has even for a toad something like a dash of 

 gaiety. 



In one of the large pastures not far away 

 stands a pump. It is shaded by an ancient 

 apple-tree, under which, when the days are 

 hottest, the cattle gather to doze and dream. 

 They have worn away the grass about the mossy 

 trough, and the water, slopping over, keeps the 

 spot cool and muddy the summer through. Here 

 the toads congregate from every quarter of the 

 great field. I stretched myself out flat on the 

 grass one night and watched them in the moon- 

 light. There must have been fifty here that 

 night, hopping about over the wet place as 

 grotesque a band as ever met by woods or waters. 



We need no "second sight," no pipe of Pan, 

 no hills of Latmos with a flock to feed, to find 

 ourselves back in that enchanted world of the 

 kelpies and satyrs. All we need to do is to use 

 the eyes and ears we have, and haunt our hills 

 by morning and by moonlight. Here in the 

 moonlight around the old pump I saw goblins, 

 if ever goblins were seen in the light of our 

 moon. 



There was not a croak, not a squeak^ not the 

 [127] 



