g every minute to come into some known glade or
sight, some familiar landmark, before the sun set. But I found
nought but new trees, and new views over unknown white country all
round me as I turned my steps hither and thither as one mark after
another drew me. Then the sun set and the short day was over, and
the grey twilight of snow weather came after the passing of the
warm red glow from the west, shadowless and still.

That was about the time when I was missed at home, for my father
came back from Chichester town, and straightway asked for me. And
when I came not for calling, nor yet for the short notes of the
horn which my father had always used to bring me to him, one ran
here and another there, seeking me in wonted places about the
village, until one minded that he had seen a boy, who must have
been myself, go up the hill track forestwards.

Then was fear enough for me, seeing that from our village more than
one child has wandered forth thus and been seen no more, and I was
the only son of the long-widowed thane, and the last of the ancient
line that went back to Ella, and beyond him even to Woden. So in
half an hour there was not a man left in the village, and all the
woods and hillsides rang with their calls to me, while in the hall
itself bided only the old nurse, who wept and wailed by the hearth,
and my father, whose tall form came and went across the doorway,
restless; for he waited here lest he should miss my coming
homeward. Up the steep street of the village the wives stood in the
doorways silent, and forgetting their ailments for once in
listening for the cries that should tell that I was found. If they
spoke at all, they said that I should not be seen again, for the
cold had driven the wolves close to the villages.

But I was by this time far beyond the reach of friendly voices, on
the edge of the great hill that falls sheer down through many a
score feet of hanging woods and thicket to the Lavington valley far
below, and there at last I knew for certain that I was lost
utterly, for this place or its like I had never seen before. Then I
stayed my feet, bewildered, for the sun was gone, and I had nothing
to tell me in which direction I was heading, for at that time the
stars told me nought, though there were enough out now to direct
any man who was used to the night. When I stood still I found that
I was growing deadly cold, and the weariness that I had so far
staved off began to creep over me, so t