The stone-carver readily made friends with Gwillym, who seemed to understand by some instinct his broken talk and lively gestures. When Andrew wished to know what some bird or animal was like, the boy would mold it in clay, or perhaps take him to some haunt of the woodlands where they could lie motionless for a half-hour watching the live creature itself. But there was one among Gwillym's clay figures which they never saw in the forest, and to which the boy never would give a name. It was a shaggy half-human imp with stubby horns, goat-legs and little hoofed feet. He modeled it, bent under a huge bundle, perched on a point of rock, dancing, playing on an oaten pipe. Andrew was so taken with the seated figure that he copied it in stone to hold up the font. “What's that for?” asked David when he saw it. “Are ye askin' Auld Hornie ben the kirk, man?” Andrew laughed and dusted his pointed brown fingers. “One of Pan's people, David. They will not stay away from us. If you sprinkle the threshold with holy water they come through the window.” That figure puzzled David, but Gwillym would say nothing. At last the church was finished, and the village girls went gathering fresh rushes, fragrant herbs and flowers to strew the floor. David went fishing with Roger in Roger's own particular trout-stream. Coming back in the twilight they beheld Gwillym dancing upon the moss, to the piping of a strange little hairy man sitting on a rock. An instant later the stranger vanished, and the boy came toward them searching their faces with his solemn black eyes. “That was my playfellow,” he said. “I have not seen him for a long time. He and his people lived here once, but they ran away when there came to be so many houses. I used to hide in the woods when father came seeking me at Mother Izan's, and my playfellow gave me nuts and berries and wild honey. He said that if father beat me I was to go and live with his people. I think I should if you had not come.” Howel, the mason, was a bewildered man that night. He agreed, before he fairly knew what he was about, to David's adopting Gwillym as his own son, to go with him to the house of a good woman in London and be taught all that a lad should learn. In time he might be able to carve stone saints and angels, kings and queens, gargoyles and griffins, for great cathedrals. And all this had come of the forbidden clay toys. “I beat him week after week,” he muttered, “for melling wi' mud images and running away to the forest to play wi' devils. 'Twas no good to him, being reared by an old witch.” David's mouth set in a grim line and he rubbed the little black head with his crooked, skillful, weatherworn hand.