his journey till he got before it with the last of the clear day,
and entered it straightway. It was in sooth a downright breach or
cleft in the rock-wall, and there was no hill or bent leading up to
it, nothing but a tumble of stones before it, which was somewhat
uneasy going, yet needed nought but labour to overcome it, and when
he had got over this, and was in the very pass itself, he found it
no ill going: forsooth at first it was little worse than a rough
road betwixt two great stony slopes, though a little trickle of
water ran down amidst of it. So, though it was so nigh nightfall,
yet Walter pressed on, yea, and long after the very night was come.
For the moon rose wide and bright a little after nightfall. But at
last he had gone so long, and was so wearied, that he deemed it
nought but wisdom to rest him, and so lay down on a piece of
greensward betwixt the stones, when he had eaten a morsel out of his
satchel, and drunk of the water out of the stream. There as he lay,
if he had any doubt of peril, his weariness soon made it all one to
him, for presently he was sleeping as soundly as any man in Langton
on Holm.



CHAPTER VIII: WALTER WENDS THE WASTE



Day was yet young when he awoke: he leapt to his feet, and went
down to the stream and drank of its waters, and washed the night off
him in a pool thereof, and then set forth on his way again. When he
had gone some three hours, the road, which had been going up all the
way, but somewhat gently, grew steeper, and the bent on either side