One afternoon I got lost in the woods about a mile from the hotel, and presently fell into a train of dreamy thought about animals which talk, and kobolds, and enchanted folk, and the rest of the pleasant legendary stuff; and so, by stimulating my fancy, I finally got to imagining I glimpsed small flitting shapes here and there down the columned aisles of the forest.  It was a place which was peculiarly meet for the occasion.  It was a pine wood, with so thick and soft a carpet of brown needles that one’s footfall made no more sound than if he were treading on wool; the tree-trunks were as round and straight and smooth as pillars, and stood close together; they were bare of branches to a point about twenty-five feet above-ground, and from there upward so thick with boughs that not a ray of sunlight could pierce through.  The world was bright with sunshine outside, but a deep and mellow twilight reigned in there, and also a deep silence so profound that I seemed to hear my own breathings.

When I had stood ten minutes, thinking and imagining, and getting my spirit in tune with the place, and in the right mood to enjoy the supernatural, a raven suddenly uttered a horse croak over my head.  It made me start; and then I was angry because I started.  I looked up, and the creature was sitting on a limb right over me, looking down at me.  I felt something of the same sense of humiliation and injury which one feels when he finds that a human stranger has been clandestinely inspecting him in his privacy and mentally commenting upon him.  I eyed the raven, and the raven eyed me.  Nothing was said during some seconds.  Then the bird stepped a little way along his limb to get a better point of observation, lifted his wings, stuck his head far down below his shoulders toward me and croaked again—­a croak with a distinctly insulting expression about it.  If he had spoken in English he could not have said any more plainly that he did say in raven, “Well, what do you want here?” I felt as foolish as if I had been caught in some mean act by a responsible being, and reproved for it.  However, I made no reply; I would not bandy words with a raven.  The adversary waited a while, with his shoulders still lifted, his head thrust down between them, and his keen bright eye fixed on me; then he threw out two or three more insults, which I could not understand, further than that I knew a portion of them consisted of language not used in church.

I still made no reply.  Now the adversary raised his head and called.  There was an answering croak from a little distance in the wood—­evidently a croak of inquiry.  The adversary explained with enthusiasm, and the other raven dropped everything and came.  The two sat side by side on the limb and discussed me as freely and offensively as two great naturalists might discuss a new kind of bug.  The thing became more and more embarrassing.  They called in another friend.  This was too much.  I saw that they had the advantage of me,