ONE:"Friends," said Allan Theoder, speaking for the first time, "I do not hear you say any thing about this tax."For though he did not care for Odiam he loved the country round it, and made a wonderland and a dreamland of it. He did not see in Boarzell Robert's tree-capped waste, though neither did he see his father's enemy and heart's delight. He saw instead a kind of enchanted ground, full of mysteries of sun and moon, full of secrets that were sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrifying. It seemed to have a soul and a voice, a low voice, hoarse yet sweet; and its soul was not the soul of a man or of a beast, but the soul of a fetch, some country sprite, that clumped, and yet could skip ... he[Pg 128] used to feel it skipping with him in the evening wind when the dusk made the heather misty round his knees ... but he knew that it danced heavy-footed round the farm at night, clumping, clumping, like a clod.