"Why do you fear the big winds so?" he had asked her several days before, after a particularly boisterous day; and the answer she gave surprised her while she gave it. One of those heads poked up unconsciously, and let slip the truth.
"Because, David, I feel they—bring the Forest with them," she faltered.
"They blow something from the trees—into the mind—into the house."
He looked at her keenly for a moment.
"That must be why I love them then," he answered. "They blow the souls of the trees about the sky like clouds."
The conversation dropped. She had never heard him talk in quite that way before.
And another time, when he had coaxed her to go with him down one of the nearer glades, she asked why he took the small hand-axe with him, and what he wanted it for.
"To cut the ivy that clings to the trunks and takes their life away," he said.
"But can't the verdurers do that?" she asked. "That's what they're paid for, isn't it?"
Whereupon he explained that ivy was a parasite the trees knew not how to fight alone, and that the verdurers were careless and did not do it thoroughly. They gave a chop here and there, leaving the tree to do the rest for itself if it could.
"Besides, I like to do it for them. I love to help them and protect," he added, the foliage rustling all about his quiet words as they went.