm' was a monster of vast size and power--a veritable
dragon or serpent, such as legend attributes to vast fens or quags where
there was illimitable room for expansion. A glance at a geological map
will show that whatever truth there may have been of the actuality of
such monsters in the early geologic periods, at least there was plenty of
possibility.