SHALL we go into the Forest and get some violets?" W. V. asks gleefully, as she muffles herself in what she calls her bearskin. "And can't we take the Man with us, father?"
It is a clear forenoon in mid January; crisp with frost, but bright, and there is not a ripple in the sweet air. On the morning side of things the sun has blackened roofs and footpaths and hedges, but the rest of the world looks delightfully hoar and winterly.
Now when trunks and branches are clotted white to windward, the Forest, as every one knows, is quite an exceptional place for violets. Of course, you go far and far away—through the glades and dingles of the oak-men, and past the Webs of the Iron Spider, and beyond the Water of Heart's-ease, till you are on the verge of the Blue Distances. There all the roads come to an end, and that is the real beginning of the ancient wilderness of wood, which, W. V. tells me, covered nearly the whole of England in the days before the "old Romans" came. From what she has read in history, it appears that in the rocky regions of the wold there are still plenty of bears and fierce wolves and wild stags; and that the beavers still build weirs and log-houses across the streams. Well, when you have gone far enough, you will see a fire blazing in the snow on the high rocky part of the Forest, and around it twelve strange men sitting on huge boulders, telling stories of old times.
"And if January would let April change places with him," W. V. explains, "you would see jumbos of violets just leaping up through the snow in a minute. And I think he would, if we said we wanted them for the Man."
You see, the Man, who has been only three months with us and has had very little to say to any one since he came, is still almost a stranger, and W. V. treats him accordingly with much deference and consideration. The bleak foggy weather had set in when he arrived, and it has grown sharper and more trying ever since; and as he came direct from a climate of perpetual sunshine and everlasting blossom, there is always danger of his catching cold. He keeps a good deal to his own room, never goes abroad when the wind is in the east or north, and has not yet set foot in the Forest. This January day, however, is so bright and safe that we think we may lure him away; and in all the divine region of fresh air, what place is sunnier and more sheltered than the Forest? And then there is the hint of violets!
So off to the woods we go, and with us the Man, warm and snug, and companionable enough in his peculiar silent way. It is pleasant to notice the first catkins, and to get to white sunlit spots where the snow shows that no one has preceded us. And what a delightful surprise it is to catch sight of the footprints of the wild creatures along the edge of the paths and among the bushes!
"Are the oak-men really asleep, father?" asks W. V. "Nobody else is."
We stop to examine the trail where Bunny has scuttled past. And here some small creature, a field-mouse perhaps, has waded through the fluffy drift. And do look at the bird-tracks at the foot of the big oaks!
"Oh, father, these go right inside that little hole under the root; is the bird there?"
And others go right round the trunk as though there had been a search for some small crevice of shelter.
As we wander along I think of all, the change which has taken place since last I recorded our birthday rambles in the Forest. It is only a year ago, and yet how amazingly W. V. has grown in a twelve-month! Even to her the Forest is no longer quite the same vague enchanted region it used to be. Strange people have started up out of history and invaded its green solitude; on the outskirts "ancient Britons," tattooed with blue woad, have made clearings and sown corn, and "old Romans" have run a long straight
