amongst all women, for she was far fairer than any one of them; and
through all manner of life and through all kinds of deeds would he be
with her, and know more of her fairness and kindness than any other
could: and him-seemed he could see pictures of her and of him amidst
all these deeds and ways.

Now he went very swiftly; for he was eager, though he knew not for
what, and he thought but little of the things on which his eyes fell.
He met none else on the road till he was come to Wildlake's Way,
though he saw folk enough down in the meadows; he was soon amidst the
first of the trees, and without making any stay set his face east and
somewhat north, that is, toward the slopes that led to the great
mountains. He said to himself aloud, as he wended the wood:
'Strange! yestereven I thought much of the wood, and I set my mind on
not going thither, and this morning I thought nothing of it, and here
am I amidst its trees, and wending towards its innermost.'

His way was easy at first, because the wood for a little space was
all of beech, so that there was no undergrowth, and he went lightly
betwixt the tall grey and smooth boles; albeit his heart was nought
so gay as it was in the dale amidst the sunshine. After a while the
beech-wood grew thinner, and at last gave out altogether, and he came
into a space of rough broken ground with nought but a few scrubby
oaks and thorn-bushes growing thereon here and there. 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