When I reached the crest there was the black and white bird flying low into a dell, and there the boy, with hair streaming back, was rushing helter-skelter down the hill.  He reached the bottom and vanished into the dell.  I, too, ran down the hill.  For all that I was prying and must not be seen by bird or boy, I crept warily in among the trees to the edge of a pool that could know but little sunlight, so thickly arched was it by willows, birch-trees, and wild hazel.  There, in a swing of boughs above the water, was perched no pied bird, but a young, dark-haired girl with, dangling, bare, brown legs.  And on the brink of the black water goldened, with fallen leaves, the boy was crouching, gazing up at her with all his soul.  She swung just out of reach and looked down at him across the pool.  How old was she, with her brown limbs, and her gleaming, slanting eyes?  Or was she only the spirit of the dell, this elf-thing swinging there, entwined with boughs and the dark water, and covered with a shift of wet birch leaves.  So strange a face she had, wild, almost wicked, yet so tender; a face that I could not take my eyes from.  Her bare toes just touched the pool, and flicked up drops of water that fell on the boy’s face.

From him all the sober steadfastness was gone; already he looked as wild as she, and his arms were stretched out trying to reach her feet.  I wanted to cry to him:  “Go back, boy, go back!” but could not; her elf eyes held me dumb-they looked so lost in their tender wildness.

And then my heart stood still, for he had slipped and was struggling in deep water beneath her feet.  What a gaze was that he was turning up to her—­not frightened, but so longing, so desperate; and hers how triumphant, and how happy!

And then he clutched her foot, and clung, and climbed; and bending down, she drew him up to her, all wet, and clasped him in the swing of boughs.

I took a long breath then.  An orange gleam of sunlight had flamed in among the shadows and fell round those two where they swung over the dark water, with lips close together and spirits lost in one another’s, and in their eyes such drowning ecstasy!  And then they kissed!  All round me pool, and leaves, and air seemed suddenly to swirl and melt—­I could see nothing plain! . . .  What time passed—­I do not know—­before their faces slowly again became visible!  His face the sober boy’s—­was turned away from her, and he was listening; for above the whispering of leaves a sound of weeping came from over the hill.  It was to that he listened.

And even as I looked he slid down from out of her arms; back into the pool, and began struggling to gain the edge.  What grief and longing in her wild face then!  But she did not wail.  She did not try to pull him back; that elfish heart of dignity could reach out to what was coming, it could not drag at what was gone.  Unmoving as the boughs and water, she watched him abandon her.