earl's men, and save for remembering the muddy torchlit causeway to
firm ground from the castle, and after that dim hill and dale
passed in turn, and a long causeway and bridge that spanned the
mouth of a narrow valley that opened into the great Pevensea level,
I knew not much of what country we went through. After passing that
causeway we came into forest land, going along a track for awhile,
and then turning inland across rolling hills till we began to go
down again. And as the first streaks of dawn began to show above
the woods, the word was passed for silence, and then that we should
lie down and rest in the fern on the edge of a steep slope below
which shone the faint gleam of water.

Then came Wulfnoth and spoke to Olaf, and said that he and his men
would go beyond the village so as to take the outlaws from the
rear. He would send a man to us who would show us all that was
needed.

After that we lay and waited, and as the sun rose and the light
grew stronger, I thought that I had never seen a more beautiful
place.

We were above a little cliff of red rock that went down to the
valley of the Ashbourne brook. And all the valley from side to side
was full of the morning mists so that it seemed one lake, while the
woods were bright with the change of the leaf, from green to red
and gold--oak and beech and chestnut and hazel each with its own
colour, and all beautiful. The blue downs rose far away to our left
across the ridges of the forest land, and inland the Andred's-weald
stretched, rising hill above hill as far as one might see, timber
covered. There were trees between us and the village that we