The spot was seldom visited by a pedestrian, except perhaps in the
shooting season. The rarity of human intrusion was evidenced by the
mazes of rabbit-runs, the feathers of shy birds, the exuviae of
reptiles; as also by the well-worn paths of squirrels down the sides
of trunks, and thence horizontally away. The fact of the plantation
being an island in the midst of an arable plain sufficiently
accounted for this lack of visitors. Few unaccustomed to such
places can be aware of the insulating effect of ploughed ground,
when no necessity compels people to traverse it. This rotund hill
of trees and brambles, standing in the centre of a ploughed field of
some ninety or a hundred acres, was probably visited less frequently
than a rock would have been visited in a lake of equal extent.

She walked round the column to the other side, where she found the
door through which the interior was reached. The paint, if it had
ever had any, was all washed from the wood, and down the decaying
surface of the boards liquid rust from the nails and hinges had run
in red stains. Over the door was a stone tablet, bearing,
apparently, letters or words; but the inscription, whatever it was,
had been smoothed over with a plaster of lichen.

Here stood this aspiring piece of masonry, erected as the most
conspicuous and ineffaceable reminder of a man that could be thought
of; and yet the whole aspect of the memorial betokened
forgetfulness. Probably not a dozen people within the district knew
the name of the person commemorated, while perhaps not a soul
remembered whether the column were hollow or solid, whether with or
without a tablet explaining its date and purpose. She herself had
lived within a mile of it for the last five years, and had never
come near it till now.