We did not get home before it was dark. For one reason or another
we had underestimated the swiftness of twilight and the suddenness
of night, especially in the threading of thick woods. When my
friend, after the first five minutes' march, had fallen over
a log, and I, ten minutes after, had stuck nearly to the knees
in mire, we began to have some suspicion of our direction.
At last my friend said, in a low, husky voice:

"I'm afraid we're on the wrong path. It's pitch dark."

"I thought we went the right way," I said, tentatively.

"Well," he said; and then, after a long pause, "I can't see any
telegraph poles. I've been looking for them."

"So have I," I said. "They're so straight."

We groped away for about two hours of darkness in the thick of
the fringe of trees which seemed to dance round us in derision.
Here and there, however, it was possible to trace the outline
of something just too erect and rigid to be a pine tree.
By these we finally felt our way home, arriving in a cold green
twilight before dawn.




A Drama of Dolls

In a small grey town of stone in one of the great Yorkshire dales,