d haunted by a doubt whether I was going in any direction
at all, I kept wearily travelling "north-west and by south."

CHAPTER XII. FRIENDS AND FOES

Coming, in one of the channels, upon what seemed a little shrub, the
outlying picket, I trusted, of an army behind it, I knelt to look at
it closer. It bore a small fruit, which, as I did not recognise it,
I feared to gather and eat. Little I thought that I was watched from
behind the rocks by hundreds of eyes eager with the question whether I
would or would not take it.

I came to another plant somewhat bigger, then to another larger still,
and at length to clumps of a like sort; by which time I saw that they
were not shrubs but dwarf-trees. Before I reached the bank of this
second branch of the river-bed, I found the channels so full of them
that it was with difficulty I crossed such as I could not jump. In one
I heard a great rush, as of a multitude of birds from an ivied wall, but
saw nothing.

I came next to some large fruit-bearing trees, but what they bore looked
coarse. They stood on the edge of a hollow, which evidently had once
been the basin of a lake. From the left a forest seemed to flow into
and fill it; but while the trees above were of many sorts, those in the
hollow were almost entirely fruit-bearing.

I went a few yards down the slope of grass mingled with moss, and
stretched myself upon it weary. A little farther down stood a tiny tree
full of rosiest apples no bigger than small cherries, its top close to
my hand; I pulled and ate one of them. Finding it delicious, I was in
the act of taking another, when a sudden shouting of children, mingled
with laughter clear and sweet as the music of a brook, startled me with
delight.

"He likes our apples! He likes our apples! He's a good giant! He's a
good giant!" cried many little voices.

"He's a giant!" objected one.

"He IS rather big," assented another, "but littleness isn't everything!
It won't keep you from growing big and stupid except you take care!"

I rose on my elbow and stared. Above and about and below me stood a
multitude of children, apparently of all ages, some just able to run
alone, and some about twelve or thirteen. Three or four seemed older.
They stood in a small knot, a little apart, and were less excited
than the rest. The many were chattering in groups, declaiming and
contradicting, like a crowd of grown people in a city, only with greater
merriment, better manners, and m