His thick
light hair, not brushed back like the London shop-boys, but parted on
the side, yet untidy for all that, suited him exactly and gave him a
touch of wildness. "Well," he asked, "what would you like to do, Uncle Jim? I'm at your
service, and I've got the whole afternoon till supper at seven-thirty." I told him I'd like to go through that wood. "All right," he said,
"come along. I'll show you." He gave me one quick glance, but said no
more. "I'd like to see if I feel anything this time," I explained. "We'll locate the very spot, maybe." He nodded. "You know where I mean, don't you?" I asked, "because you saw me
there?" He just said yes, and then we started. It was hot, and air was scarce. I remember that we went uphill,
and that I realised there was considerable difference in our ages. We crossed some fields first--smothered in flowers so thick that I
wondered how much grass the cows got out of it!--and then came to a
sprinkling of fine young larches that looked as soft as velvet. There
was no path, just a wild mountain side. I had very little breath on
the steep zigzags, but Arthur talked easily--and talked mighty well,
too: the light and shade, the colouring, and the effect of all this
wilderness of lonely beauty on the mind. He kept all this suppressed
at home in business. It was safety valves. I twigged _that_. It was
the artist in him talking. He seemed to think there was nothing in the
world but Beauty--with a big B all the time. And the odd thing was he
took for granted that I felt the same. It was cute of him to flatter
me that way. "Daulis and the lone Cephissian vale," I heard; and a few
moments later--with a sort of reverence in his voice like worship--he
called out a great singing name: "_Astarte!_"

  "Day is her face, and midnight is her hair,
   And morning hours are but the golden stair
   By which she climbs to Night." It was here first that a queer change began to grow upon me too. "Steady on, boy! I've forgotten all my classics ages ago," I cried. He turned and gazed down on me, his big eyes glowing, and not a sign of
perspiration on his skin. "That's nothing," he exclaimed in his musical, deep voice. "You know
it, or you'd never have felt things in this wood last night; and you
wouldn't have wanted to come out with me _now_!" "How?" I gasped. "How's that?" "You've come," he continued quietly, "to the only valley in
this artificial country that has atmosphere. This valley is
_alive_--especially this end of it. There's superstition here, thank
God! Even the peasants know things." I stared at him. "See here, Arthur," I objected. "I'm not a Cath. And I
don't know a thing--at least it's all dead in me and forgotten--about
poetry or classics or your gods and pan--pantheism--in spite of
grandfather----"

His face turned like a dream face. "Hush!" he said quickly. "Don't mention _him_. There's a bit of him in
you as well as in me, and it was here, you know, he wrote----"

I didn't hear the rest of what he said. A creep came over me. I
remembered that this ancestor of ours lived for years in the isolation
of some Swiss forest where he claimed--he used that setting for his
writing--he had found the exiled gods, their ghosts, their beauty,
their eternal essences--or something astonishing of that sort. I had
clean forgotten it till this moment. It all rushed back upon me, a
memory of my boyhood. And, as I say, a creep came over me--something as near to awe as
ever could be. The sunshine on that field of yellow daisies and blue
forget-me-nots turned pale. That warm valley wind had a touch of snow
in it. And, ashamed and frightened of my baby mood, I looked at Arthur,
meaning to choke him off with all this rubbish--and then saw something
in his eyes that scared me stiff. I admit it. What's the use? There was an expression on his fine big
face that made my blood go curdled. I got cold feet right there. It
mastered me. In him, behind him, near him--blest if I know which,
_through_ him probably--came an enormous thing that turned me
insignificant. It downed me utterly. It was over in a second, the flash of a wing. I recovered instantly. No
mere boy should come these muzzy tricks on me, scholar or no scholar. For the change in me was on the increase, and I shrank. "See here, Arthur," I said plainly once again, "I don't know what your
game is, but--there's something queer up here I don't quite get at. I'm
only a business man, with classics and poetry all gone dry in me twenty
years ago and more----"

He looked at me so strangely that I stopped, confused. "But, Uncle Jim," he said as quietly as though we talked tobacco
brands, "you needn't be alarmed. It's natural you should feel the
place. You and I belong to it. We've both got _him_ in us. You're just
as proud of him as I am, only in a different way." And then he added,
with a touch of disappointment: "I thought you'd like it. You weren't
afraid last night. You felt the beauty _then_." Flattery is a darned subtle thing at any time. To see him standing
over me in that superior way and talking down at my poor business
mind--well, it just came over me that I was laying my cards on the
table a bit too early. After so many years of city life----! Anyway, I pulled myself together. "I was only kidding you, boy," I
laughed. "I feel this beauty just as much as you do. Only, I guess,
you're more accustomed to it than I am. Come on now," I added with
energy, getting upon my feet, "let's push on and see the wood. I want
to find that place again." He pulled me with a hand of iron, laughing as he did so. Gee! I wished
I had his teeth, as well as the muscles in his arm. Yet I felt younger,
somehow, too--youth flowed more and more into my veins. I had forgotten
how sweet the winds and woods and flowers could be. Something melted in
me. For it was Spring, and the whole world was singing like a dream. Beauty was creeping over me. I don't know. I began to feel all big and
tender and open to a thousand wonderful sensations. The thought of
streets and houses seemed like death....

We went on again, not talking much; my breath got shorter and shorter,
and he kept looking about him as though he expected something. But we
passed no living soul, not even a peasant; there were no chalets, no
cattle, no cattle shelters even. And then I realised that the valley
lay at our feet in haze and that we had been climbing at least a
couple of hours. "Why, last night I got home in twenty minutes at the
outside," I said. He shook his head, smiling. "It seemed like that," he
replied, "but you really took much longer. It was long after ten when I
found you in the hall." I reflected a moment. "Now I come to think of
it, you're right, Arthur. Seems curious, though, somehow." He looked
closely at me. "I followed you all the way," he said. "You followed me!" "And you went at a good pace too. It was your feelings that made it
seem so short--you were singing to yourself and happy as a dancing
faun. We kept close behind you for a long way."