ii6 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



sphinx moth that flew down the path before me, 

 his fat gray body silvered by the moonHght, his 

 short, narrow wings beating so fast that they be- 

 came but a gauzy nimbus about him, or it may 

 have been Puck, training to put that girdle round 

 about the earth in forty minutes. Here invisible 

 creatures scurried away from a fairy ring whose 

 flagging is of round pyrola leaves, lighted 

 by ghostly white candelabras of the waxy blooms, 

 field mice, very likely, or black beetles, or elves 

 dancing in the moonlight about their queen. 

 How am I to know which? Surely if elves dance 

 anywhere it is on midsummer nights like this 

 when the dew has clotted on all the leaves till 

 they are pearled with a soft green fire as if from 

 caverns under sea and I walk down the path 

 through such caves and among such kelp and 

 corals as a merman might. All about me I hear 

 the stirring of the little people and now and then 

 soft airs fanned from invisible wings touch my 

 cheek. It may be moth, or bat, or tricksy Ariel 

 for all I know or care, such glamour does the 

 haunted air throw about him who will leave the 

 brown earth behind and plunge in its silvery 

 depths. 



Pushing aside tapestries woven of such figures 



