2 In the Forest of Stone

“Oh, father, it would be lovely!” in a
burst of ecstasy. ‘Ought n’t we to go and
find the way to their church?”

We might do something much less amus-
ing. Accordingly we took the bearings of
the green spire with the skill of veteran
explorers. It lay due north, so that if we
travelled by the way of the North Star we
should be certain to find it. Wheeling the
Man before us, we made a North Star track
for ourselves through the underwood and
over last year’s rustling beech-leaves, till
Guy ceased babbling and crooning, and
dropped into a slumber, as he soon does in
the fresh of the morning. Then we had to
go slowly for fear he should be wakened by
the noise of the dead wood underfoot, for, as
we passed over it with wheels and boots, it
snapped and crackled like a freshly-kindled
fire. It was a relief to get at last to the soft
matting of brown needles and cones under
the Needle-trees, for there we could go pretty
quickly without either jolting him or making
a racket.

We went as far as we were able that day,
and we searched in glade and lawn, in cop-
pice and dingle, but never a trace could we