ich like instruments in an orchestra combine to play
the great symphony of the yearly festival of June. Winds whisper in the
birches and sigh among the firs; bees are busy with their irredolent
labor among the heather, a myriad birds chirp in the green temples of
the forest trees, and the voice of the river prattling over stony
places, bubbling into pools, chuckling and gulping round corners, gives
you the sense that many presences and companions are near at hand.

Yet, oddly enough, though one would have thought that these benign and
cheerful influences of wholesome air and spaciousness of forest were
very healthful comrades for a man, in so far as nature can really
influence this wonderful human genus which has in these centuries
learned to defy her most violent storms in its well-established houses,
to bridle her torrents and make them light its streets, to tunnel her
mountains and plough her seas, the inhabitants of St. Faith's will not
willingly venture into the forest after dark. For in spite of the
silence and loneliness of the hooded night it seems that a man is not
sure in what company he may suddenly find himself, and though it is
difficult to get from these villagers any very clear story of occult
appearances, the feeling is widespread. One story indeed I have heard
with some definiteness, the tale of a monstrous goat that has been seen
to skip with hellish glee about the woods and shady places, and this
perhaps is connected with the story which I have here attempted to
piece together. It too is well-known to them; for all remember the
young artist who died here not long ago, a young man, or so he struck
the beholder, of great personal beauty, with something about him that
made men's faces to smile and brighten when they looked on him. His
ghost they will tell you "walks" constantly by the stream and through
the woods which he loved so, and in especial it haunts a certain house,
the last of the village, where he lived, and its garden in which he was
done to death. For my part I am inclined to think that the terror of
the Forest dates chiefly from that day. So, such as the story is, I
have set it forth in connected form. It is based partly on the accounts
of the villagers, but mainly on that of Darcy, a friend of mine and a
friend of the man with whom these events were chiefly concerned.

* * * * *

The day had been one of untarnished midsummer splendour, and as the su