Nearest the fence was an aged, gnarled and riven tree, foolishly decked in blossoms, like some faded, wrinkled dame, fatuously reluctant to leave off girlish finery.  Under its frivolous branches on the grassy sward would be the place for his first night’s halt—­for the magic wood just this side of the sun was now seen to be farther off than he had once supposed.  So he spread his carpet, arranged the contents of his box neatly, and ate half his food-supply, for one’s strength must be kept up in these affairs.  As he ate he looked back toward the big house—­now left forever—­and toward the village beyond.  The spires of the three churches were all pointing sternly upward, as if they would mutely direct him aright, but in their shelter one must submit to the prosaic trammels of decency.  It was not to be thought of.

He longed for morning to come, so that he might be up and on.  He lay down on his mat to be ready for sleep, and watched a big bird far above, cutting lazy graceful figures in the air, like a fancy skater.  Then, on a bough above him, a little dusty-looking bird tried to sing, but it sounded only like a very small door creaking on tiny rusted hinges.  A fat, gluttonous robin that had been hopping about to peer at him, chirped far more cheerfully as it flew away.

Just at this point he suffered a real adventure.  Eight cows sauntered up interestedly and chewed their cuds at him in unison, standing contemplative, calculating, determined.  It is a fact in natural history not widely enough recognised that the domestic cow is the most ferocious appearing of all known beasts—­a thing to be proved by any who will survey one amid strange surroundings, with a mind cleanly disabused of preconceptions.  A visitor from another planet, for example, knowing nothing of our fauna, and confronted in the forest simultaneously by a common red milch cow and the notoriously savage black leopard of the Himalyas, would instinctively shun the cow as a dangerous beast and confidingly seek to fondle the pretty leopard, thus terminating his natural history researches before they were fairly begun.

It can be understood, then, that a moment ensued when the little boy wavered under the steady questioning scrutiny of eight large and powerful cows, all chewing at him in unison.  Yet, even so, and knowing, moreover, that strange cows are ever untrustworthy, only for a moment did he waver.  Then his new straw hat was off to be shaken at them and he heaved a fierce “H-a-y—­y-u-p!”

At this they started, rather indignantly, seeming to meditate his swift destruction; but another shout turned and routed them, and he even chased them a little way, helped now by the inconsiderable dog who came up from pretending to hunt gophers.

After this there seemed nothing to do but eat the other half of the provisions and retire again for the night.  Long after the sun went down behind the magic wood he lay uneasily on his lumpy bed, trying again and again to shut his eyes and open them to find it morning—­which was the way it always happened in the west bedroom of the big house he had left forever.