After washing as well as I could in the clear stream, I rose and
looked around me. The tree under which I seemed to have lain all
night was one of the advanced guard of a dense forest, towards
which the rivulet ran. Faint traces of a footpath, much
overgrown with grass and moss, and with here and there a
pimpernel even, were discernible along the right bank.
"This," thought I, "must surely be the path into Fairy Land,
which the lady of last night promised I should so soon find." I
crossed the rivulet, and accompanied it, keeping the footpath on
its right bank, until it led me, as I expected, into the wood.
Here I left it, without any good reason: and with a vague feeling
that I ought to have followed its course, I took a more southerly
direction.
CHAPTER III
"Man doth usurp all space,
Stares thee, in rock, bush, river, in
the face.
Never thine eyes behold a tree;
'Tis no sea thou seest in the sea,
'Tis but a disguised humanity.
To avoid thy fellow, vain thy plan;
All that interests a man, is man."
HENRY SUTTON.
The trees, which were far apart where I entered, giving free
passage to the level rays of the sun, closed rapidly as I
advanced, so that ere long their crowded stems barred the
sunlight out, forming as it were a thick grating between me and
the East.
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