In the Forest of Stone 13

drink and star the mud with a maze of claw-
tracks; and yet again, others, this year, under
the dry roof of the pines of Anstiebury, when
the fosse of the old Briton settlement was drip-
ping with wet, and the woods were dim with
the smoke of rain, and the paths were red
with the fallen bloom of the red chestnuts
and white with the flourish of May and
brown with the catkins of the oak, and the
cuckoo, calling in Mosses Wood, was an-
swered from Redlands and the Warren, and
the pines where we sat (snug and dry) looked
so solemn and dark that, with a little fancy,
it was easy to change the living greenwood
into the forest of stone.

As they were told, under the pressure of
an insatiable listener, so have they been
written, save for such a phrase, here and
there, as slips more readily from the pen than
from the tongue.

Of the stories which were told, but which
have not been written for this book, if W. V.
should question me, I shall answer in the
wise words of the Greybeard of Broce-Liande:
“ Flowever hot thy thirst, and however
pleasant to assuage it, leave clear water in
the well.”