Sometimes he got to the barn first and had time to look about the great, bare place that to-night was the heart of the dale. The knotted floor was well swept, and slippery with shredded wax. Forms were set along the walls, with clean paper at their backs, and high above that were the glistening, steady lamps. There were food and drink on tables at the end, white cloths and bright tea-urns and polished cups and plates. Far over all was the darkness of the roof, untouched by the light as the dale through the big doors. Outside the door, the opening had shone gold; on this, it was only a gaping square of black. But the lads and lasses were waiting, as a rule, clear-skinned, dark-haired folk with still, grey eyes, and feet that were tapping the floor before he had tuned. He thought about them as he played with a steady swing, of their lives and the lives that had made them what they were. He thought of their old names, and the way they bred so true to type and strain. He thought of the long silences in which they spent their days, of their courtesies and roughnesses, their simple-mindedness and reserve, their inherited knowledge of the lonely places of the earth. He thought of their houses, with rafters and wide hearths, their worn flags and sudden steps, their deep sills and oak stairs. He thought of the windows which, at break of day, held pictures never seen on any wall. He thought of the hills where they walked, that were rich with Viking names and cradled the Viking dead. He thought of the secrets of the hills, of their mysterious dangers and almost-forgotten rites. It was a hundred years, perhaps, since they lighted the last fire on Baal’s Hill; less than seventy since the wildfire had gone round. The fire-charmers were barely dead, or the tooth-charmers, or the old women who knew the herbs. Folk lived long in the dales, and the old secrets longer still. Gods were not of necessity fled because the sacrifice was past. There was still that feeling up in the wastes that out of nothing something might appear. There were lakes in which drowned bodies never rose, and terrible winds which could slay you in a breath. Folks said there were spirits who hated the railways crossing the moors, and were glad when the big trains came to harm in the night. Things were as strange as when there were devils on Cross Fell, and the idol lay in its bed at Kirkby Thore. The dale-folk were wonderful to Kit, because of the mysteries in their blood, but often he found them rather pitiful, too. Often they seemed to him, as he played, like children dancing in a lighted cave. He thought of the cave as set in a blackened void, with giants of darkness stooping over its roof. The folk in the cave were not afraid, because for them the cave was the whole world. So heedless they seemed, and young, so fleet-passing and yet so strong. Death slew them, and yet they came in the same form, with the same faces and voices and transmitted ways. Life must surely be stronger