the Forest for the grown-ups. Now he came to the
little paths in the great expanse between the Carriage
Road and the ditch where you looked across to the
meadows beside the Outer Spaarne ; he followed
the tracks in the dense oak wood, known only to
boys ; he gathered the flowers that grew tall in the
shade. Here all he could hear was the rustling of
the leaves overhead and their own voices which
sounded soft; he asked why there were round
patches of sunlight on the moss, and Steven, looking
up and following a ray of light, tried to find the
source. They went down on their knees to watch
the ants greeting each other as they passed, toiling,
in passionate haste, to drag a dead wasp away.
They put their fingers to their lips when they unex-
pectedly saw a bird mounting the bark of an oak-tree
and tapping with its beak. From Steven he learnt
how to cut a whistle out of a sprig of elder and to
blow a high-pitched note on it that silenced the
throstle; they collected oak-apples to make ink
from them ; they carved their name on a tree-trunk
just as Laurens Coster had done. Sometimes they
sat for a long time in the hemlock beside the ditch,
looking so fixedly at the circles made by the water-
spiders that they were startled at the sight of a cow
that had been coming gradually nearer as she grazed,
and now loomed up before them on the opposite
bank so big that they could see a sail on the Outer
Spaarne beneath her belly. And when Floris came