down the stone steps between the stone urns; and they saw him in talk
with the woodcutter. They could not see the woodcutter's face.
He stood with his back to them, but they saw something
that seemed more moving than any change of countenance.
The man's hand holding the ax rose high above his head,
and for a flash it seemed as if he would have cut down the doctor.
But in fact he was not looking at the doctor. His face was set
toward the cliff, where, sheer out of the dwarf forest, rose,
gigantic and gilded by the sun, the trees of pride.

The strong brown hand made a movement and was empty.
The ax went circling swiftly through the air, its head showing
like a silver crescent against the gray twilight of the trees.
It did not reach its tall objective, but fell among the undergrowth,
shaking up a flying litter of birds. But in the poet's memory,
full of primal things, something seemed to say that he had seen
the birds of some pagan augury, the ax of some pagan sacrifice.

A moment after the man made a heavy movement forward, as if to recover
his tool; but the doctor put a hand on his arm.

"Never mind that now," they heard him say sadly and kindly.
"The Squire will excuse you any more work, I know."

Something made the girl look at Treherne. He stood gazing, his head
a little bent, and one of his black elf-locks had fallen forward
over his forehead. And again she had the sense of a shadow over
the grass; she almost felt as if the grass were a host of fairies,
and that the fairies were not her friends.