The sun was
high in the heavens now, and shone brightly down on the waste, though
there were a few white clouds high up above him. The rabbits
scuttled out of the grass before him; here and there he turned aside
from a stone on which lay coiled an adder sunning itself; now and
again both hart and hind bounded away from before him, or a sounder
of wild swine ran grunting away toward closer covert. But nought did
he see but the common sights and sounds of the woodland; nor did he
look for aught else, for he knew this part of the woodland
indifferent well.
He held on over this treeless waste for an hour or more, when the
ground began to be less rugged, and he came upon trees again, but
thinly scattered, oak and ash and hornbeam not right great, with
thickets of holly and blackthorn between them. The set of the ground
was still steadily up to the east and north-east, and he followed it
as one who wendeth an assured way. At last before him seemed to rise
a wall of trees and thicket; but when he drew near to it, lo! an
opening in a certain place, and a little path as if men were wont to
thread the tangle of the wood thereby; though hitherto he had noted
no slot of men, nor any sign of them, since he had plunged into the
deep of the beech-wood.
Pages:
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62