The two rode forth from the courtyard early in the morning, and passing through the whole length of the enclosure within the stockade, issued at the South Barrier and almost immediately entered the forest.  They rather checked their horses’ haste, fresh as the animals were from the stable, but could not quite control their spirits, for the walk of a horse is even half as fast again while he is full of vigour.  The turn of the track soon shut out the stockade; they were alone in the woods.

Long since, early as they were, the sun had dried the dew, for his beams warm the atmosphere quickly as the spring advances towards summer.  But it was still fresh and sweet among the trees, and even Felix, though bound on so gloomy an errand, could not choose but feel the joyous influence of the morning.  Oliver sang aloud in his rich deep voice, and the thud, thud of the horses’ hoofs kept time to the ballad.

The thrushes flew but a little way back from the path as they passed, and began to sing again directly they were by.  The whistling of blackbirds came from afar where there were open glades or a running stream; the notes of the cuckoo became fainter and fainter as they advanced farther from the stockade, for the cuckoo likes the woodlands that immediately border on cultivation.  For some miles the track was broad, passing through thickets of thorn and low hawthorn-trees with immense masses of tangled underwood between, brambles and woodbine twisted and matted together, impervious above but hollow beneath; under these they could hear the bush-hens running to and fro and scratching at the dead leaves which strewed the ground.  Sounds of clucking deeper in betrayed the situation of their nests.

Rushes, and the dead sedges of last year, up through which the green fresh leaves were thrusting themselves, in some places stood beside the way, fringing the thorns where the hollow ground often held the water from rainstorms.  Out from these bushes a rabbit occasionally started and bounded across to the other side.  Here, where there were so few trees, and the forest chiefly consisted of bush, they could see some distance on either hand, and also a wide breadth of the sky.  After a time the thorn bushes were succeeded by ash wood, where the trees stood closer to the path, contracting the view; it was moister here, the hoofs cut into the grass, which was coarse and rank.  The trees growing so close together destroyed themselves, their lower branches rubbed together and were killed, so that in many spots the riders could see a long way between the trunks.

Every time the wind blew they could hear a distant cracking of branches as the dead boughs, broken by the swaying of the trees, fell off and came down.  Had any one attempted to walk into the forest there they would have sunk above the ankle in soft decaying wood, hidden from sight by thick vegetation.  Wood-pigeons rose every minute from these ash-trees with a loud clatter of wings; their calls resounded continually, now deep in the forest, and now close at hand.  It was evident that a large flock of them had their nesting-place here, and indeed their nests of twigs could be frequently seen from the path.  There seemed no other birds.