128 JOHANNA^S GARDEN 



He was very tired, but afraid to drowse. 

 Every moment he expected to see some enemy 

 coming along his trail, and for hours he kept 

 watch on the white plain till sleep claimed him, 

 leaving his sentinel senses on guard. No 

 moving objects, however, fell on his sight, 

 nothing save the waste of snow and the vapour 

 over the spring : no sound smote his ears except 

 the purl of the rill and the faint tinkle of the ice- 

 crystals on the sedge, so that — a most unusual 

 occurrence — he did not awake till the sun was 

 about to go down and it was time to think of 

 leaving the form. After an uneventful night's 

 wandering he returned to the seat, and would 

 have continued to use it had not the wind risen 

 again, rendering the situation so inclement that 

 he had no choice but to go. 



His intention was disclosed by his careless- 

 ness on quitting the form. Instead of bounding 

 from it, as was his usual practice, he simply 

 stepped out, leaving tracks that a child might 

 have traced home, and leaping across the runnel 

 he rolled on the green, a thing he would never 

 have done had he meant to come back. Very 

 different was his conduct at dawn in the field by 

 Johanna's Garden. He crossed and criss-crossed 

 his tracks before springing on to the hedge, 

 and from that into the garden, where, after two 



