A Farmer’s Life 
could not follow their custom of walking with me 
towards my station, because they had a heifer 
likely to calve immediately. 
Their father, however, took their place. And 
thanks to him the older times seemed with me 
still, as they had done during the day. The 
night was chilly and dim, with raw land-fog lying 
across the fields and between the hedgerows, 
yet not so thick overhead but that the half-moon 
could be seen hazily above the trees, with an 
occasional glimmer of stars. But that fog across 
the road, with the hedge-things standing up 
motionless in it under the cold-looking moon- 
light, served to shut out all the modern features 
of the scene, as viewed by day; and my uncle, 
hobbling along beside me, gave me a feeling that 
we were in that earlier time he had been telling 
of that day. I asked, was it not along there, 
just where we were walking—just where gas- 
lamps lit what had once been marsh—was it not 
there that of old he had seen Will-o’-the-Wisp ? 
Not just there, he said, but more to the right, over 
there by the South-Eastern Railway ‘“‘ Loh,” he 
exclaimed, ‘‘ what tales I have heard about ’em ”’ 
(about Will-o’-the-Wisps, that is), “‘ and the fairies 
too, from your grandfather and grandmother ! ” 
But not then, nor ever afterwards, could he be 
persuaded to tell any of those tales. It is con- 
ceivable that the whole subject seemed wicked 
to his devoutly religious mind. 
120 
