226 Forest Paths. 



For the first two hundred yards the travelling is 

 easy because of this very scantiness of the fern and 

 underwood ; but then there seems to rise up a thick 

 wall of vegetation. To push a way through the ever- 

 thickening bracken becomes more and more labori- 

 ous : there is scarce a choice but to follow a winding 

 narrow path, green with grass and moss and strewn 

 with leaves, in and out and round the' impenetrable 

 thickets. AVhither it leads — if, indeed, anywhere — 

 there is no sign. The precise sense of direction is 

 quickly lost, and then glancing round and finding 

 nothing but fern and bush and tree on every hand, 

 it dawns upon the mind that this is really a forest — 

 not a wood, where a few minutes either way will 

 give you a glimpse of the outer light through the 

 ash-pole§. 



Other narrow paths — if they can be called paths 

 which show no trace of human usage — branch off 

 from the original one, till b^'-and-by it becomes 

 impossible to recognize one from the other. The 

 first has been lost indeed long ago, without its 

 having been observed : for the bracken is now as 

 high as the shoulders, and the eye cannot penetrate 

 man}' yards on either side. Under a huge oak at 

 last there is an open space, circular, and correspond- 

 ing with the outer circumference of its branches : 

 carpeted with dark green grass and darker moss, 

 thickly strewn with brown leaves and acorns that 

 have dropped from their cups. A wall of fern en- 

 closes it : the path loses itself in the grass because 

 it is itself green. 



Several such paths debouch here — which is the 

 right one to follow ? It is pure chance. On again, 



