196 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



their lush aspirations with scattered growth 

 seeded half a century ago. A lone deer seems to 

 make this spot a sanctuary. Often in daylight 

 we meet here almost face to face and look at one 

 another curiously, neither much afraid. In the 

 deepening darkness, just freed from the primal 

 terrors of the wood edge, I seemed to know why 

 the deer finds the place a refuge. Here in the 

 little sheltered hollow no goblins gibbered, no 

 banshee wailed in the wet wood. Instead the 

 sprout clumps seemed to rustle cheery assurance 

 and the taller trees to bend in oozy friendliness 

 over them. The soft fingers of the rain had a 

 soothing touch and wind and darkness were 

 kindly. I do not know why some spots in the 

 woods seem thus to shelter and protect whether 

 by night or day while others repel or fill with 

 distrust, but I know it is so. On a wood- 

 cock haunted slope or in a thicket beloved 

 of rufifed grouse I almost always feel as if my 

 camp had been pitched in some previous existence 

 and I had just got home again, though the place, 

 perhaps, ought to be new to me. I fancy the 

 deer feels that way and I hope he was snuggled 

 down in the shelter of some of those big-leaved 

 sprouts, warm and dry, as I passed by. 



