s some moon-spirit
against the brightness, this shape stole forward under the rough hedge
that formed a bank and threw a shadow between meadow and stream. In
repose the grey man, for a man it was, looked far less substantial than
the stationary outlines of fences and trees; and when he moved it had
needed a keen eye to see him at all. He mingled with the moonlight and
snow, and became a part of a strange inversion of ordinary conditions;
for in this white, hushed world the shadows alone seemed solid and
material in their black nakedness, in their keen sharpness of line and
limit, while things concrete and ponderable shone out a silvery medley
of snow-capped, misty traceries, vague of outline, uncertain of shape,
magically changed as to their relations by the unfamiliar carpet now
spread between them.

The grey figure kept Phoebe in sight, but followed a path of his own
choosing. When she entered the woods he drew a little nearer, and thus
followed, passing from shadow to shadow, scarce fifty yards behind.

Meanwhile the main procession approached the scene of its labours.
Martin Grimbal, attracted by the prospect of reading this page from an
old Devonian superstition, was of the company. He walked with Billy Blee
and Gaffer Lezzard; and these high priests, well pleased at their
junior's attitude towards the ceremony, opened their hearts to him upon
it.

"'T is an ancient rite, auld as cider--maybe auld as Scripture, to, for
anything I've heard to the contrary," said Mr. Lezzard.

"Ay, so 't is," declared Billy Blee, "an' a custom to little observed
nowadays. But us might have better blooth in springtime an' braaver
apples come autumn if the trees was christened more regular. You doan't
see no gert stock of sizable apples best o' years now--li'l scrubbly
auld things most times."

"An' the cider from 'em--poor roapy muck, awnly fit to make 'e thirst
for better drink," criticised Gaffer Lezzard.

"'Tis this way: theer's gert virtue in cider put to apple-tree roots on
this particular night, accordin' to the planets and such hidden things.
Why so, I can't tell 'e, any more 'n anybody could tell 'e why the moon
sails higher up the sky in winter than her do in summer; but so 't is.
An' facts be facts. Why, theer's the auld 'Sam's Crab' tree in this very
orchard we'm walkin' to. I knawed that tree three year ago to give a
hogshead an' a half as near as damn it. That wan tree, mind, with no
more than a few baskets of 'Red