46 The: Little Minister

frost. Most of the beeches were already bare,
but the shoots, clustering round them, like chil-
dren at their mother’s skirts, still retained their
leaves red and brown. Among the pines these
leaves were as incongruous as a wedding-dress at
a funeral. Gavin was standing on grass, but there
were patches of heather within sight, and broom,
and the leaf of the blaeberry. Where the beeches
had drawn up the earth with them as they grew,
their roots ran this way and that, slippery to the
feet and looking like disinterred bones. A squir-
rel appeared suddenly on the charred ground,
looked doubtfully at Gavin to see if he was grow-
ing there, and then glided up a tree, where it sat
eyeing him, and forgetting to conceal its shadow.
Caddam was very still. At long intervals came
from far away the whack of an axe on wood.
Gavin was in a world by himself, and this might
be some one breaking into it.

The mystery of woods by moonlight thrilled
the little minister. His eyes rested on the shin-
ing roots, and he remembered what had been told
him of the legend of Caddam, how once on a time
it was a mighty wood, and a maiden most beauti-
ful stood on its confines, panting and afraid, for a
wicked man pursued her ; how he drew near, and
she ran a little way into the wood, and he followed
her, and she still ran, and still he followed, until
both were for ever lost, and the bones of her pur-
suer lie beneath a beech, but the lady may still be
heard singing in the woods if the night be fine, for
then she is a glad spirit, but weeping when there
is wild wind, for then she is but a mortal seeking
a way out of the wood.