Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.
Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate
(They fear not men in the woods
Because they see so few),
You will hear the beat of a horse's feet
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods ...
But there is no road through the woods!
Marklake Witches
When Dan took up boat-building, Una coaxed Mrs Vincey, the
farmer's wife at Little Lindens, to teach her to milk. Mrs Vincey
milks in the pasture in summer, which is different from milking
in the shed, because the cows are not tied up, and until they know
you they will not stand still. After three weeks Una could milk
Red Cow or Kitty Shorthorn quite dry, without her wrists
aching, and then she allowed Dan to look.
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