"William Morris - The Wood Beyond the World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morris William)

When he had been gone a little, Walter rose up heedfully; he had with him a scrip wherein was
some cheese and hard-fish, and a little flasket of wine; a short bow he had with him, and a quiver
of arrows; and he was girt with a strong and good sword, and a wood-knife withal. He looked to
all this gear that it was nought amiss, and then speedily went down off the mound, and when he
was come down, he found that it covered him from men coming out of the wood, if he went
straight thence to that shard of the rock-wall where was the pass that led southward.


Now it is no nay that thitherward he turned, and went wisely, lest the carle should make a
backward cast, and see him, or lest any straggler of his own folk might happen upon him.


For to say sooth, he deemed that did they wind him, they would be like to let him of his journey.
He had noted the bearings of the cliffs nigh the shard, and whereas he could see their heads
everywhere except from the depths of the thicket, he was not like to go astray.


He had made no great way ere he heard the horns blowing all together again in one place, and
looking thitherward through the leafy boughs (for he was now amidst of a thicket) he saw his
men thronging the mound, and had no doubt therefore that they were blowing on him; but being
well under cover he heeded it nought, and lying still a little, saw them go down off the mound
and go all of them toward the carle’s house, still blowing as they went, but not faring scatter-
meal. Wherefore it was clear that they were nought troubled about him.


So he went on his way to the shard; and there is nothing to say of 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

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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