The setting sun burnt upon Dewerstone's shoulder and beat in a sea of light against the western face of North Wood, until the wind-worn forest edge, taking colour on trunk and bough, glowed heartily.
Already the first summer splendour was dimmed, for these lofty domains suffered full fret of storm and asperity of season. A proleptic instinct, stamped by the centuries, inspired this wood; it anticipated more sheltered neighbours in autumn, though it lagged behind them in spring. Upon its boughs the last vernal splendour fluttered into being, and the first autumnal stain was always visible. Now beech and larch revealed a shadow in their texture of leaf and needle though August had not passed, for their foliage was born into elemental strife. Here homed the west wind, and the salt south storms emptied their vials; here the last snows lingered, and May frost pinched the young green things.
Now roseal and gracious light penetrated the heart of the wood, warmed its recesses, and dwelt upon a grass-grown track that wound through the midst. Toward this path by convergent ways there came a man and woman. As yet half a mile separated them, for they had entered the wood at opposite places; but one desire actuated both, and they moved slowly nearer until they met at a tryst in the deep heart of the trees. Undergrowth rose about them, and their resort was carefully chosen and perfectly concealed. Here oak closely clad the hill, and granite boulders offered an inner rampart against observation. The man and woman were elderly, yet she was still personable, and he retained a measure of unusual good looks. They came to perform a little rite, sacred and secret, an event celebrated these many years, and unknown to any other human beings but themselves.
Nathan Baskerville put his arms round Priscilla Lintern and drew her beside him and kissed her.
"We shall never find it this year, I'm much afraid," he said. "The time is past. 'Tis always later far than other lilies in the garden, but not so late as this. However, I'll do my best."
"No matter for the flower," she answered, "so long as we keep up our custom."
A slant flame from the sunset stole deliciously through the dusky hiding-places of the wood, and played on the deep mosses and fern-crowns and the tawny motley of the earth, spread like a coverlet beneath. Here dead litter of leaf and twig made the covering of the ground, and through it sprang various seedling things, presently to bear their part in the commonwealth and succeed their forefathers. The ground was amber-bright where the sunshine won to it, and everywhere stretched ivy and bramble, gleamed the lemon light of malempyre, sparkled green sorrel, and rose dim woodbine that wound its arms around the sapling oaks. Wood-rush and wood-sage prospered together, and where water spouted out of the hill there spread green and ruddy mosses, embroidered with foliage of marsh violet and crowned by pallid umbels of angelica. The silver of birches flashed hard by, and the rowan's berries already warmed to scarlet.
Hither after their meeting came the man and woman, and then Nathan, searching sharply, uttered a cry of triumph, and pointed where, at their feet, grew certain dark green twayblade leaves that sprouted from the grass. Here dwelt lilies-of-the-valley—their only wild haunt in Devon—and the man now made haste to find a blossom and present it to his mistress. But he failed to do so. Only a dead spike or two appeared, and presently he gave up the search with some disappointment.
"They must have bloomed just when I was ill and couldn't come," he said.
"'Tis no matter at all," she answered. "The thought and the meeting here are the good thing. We'll go back into the wood now, further from the path. To me 'tis marvellous, Nat, to think the crafty world has never guessed."