One evening Aurelius was telling Mr Stodham about the “battle of the green and scarlet.” “It took place in your country,” said he to the good man, too timid to be incredulous.  
“No,” answered Mr Stodham, “I never heard of it.”
 
“You shall,” said Aurelius, and told the tale.
 
“The first thing that I can remember is that a tall, gaunt man in green broke out of a dark forest, leaping extravagantly, superhumanly, but rhythmically, and wildly singing; and that he was leading an army to victory. As he carved and painted himself on my mind I knew without effort what had gone before this supreme moment.
 
“It was late afternoon in winter. No light came from the misted, invisible sky, but the turf of the bare hill-top seemed of itself to breathe up a soft illumination. Where this hill-top may be I know not, but at the time of[178] which I am speaking I was on foot in broad daylight and on a good road in the county of Hampshire.
 
“The green man, the extravagant leaper and wild singer, broke out of the hillside forest at the head of a green army. His leaping and his dancing were so magnificent that his followers might at first have been mistaken for idle spectators. The enemy came, clad in scarlet, out of the forest at the opposite side of the hill-top. The two were advancing to meet upon a level plateau of smooth, almost olive turf....
 
“For days and nights the steep hillside forest had covered the manœuvres of the forces. Except one or two on each side they had seen and heard nothing of one another, so dark were the trees, the mists so dense and of such confusing motion; and that those few had seen or heard their enemies could only be guessed, for they were found dead. Day and night the warriors saw pale mist, dark trees, darker earth, and the pale faces of their companions, alive or dead. What they heard was chiefly the panting of breathless men on the steeps, but sometimes also the drip of the sombre crystal mist-beads, the drenched flight of great birds and their shrieks of alarm or of resentment[179] at the invaders, the chickadeedee of little birds flitting about them without fear, the singing of thrushes in thorns at the edges of the glades.
 
“In the eventless silence of the unknown forest each army, and the scarlet men more than the green, had begun to long for the conflict, if only because it might prove that they were not lost, forgotten, marooned, in the heart of the mist, cut off from time and from all humanity save the ancient dead whose bones lay in the barrows under the beeches. Therefore it was with joy that they heard the tread of their enemies approaching across the plain. When they could see one another it was to the scarlet men as if they had sighted home; to the green men it was as if a mistress was beckoning. They forgot the endless strange hills, the dark trees, the curst wizard mist. It no longer seemed to them that the sheep-bells, bubbling somewhere out of sight, came from flocks who were in that world which they had unwillingly and unwittingly left for ever.
 
“The scarlet men were very silent; if there were songs in the heads of two or three, none sang. They looked neither to left nor to right; they saw not their fellows, but only the enemy. The breadth of the plain was very great to them.[180] With all their solidity they could hardly endure the barren interval—it had been planned that they should wait for the charge, but it was felt now that such a pause might be too much for them. Ponderous and stiff, not in a straight line, nor in a curve, nor with quite natural irregularity, but in half a dozen straight lines that never made one, they came on, like rocks moving out against the tide. I noticed that they were modern red-coats armed with rifles, their bayonets fixed.
 
“The green men made a curved irregular front like the incoming sea. They rejoiced separately and together in these minutes of approach. And they sang. Their song was one which the enemy took to be mournful because it had in it the spirit of the mountain mists as well as of the mountains. It saddened the hearts of the enemy mysteriously; the green men themselves it filled, as a cup with wine, with the certainty of immortality. They turned their eyes frequently towards their nearest companions, or they held their heads high, so that their gaze did not take in the earth or anything upon it. The enemy they scarcely saw. They saw chiefly their leaping leader and his mighty twelve.
 
“The first love of the scarlet men for the enemy[181] had either died, or had turned into hate, fear, indignation, or contempt. There may have been joy among them, but all the passions of the individuals were blended into one passion—if such it could be called—of the mass, part contempt for the others, part confidence in themselves. But among the green men first love had grown swiftly to a wild passion of joy.
 
“The broad scarlet men pushed forward steadily.
 
“The tall green hero danced singing towards them. His men leaped after him—first a company of twelve, who might have been his breth............