im, and his love for the light drew Rodriguez
out to watch the sunset. And there was the sun under indescribable
clouds, turning huge and yellow among the trunks of the trees and
casting glory munificently down glades. It set, and the western sky
became blood-red and lilac: from the other end of the sky the moon
peeped out of night. A hush came and a chill, and a glory of colour,
and a dying away of light; and in the hush the mystery of the great
oaks became magical. A blackbird blew a tune less of this earth than of
fairy-land.

Rodriguez wished that he could have had a less ambition than to win a
castle in the wars, for in those glades and among those oaks he felt
that happiness might be found under roofs of thatch. But having come by
his ambition he would not desert it.

Now rushlights were lit in the great cottage and the window of the long
room glowed yellow. A fountain fell in the stillness that he had not
heard before. An early nightingale tuned a tentative note. "The forest
is fair, is it not?" said Miguel.

Rodriguez had no words to say. To turn into words the beauty that was
now shining in his thoughts, reflected from the evening there, was no
easier than for wood to reflect all that is seen in the mirror.

"You love the forest," he said at last.

"Master," said Miguel, "it is the only land in which we should live our
days. There are cities and roads but man is not meant for them. I know
not, master, what God intends about us; but in cities we are against
the intention at every step, while here, why, we drift along with it."

"I, too, would live here always," said Rodriguez.

"The house is yours," said Miguel. And Rodriguez answered: "I go
tomorrow to the wars."

They turned round then and walked slowly back to the cottage, and
entered the candlelight and the loud talk of many men out of the hush
of the twilight. But they passed from the room at once by a door on the
left, and came thus to a large bedroom, the only other room in the
cottage.

"Your room, master," said Miguel Threegeese.

It was not so big as the hall where the bowmen sat, but it was a goodly
room. The bed was made of carved wood, for there were craftsmen in the
forest, and a hunt went all the way round it with dogs and deer. Four
great posts held a canopy over it: they were four young birch-trees
seemingly still wearing their bright bark, but this had been painted on
their bare timber by some woodland artist. The chairs had not the