from it, through the beech trees, looking up at their branches as
if wondering at the way the great trunks shot up smooth and bare
from the snow at their roots before they reached the first forking,
fathoms skyward.

"I am a stranger, Oswald, the thane's son," he said. "I do not
rightly know in which direction your home may lie."

I know now that he was himself as lost as I, but that he did not
tell me, for my sake. It is an easy thing for a stranger to go
astray in the Andredsweald. But I could not tell him more than that
I knew that I had left the sea always behind me so long as I knew
where it lay. So he turned southwards at once when he heard that,
and went on swiftly. Then I heard the howl of his dog again, and I
laughed, for the other howls that answered him were nearer.

"Listen, shepherd," I said. "Your dog is making his comrades howl
for him, and the beating that is to come.

"Are you cold?"

For he had shivered suddenly, and his pace quickened. He had heard
the howl of the single wolf that has found its quarry, and calls
the answering pack to follow. But he did not tell me of my mistake.

"I am not cold overmuch," he answered. "Let us run and warm me."

Then he ran until we came to the top of a hill whence the last
glimmer of the sea over Selsea was plain before him, and there I
asked him to set me down lest I tired him.