On the ridge top the sun had seemed to be of eternal brightness; but I descended strangely into an unlit world. The intervale below me was much narrower than the usual valley where a settlement lies; and it was almost cut in halves by a huge spur that, at its foot, was bounded on either side by a stream of water. The two streams, Nighthawk Branch and Mossy Creek, united at the toe of the spur. I took the trail up Mossy Creek, as I had been told to do, and walked along in sound of the water, but getting no glimpse of it through the smothering laurel. It was the first time that water running behind green leaves had left me untouched by a mysterious joy; the first time that I had ever thought of the laurel as sombre. Its dark radiance seemed like a challenge from Nature ready to spring and regain an inimical kingdom. I was half in sympathy with the Highlander who regarded it merely as a thing to fight or let contemptuously alone. My old admiration for the Greeks came rushing back. What a redoubtable imagination it was that, in the credulous youth and fear-time of the world, could draw all terror from the forest and people it with creatures of play and light! The trail led me into a cove, away from the quavering incantation of the water, but the laurel went darkly with me, heavily mingled with kalmia that choked the trees and wrenched at their life with its curling arms. “The shack’s on northy land,” Mrs. Kane had said to me, “an’ the la’r’l is so blustery it ’ud tangle a wild hog.” I knew why the original settler had chosen such a spot, in spite of his aversion to “thicketty patches.” In the stifling coves it would take a most resolute official to find a hidden “still.” This made the place equally desirable in the eyes of the latest tenant, Judd. I had known Evvie only on sunny hilltops, and I wondered what “living under the mountain,” as the natives put it, had done to her spirit. I recalled Mrs. Kane’s remark after a first visit to Evvie. “Seemed like I had to keep wipin’ at the shadders all the time I’s there.” Evvie must be very tired, I thought, of wiping at the shadows. The trees rose more freely and I came to a clearing. On a hill opposite me, which faced the east, was a cornfield, two or three acres in size. This, thanks to a low gap in the near-by ridge, received a few hours of morning sunlight. In the hollow below stood the shack where Evvie lived. I found her in bed with one of Judd’s sisters in sullen attendance. “She’s in bed ’bout ever’ other day,” the sister said, “an’ Judd’s always havin’ to come over the branch fer one of us to wait on her.” “I can git up to-morr’ sure,” said Evvie, but the faint remark only sent her attendant’s nose a little higher. Evvie was strange to see. Her eyes, dark and burning, clung devouringly to a face that had already lost all flesh. “Where is Judd?” I asked.