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. He took the path as one who needs must, and
went his ways as it led. In sooth it was well-nigh blind, but he was
a deft woodsman, and by means of it skirted many a close thicket that
had otherwise stayed him. So on he went, and though the boughs were
close enough overhead, and the sun came through but in flecks, he
judged that it was growing towards noon, and he wotted well that he
was growing aweary. For he had been long afoot, and the more part of
the time on a rough way, or breasting a slope which was at whiles
steep enough.

At last the track led him skirting about an exceeding close thicket
into a small clearing, through which ran a little woodland rill
amidst rushes and dead leaves: there was a low mound near the
eastern side of this wood-lawn, as though there had been once a
dwelling of man there, but no other sign or slot of man was there.