CHAPTER XXIX
MOTHER CAREY'S LASH
THE wise men tell us that it is the same as the venom of Snakes. They tell us that it comes when the fool-trap toadstool is grown stale, and by these ye may know its hidden presence: When the cap is old and upturned at the edge, when hell-born maggots crawl and burrow and revel in the stem, when drops of gummy, poisonous yellow blood ooze forth, when both its smells—the warning smell of the crawling hundred-legger and the alluring smell of strong green butternuts—are multiplied to fourfold power.
Their day was nearly over. They were now like old worn hags, whose beauty is gone, and with it their power to please—hags who have become embittered and seek only to destroy. So the fool-trap toadstools waited, silently as hunters' deadfalls wait, until the moment comes to strike.
It was the same sweet piny woods, the same bright sparkling stream, and the Song-hawk wheeled and sang the same loud song, as Bannertail came once again to seek his earth-born food, to gratify his growing lust.
And Mother Carey led him on.