down below him was the hanging of the great hill-slopes, which fell down, not slowly, as those he had been those days a-mounting, but speedily enough, though with little of broken places or sheer cliffs.  But beyond this last of the desert there was before him a lovely land of wooded hills, green plains, and little valleys, stretching out far and wide, till it ended at last in great blue mountains and white snowy peaks beyond them.

Then for very surprise of joy his spirit wavered, and he felt faint and dizzy, so that he was fain to sit down a while and cover his face with his hands.  Presently he came to his sober mind again, and stood up and looked forth keenly, and saw no sign of any dwelling of man.  But he said to himself that that might well be because the good and well-grassed land was still so far off, and that he might yet look to find men and their dwellings when he had left the mountain wilderness quite behind him: So therewith he fell to going his ways down the mountain, and lost little time therein, whereas he now had his livelihood to look to.

CHAPTER IX: WALTER HAPPENETH ON THE FIRST OF THOSE THREE CREATURES

What with one thing, what with another, as his having to turn out of his way for sheer rocks, or for slopes so steep that he might not try the peril of them, and again for bogs impassable, he was fully three days more before he had quite come out of the stony waste, and by that time, though he had never lacked water, his scanty victual was quite done, for all his careful husbandry thereof.  But this troubled him little, whereas he looked to find wild fruits here and there and to shoot some small deer, as hare or coney, and make a shift to cook the same, since he had with him flint and fire-steel.  Moreover the further he went, the surer he was that he should soon come across a dwelling, so smooth and fair as everything looked before him.  And he had scant fear,