He came to the great hedge and he thrust his way
through it, and though the thorns of the brambles scored him deeply
and tore threads from his wonderful suit, and though burs and
goosegrass and havers caught and clung to him, he did not care. He
did not care, for he knew it was all part of the wearing for which
he had longed. "I am glad I put on my suit," he said; "I am glad
I wore my suit."
Beyond the hedge he came to the duck-pond, or at least to what
was the duck-pond by day. But by night it was a great bowl of
silver moonshine all noisy with singing frogs, of wonderful silver
moonshine twisted and clotted with strange patternings, and the
little man ran down into its waters between the thin black rushes,
knee-deep and waist-deep and to his shoulders, smiting the water to
black and shining wavelets with either hand, swaying and shivering
wavelets, amid which the stars were netted in the tangled
reflections of the brooding trees upon the bank. He waded until he
swam, and so he crossed the pond and came out upon the other side,
trailing, as it seemed to him, not duckweed, but very silver in
long, clinging, dripping masses. And up he went through the
transfigured tangles of the willow-herb and the uncut seeding grass
of the farther bank. And so he came glad and breathless into the
highroad. "I am glad," he said, "beyond measure, that I had
clothes that fitted this occasion.
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