"Yes!" said Marget, beside him, as though he had spoken.
It was what he carried with him from this valley.
Linden and Marget drove home through the wood. "How still it is! Barring foot and wheel on the wet leaves you would say there was no stir. We are passing pine trees. How fragrant!"
"A bluebird is watching us from a maple. Now here is the great beech. It holds its leaves, though they are brown and curled upon themselves like cocoons. The ground underneath is clean and brown. A grapevine goes over and up with those young trees. There are yet bunches of grapes and they hang so still! There are brown loops for swings for all the forest children, whether they be Indians or dryads and fauns."
"I see them," said Linden, "all the graceful, tawny forest children!"
"Here is the oak glade with the grass yet green far down it, to where hangs the purple curtain. The outstanding great roots glisten, and the moss holds the water drops. You see a long way. Yonder is tree trunk and stone, light and shadow, that looks like a hermit's cell. It is an alley for the whole Middle Ages to come riding down—for a paladin to come riding down, the Red Cross Knight, or Guyon, or Galahad, or Parsifal—or it might be Robin Hood in Lincoln green!"
"I see."
"Here are green brier and red dogwood berries, and witch-hazel with dull gold fingers. Can you hear the water?"
"Yes. Three silver threads of it, like a lute!"