and three dozen of chickens
from Alice to be disposed of, and a list as long as the tail of a kite
of articles which she and Edith required; fortunately there was nothing
very expensive on the list, long as it was; but women in those day's
required needles, pins, buttons, tapes, thread, worsted, and a hundred
other little necessaries, as they do now. As soon as they were gone
Edward, who was still castle-building instead of offering his services
to Alice, brought out his father's sword and commenced cleaning it.
When he had polished it up to his satisfaction, he felt less inclined
than ever to do anything; so after dinner he took his gun and walked out
into the forest, that he might indulge in his reveries. He walked on,
quite unconscious of the direction in which he was going, and more than
once finding his hat knocked off his head by the branch of a tree which
he had not perceived--for the best of all possible reasons, because his
eyes were cast on the ground--when his ears were saluted with the
neighing of a horse. He looked up and perceived that he was near to a
herd of forest ponies, the first that he had seen since he had lived in
the forest.

This roused him, and he looked about him. "Where can I have been
wandering to?" thought Edward: "I never fell in with any of the forest
ponies before; I must therefore have walked in a direction quite
contrary to what I usually do. I do not know where I am; the scenery is
new to me. What a fool I am. It's lucky that nobody except Humphrey
digs pitfalls, or I should probably have been in one by this time; and
I've brought out my gun and left the dog at home. Well, I suppose I can
find my way back." Edward then surveyed the whole herd of ponies, which
were at no great distance from him. There was a fine horse or two among
them, which appeared to be the leaders of the herd. They allowed Edward
to approach to within two hundred yards, and then, with manes and tails
streaming in the air, they darted off with the rapidity of the wind.

"Now I'll puzzle Humphrey when I go back," thought Edward. "He says
that Billy is getting old, and that he wishes he could get another pony.
I will tell him what a plenty there are, and propose that he should
invent some way of catching one. That will be a poser for him; yet I'm
sure that he'll try, for he is very ingenious. And now which way am I
to turn to find my way home? I think it ought to be to the north; but
which is north?