"They were memories," said Tod. "They were the memories of those dead leaves."
"But do leaves remember?" asked Edward.
"Everything remembers," said Tod, "only nobody's been able to prove it. The ground we're sitting on, the fields you've come across, the hills above us, they're crammed with memories. And when they die, if they ever do die, these memories come crowding back to them, just like they do to a dying man; and it's this powder that makes them visible."
He rose to his feet and looked about him.
"Of course, those leaves," he said, "were only a year old, and all that they remembered was just those birds. But look at this,"—he picked up a piece of wood—"this is the core of an old tree. This was a sapling three hundred years ago." He sprinkled the rest of the powder on it and threw it on the fire.
For a minute or two nothing happened, and then, high up, they saw some more birds hovering; but presently, as they looked, they saw the figure of a man, with his hair in ringlets hanging down over his shoulders. He wore a plumed hat, and his sleeves were frilled, and there was a sword at his belt, and he wore knee-breeches and stockings and jewelled buckles upon his shoes. He stood in mid-air, looking about him, and then he was joined by the figure of a girl. He took her in his arms, and then they faded away; and there instead was a peasant in a smock.
They saw him lean forward and carve something in the air, as though he were cutting somebody's name upon a tree-trunk; and then he too was gone, and there were two children playing hide-and-seek in the wreathing smoke. One was a little girl, and she wore a mob cap and a long skirt dropping almost to her ankles; and the other was a boy with a very short jacket and trousers that looked as if they had shrunk.
Then they saw a fox, with his ears pricked, and one of his front paws lifted; and then there was nothing again but the sides of the quarry and the deepening shadows of the elms.
"That's all," said Tod, "because I've no more powder. All the rest's up there."
He jerked his thumb toward the top of the hill, hidden away from them by the trees.