He abode not for the storm to clear, but swept
off through the thick of it; and indeed the wind was somewhat at his
back, so that he went the swiftlier. But when the drift was gotten
to its very worst, he sheltered himself for a little in a hollow
behind a thorn-bush he stumbled upon. As soon as it began to abate
he went on again, and at last when it was quite clear, and the sun
shone out, he found himself on a long slope of the fells covered deep
with smooth white snow, and at the higher end a great crag rising
bare fifty feet above the snow, and more rocks, but none so great,
and broken ground as he judged (the snow being deep) about it on the
hither side; and on the further, three great pine-trees all bent down
and mingled together by their load of snow.
Thitherward he made, as a man might, seeing nothing else to note
before him; but he had not made many strides when forth from behind
the crag by the pine-trees came a man; and at first Face-of-god
thought it might be one of his hunting-fellows gone astray, and he
hailed him in a loud voice, but as he looked he saw the sun flash
back from a bright helm on the new-comer's head; albeit he kept on
his way till there was but a space of two hundred yards between them;
when lo! the helm-bearer notched a shaft to his bent bow and loosed
at Face-of-god, and the arrow came whistling and passed six inches by
his right ear.
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