ow drifting to a great depth, and the frost continuing
for an unexampled period, and the summer following was as noteworthy
for its extreme heat. On one of the very hottest days in this summer,
Helen V. left the farmhouse for one of her long rambles in the forest,
taking with her, as usual, some bread and meat for lunch. She was seen
by some men in the fields making for the old Roman Road, a green
causeway which traverses the highest part of the wood, and they were
astonished to observe that the girl had taken off her hat, though the
heat of the sun was already tropical. As it happened, a labourer,
Joseph W. by name, was working in the forest near the Roman Road, and
at twelve o'clock his little son, Trevor, brought the man his dinner of
bread and cheese. After the meal, the boy, who was about seven years
old at the time, left his father at work, and, as he said, went to look
for flowers in the wood, and the man, who could hear him shouting with
delight at his discoveries, felt no uneasiness. Suddenly, however, he
was horrified at hearing the most dreadful screams, evidently the
result of great terror, proceeding from the direction in which his son
had gone, and he hastily threw down his tools and ran to see what had
happened. Tracing his path by the sound, he met the little boy, who
was running headlong, and was evidently terribly frightened, and on
questioning him the man elicited that after picking a posy of flowers
he felt tired, and lay down on the grass and fell asleep. He was
suddenly awakened, as he stated, by a peculiar noise, a sort of singing
he called it, and on peeping through the branches he saw Helen V.
playing on the grass with a "strange naked man," who he seemed unable
to describe more fully. He said he felt dreadfully frightened and ran
away crying for his father. Joseph W. proceeded in the direction
indicated by his son, and found Helen V. sitting on the grass in the
middle of a glade or open space left by charcoal burners. He angrily
charged her with frightening his little boy, but she entirely denied
the accusation and laughed at the child's story of a "strange man," to
which he himself did not attach much credence. Joseph W. came to the
conclusion that the boy had woke up with a sudden fright, as children
sometimes do, but Trevor persisted in his story, and continued in such
evident distress that at last his father took him home, hoping that his
mother would be able to soothe him. For ma