“Do you know,” Kate went on, anxious to prevent anything unpleasant, for there was something very black perched on Janet’s forehead, “I have taken to reading about that kind of thing.” “I beg you will give it up at once. You will bewilder your brains till you are ready to believe anything, if only it be absurd enough. Nay, you may come to find the element of vulgarity essential to belief. I should be sorry to the heart to believe concerning a horse or dog what they tell you nowadays about Shakespeare and Burns. What have you been reading, my girl?” “Don’t be alarmed, uncle. Only some Highland legends, which are too absurd either for my belief or for your theories.” “I don’t know that, Kate.” “Why, what could you do with such shapeless creatures as haunt their fords and pools for instance? They are as featureless as the faces of the mountains.” “And so much the more terrible.” “But that does not make it easier to believe in them,” said Harry. “I only said,” returned his uncle, “that their shapelessness adds to their horror.” “But you allowed--almost, at least, uncle,” said Kate, “that you could find a place in your theories even for those shapeless creatures.” Cornelius sat silent for a moment; then, having first doubled the length of his face, and restored it to its natural condition, said thoughtfully, “I suspect, Katey, if you were to come upon an ichthyosaurus or a pterodactyl asleep in the shubbery, you would hardly expect your report of it to be believed all at once either by Harry or Janet.” “I suppose not, uncle. But I can’t see what--” “Of course such a thing could not happen here and now. But there was a time when and a place where such a thing may have happened. Indeed, in my time, a traveller or two have got pretty soundly disbelieved for reporting what they saw,--the last of an expiring race, which had strayed over the natural verge of its history, coming to life in some neglected swamp, itself a remnant of the slime of Chaos.” “I never heard you talk like that before, uncle,” said Harry. “If you go on like that, you’ll land me in a swamp, I’m afraid.” “I wasn’t talking to you at all, Harry. Kate challenged me to find a place for kelpies, and such like, in the theories she does me the honour of supposing I cultivate.” “Then you think, uncle, that all these stories are only legends which, if you could follow them up, would lead you back to some one of the awful monsters that have since quite disappeared from the earth.”