The old man raised his fist and the chair fell heavily on to his wrinkled forehead and he dropped to the ground.

The woman at the table cried out, “The pension!” in her shrill voice, and then they were all quiet, looking.

Then it seemed to Toby that through the forest there came flying, with a harsh sweet voice and a tumult of wings, a bird of all colours, ugly and beautiful, and he knew, though later there might be people to tell him otherwise, that that was the end of everything.

Children Of The Moon

The boy stood at the place where the park trees stopped and the smooth lawns slid away gently to the great house.  He was dressed only in a pair of ragged knickerbockers and a gaping buttonless shirt, so that his legs and neck and chest shone silver bare in the moonlight.  By day he had a mass of rough golden hair, but now it seemed to brood above his head like a black cloud that made his face deathly white by comparison.  On his arms there lay a great heap of gleaming dew-wet roses and lilies, spoil of the park flower-beds.  Their cool petals touched his cheek, and filled his nostrils with aching scent.  He felt his arms smarting here and there, where the thorns of the roses had torn them in the dark, but these delicate caresses of pain only served to deepen to him the wonder of the night that wrapped him about like a cloak.  Behind him there dreamed the black woods, and over his head multitudinous stars quivered and balanced in space; but these things were nothing to him, for far across the lawn that was spread knee-deep, with a web of mist there gleamed for his eager eyes the splendour of a fairy palace.  Red and orange and gold, the lights of the fairy revels shone from a hundred windows and filled him with wonder that he should see with wakeful eyes the jewels that he had desired so long in sleep.  He could only gaze and gaze until his straining eyes filled with tears, and set the enchanted lights dancing in the dark.  On his ears, that heard no more the crying of the night-birds and the quick stir of the rabbits in the brake, there fell the strains of far music.  The flowers in his arms seemed to sway to it, and his heart beat to the deep pulse of the night.

So enraptured were his senses that he did not notice the coming of the girl, and she was able to examine him closely before she called to him softly through the moonlight.

“Boy!  Boy!”

At the sound of her voice he swung round and looked at her with startled eyes.  He saw her excited little face and her white dress.

“Are you a fairy?” he asked hoarsely, for the night-mist was in his voice.

“No,” she said, “I’m a little girl.  You’re a wood-boy, I suppose?”

He stayed silent, regarding her with a puzzled face.  Who was this little white creature with the tender voice that had slipped so suddenly out of the night?

“As a matter of fact,” the girl continued, “I’ve come out to have a look at the fairies.  There’s a ring down in the wood.  You can come with me if you like, wood-boy.”