a book of mine, "John Silence," had appeared. A story reached my ears, the name of its author boldly given, to the effect that, for the purposes of this Black Magic, I had stolen the vases from the communion altar of St. Paul's Cathedral and used their consecrated content in some terrible orgy called the Black Mass. Young children, too, were somehow involved in this ceremony of sacrilegious sorcery, and I was going to be arrested. The author of this novelette was well known to me, connected even by blood ties, a person I had always conceived to be without the faintest of imaginative gifts, though a credulous reader, evidently, of the mediæval tales concerning the monstrous Gilles de Rais. Absurd as it sounds, a solicitor's letter was necessary finally to limit the author's prolific output, although pirated editions continued to sell for a considerable time. There is a poet hidden, as Stevenson observed, in most of us!
Meanwhile, summer began to wane; we considered plans for attacking New York; hope rose strongly in us both; disappointments and failures were forgotten. In so big a city we were certain to find work. We had a hundred dollars laid aside for the journey and to tide us over the first few days until employment came. We could not hide for ever in fairyland. Life called to us.... Late in September, just when the lakes were beginning to recover their first solitude again, we packed up to leave. Though the sun was still hot at midday, the mornings and evenings were chill, and cold winds had begun to blow. The famous fall colouring had set fire to the woods; the sumach blazed a gorgeous red, the maples were crimson and gold, half of the mainland seemed in flame. Sorrowfully, yet with eager anticipation in our hearts, we poured water on our camp-fire that had served us for five months without relighting, locked the door of the shanty, handed over to Woods the canoe and boat, and caught the little steamer on one of its last trips to Gravenhurst where the train would take us, via Toronto, to New York.
It had been a delightful experience; I had seen and
known at last the primeval woods; I had even seen Red
