The Great God Pan | Page 8

Thinking, however, that it
would be better for the child to have playmates of her own age, he
advertised in several local papers for a good home in a comfortable
farmhouse for a girl of twelve, and this advertisement was answered by
Mr. R., a well-to-do farmer in the above-mentioned village. His
references proving satisfactory, the gentleman sent his adopted
daughter to Mr. R., with a letter, in which he stipulated that the girl
should have a room to herself, and stated that her guardians need be at

no trouble in the matter of education, as she was already sufficiently
educated for the position in life which she would occupy. In fact, Mr. R.
was given to understand that the girl be allowed to find her own
occupations and to spend her time almost as she liked. Mr. R. duly met
her at the nearest station, a town seven miles away from his house, and
seems to have remarked nothing extraordinary about the child except
that she was reticent as to her former life and her adopted father. She
was, however, of a very different type from the inhabitants of the
village; her skin was a pale, clear olive, and her features were strongly
marked, and of a somewhat foreign character. She appears to have
settled down easily enough into farmhouse life, and became a favourite
with the children, who sometimes went with her on her rambles in the
forest, for this was her amusement. Mr. R. states that he has known her
to go out by herself directly after their early breakfast, and not return
till after dusk, and that, feeling uneasy at a young girl being out alone
for so many hours, he communicated with her adopted father, who
replied in a brief note that Helen must do as she chose. In the winter,
when the forest paths are impassable, she spent most of her time in her
bedroom, where she slept alone, according to the instructions of her
relative. It was on one of these expeditions to the forest that the first of
the singular incidents with which this girl is connected occurred, the
date being about a year after her arrival at the village. The preceding
winter had been remarkably severe, the snow drifting to a great depth,
and the frost continuing for an unexampled period, and the summer
following was as noteworthy for its extreme heat. On one of the very
hottest days in this summer, Helen V. left the farmhouse for one of her
long rambles in the forest, taking with her, as usual, some bread and
meat for lunch. She was seen by some men in the fields making for the
old Roman Road, a green causeway which traverses the highest part of
the wood, and they were astonished to observe that the girl had taken
off her hat, though the heat of the sun was already tropical. As it
happened, a labourer, Joseph W. by name, was working in the forest
near the Roman Road, and at twelve o'clock his little son, Trevor,
brought the man his dinner of bread and cheese. After the meal, the boy,
who was about seven years old at the time, left his father at work, and,
as he said, went to look for flowers in the wood, and the man, who
could hear him shouting with delight at his discoveries, felt no

uneasiness. Suddenly, however, he was horrified at hearing the most
dreadful screams, evidently the result of great terror, proceeding from
the direction in which his son had gone, and he hastily threw down his
tools and ran to see what had happened. Tracing his path by the sound,
he met the little boy, who was running headlong, and was evidently
terribly frightened, and on questioning him the man elicited that after
picking a posy of flowers he felt tired, and lay down on the grass and
fell asleep. He was suddenly awakened, as he stated, by a peculiar noise,
a sort of singing he called it, and on peeping through the branches he
saw Helen V. playing on the grass with a "strange naked man," who he
seemed unable to describe more fully. He said he felt dreadfully
frightened and ran away crying for his father. Joseph W. proceeded in
the direction indicated by his son, and found Helen V. sitting on the
grass in the middle of a glade or open space left by charcoal burners.
He angrily charged her with frightening his little boy, but she entirely
denied the accusation and laughed at the child's story of a "strange
man," to which he himself did not attach much credence. Joseph W.
came to the conclusion that the boy had woke up with a sudden fright,
as children sometimes do, but Trevor persisted in his