It may have been lighted by some good, honest farmer-man, bent on tidying up his sugar orchard, but it may also, for anything we know, have been kindled by no earthly woodman as a beacon or summons to the tribes of fairyland, and may vanish away if we tarry. It did not vanish and presently we found ourselves in the grove. Everything was very still and dreamy and remote. I wouldn't be much surprised if we should see something of the kind. But one can't be sure.
Mortal eyesight is too slow and clumsy a thing to match against the flicker of a pixy-litten fire.
Not till the fire died down into ashes did we leave the grove. Then we found that the full moon was gleaming lustrously from a cloudless sky across the valley. Between us and her stretched up a tall pine, wondrously straight and slender and branchless to its very top, where it overflowed in a crest of dark boughs against the silvery splendour behind it. Beyond, the hill farms were lying in a suave, white radiance. And yet it is only a few hours.