Robin Hood's Barn 



Little enough had they to do with the prospect 

 before me; a sky of windy power, a sea where 

 purple shadows raced the clouds above them, and 

 where a fitful sun struck sparks of glinting steel. 

 As I dipped my brush into the ink-well, I heard 

 a crunching step, a pause, and then the sound of 

 laughter rising through a shaggy throat. 



"Does nothing tell you, young one," said a 

 voice behind me, "that you can't do a day of 

 mystery with a bottle of black ink?" 



I answered honestly that nothing did. 



"Suppose then that I tell you." There was a 

 chuckle. 



"And who are you?" 



"Twachtman, the painter." 



But as he crossed his legs and dropped in 

 friendly fashion on the beach beside me, I knew 

 him for the goat-god, Pan. How not know the 

 thatch of hair thrust upward as by horns, the 

 grotesque face, the shaggy pelt? Yet though I 

 had heard him to be wayward and arrogant in 

 the glimpses of himself he gave to mortals, there 

 seemed no reason for alarm. Mirth was in his 

 eyes and round his bearded mouth and the shout 



[44] 



