Bannertail 



a bank half sunlit as they scampered 

 over the leaves and down the logs, he 

 found a blushing, shining gnome-cap, an 

 earth-born madcap. Yes, the very same, 

 for in this woods they came, though they 

 were rare. One whiff, one identifying 

 sniff of that Satanic exhalation, and Ban- 

 nertail felt a horrid clutching at his throat, 

 his lips were quickly dripping, his belly 

 heaved, he gave a sort of spewing, gasp- 

 ing sound, and shrank back from that 

 shining cap with eyes that bulged in hate, 

 as though he saw a Snake. There is no 

 way of fully telling his bodily revulsion. 

 The thing that once was so alluring, was 

 so loathsome that he could not stand its 

 fetid odor on the wind. And the young 

 ones were caught by the unspoken horror 

 of the moment, they took it in ; they got 

 the hate sense. They tied up that horror 

 in their memories with that rank and 

 sickly smell. They turned away, Ban- 



[210] 



