Now, as he came down from the maple grove, he looked and was dressed just as I had seen him years before. The vicissitudes of time and of the weather seemed to have as little effect upon the staring black and yellow of his woollen cloak as upon his iron frame, his piercing light-blue eyes, the snowy tangle of his hair and beard. Only his pointed cap betrayed that its wearer dwelt not altogether beyond the pale of mutability. Its adornments seemed to recognize the seasons. I had seen it stuck with cornflowers in the summer, with golden-rod and asters in the autumn, with feathers and strange wisps of straw in winter; and now it bore a spray of apple-blossom, with some dandelions, those northern sun-worshippers, whose closing petals now declared that even in death they took note of the passing of their lord. In his hand Grûl carried the same quaint wand of white wood, with its grotesque carven head dyed scarlet, which had caught my eye with an uneasy fascination the first time I met its possessor. That little stick, which Grûl wielded with authority as if it were a sceptre, still caused me some superstitious qualms. I remembered how at my first sight of it I had looked to see a living spark leap from that scarlet head. “It has been a long time coming,” said I, as Grûl paused before me, searching my face curiously with his gleaming eyes. “And meanwhile I have come. I think, monsieur, I should esteem a welcome somewhat more cordial than your words of dolorous omen.” Whether he were displeased or not at my forwardness in addressing him I cannot tell. He was without doubt accustomed to choose his own time for speech. His eyes danced with a shifting, sharp light, and after thrusting his little wand at me till, in spite of myself, I felt the easy smile upon my lips grow something mechanical, he said with withering slowness: “To the boy and the fool how small a handful of years may seem a lifetime! You think it is long coming? It is even now come. The shadow of the smoke of her burning even now lies upon Acadie. The ships of her exile are near.” He stopped; and I had no word of mocking wherewith to answer him. Then his eyes and his voice softened a little, and he continued: “And _you_ have come back—poor boy, poor fool!—with joy in your heart; and your joy even now is crumbling to ashes in your mouth.” He turned away, leaving me still speechless; but in an instant he was back and his wand thrust at me with a suddenness that made me recoil in childish apprehension. In a voice indescribably dry and biting he cried swiftly: “But look you, boy. Whether she be yours or another’s, there is an evil hand uplifted against her this night. See you to it!”