'
Several little winds, released by darkness, passed them just then on
their way out of the forest. They gathered half a dozen sparks from
the fire to light them on their way, and brought cool odours with them
from the deepest recesses of the trees--perfumes no sunlight ever
finds. And just behind them came a big white moth, booming and
whirring softly. It darted to and fro to find the trail, then
vanished, so swiftly that no one saw it go.
'He's pushing it along,' said Jimbo.
'Or fastening the lines,' his sister thought, 'you see he hovers in
one place, then darts over to another.'
'That's fastening the knots,' added Jimbo.
'No; he's either an Inspector or a Pathfinder,' whispered Cousin
Henry, 'I don't know exactly which. They show the way the scaffolding
goes. Moths, bats, and owls divide the work between them somehow.' He
sat up suddenly to listen, and the children sat up with him. 'Hark!'
he added, 'do you hear that?'
Sighings and flutterings rose everywhere about them, and overhead the
fluffy spires of the tree-tops all bent one way as the winds went
foraging across the night. Majestically the scaffolding reared up and
towered through the air, while sheets of darkness hung from every
line, and trailed across the earth like gigantic sails from some
invisible vessel.
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