the darkest places where the shadow was
thickest, swelled the growth of an abominable fungus, making the still
air sick with its corrupt odor, and he shuddered as he felt the horrible
thing pulped beneath his feet. Then there was a gleam of sunlight, and as
he thrust the last boughs apart, he stumbled into the open space in the
heart of the camp. It was a lawn of sweet close turf in the center of the
matted brake, of clean firm earth from which no shameful growth sprouted,
and near the middle of the glade was a stump of a felled yew-tree, left
untrimmed by the woodman. Lucian thought it must have been made for a
seat; a crooked bough through which a little sap still ran was a support
for the back, and he sat down and rested after his toil. It was not
really so comfortable a seat as one of the school forms, but the
satisfaction was to find anything at all that would serve for a chair. He
sat there, still panting after the climb and his struggle through the
dank and jungle-like thicket, and he felt as if he were growing hotter
and hotter; the sting of the nettle was burning his hand, and the
tingling fire seemed to spread all over his body.

Suddenly, he knew that he was alone. Not merely solitary; that he had
often been amongst the woods and deep in the lanes; but now it was a
wholly different and a very strange sensation. He thought of the valley
winding far below him, all its fields by the brook green and peaceful and
still, without path or track. Then he had climbed the abrupt surge of the
hill, and passing the green and swelling battlements, the ring of oaks,
and the matted thicket, had come to the central space. And behind there
were, he knew, many desolate fields, wild as common, untrodden,
unvisited. He was utterly alone. He still grew hotter as he sat on the
stump, and at last lay down at full length on the soft grass, and more at
his ease felt the waves of heat pass over his body.

And then he began to dream, to let his fancies stray over half-imagined,
delicious things, indulging a virgin mind in its wanderings. The hot air
seemed to beat upon him in palpable waves, and the nettle sting tingled
and itched intolerably; and he was alone upon the fairy hill, within the
great mounds, within the ring of oaks, deep in the heart of the matted
thicket. Slowly and timidly he began to untie his boots, fumbling with
the laces, and glancing all the while on every side at the ugly misshapen
trees that hedged the lawn. Not a