[Roger the Chapman 05] - Eve of Saint Hyacinth Read Online Free PDF Page B

discernible from several others which thread the denser woodland and you might get lost. It's happened to strangers on more than one occasion. Natives such as myself, who know the countryside well from childhood, never miss their way and nor should anyone else if they have been warned and keep their wits about them.' She tapped me on the arm. 'You seem a clever lad. Watch out for the signs and keep bearing nor'-westwards.'
    I thanked her, humped my pack on to my shoulders and started out briskly. Although I glanced back several times, there was no sign of Jennet. I smiled reminiscently. We should probably never meet again, but just for a little while last night we had given each other pleasure and a gentle affection.

    I was lost. Somehow, at some point, I had taken the wrong turning, and on reflection I thought I knew where that had been.
    I had passed the hermitage, set within its neat patch of vegetable garden, a while ago, and proceeded along the track with confidence. After all, had the cook not called me a 'clever lad'? And had I not, in my heart of hearts, agreed with her? (And does it not say in Ecclesiasticus that pride is hateful before God and man?) It had been simple enough at first to recognize the lesser paths which began to lace the forest floor with their shady, criss-crossed lines, vanishing deep into a subaqueous gloom. But at last I arrived at a place where two tracks diverged with a stealth so subtle that it should have brought me to a halt while I considered which one to follow. Had I done so, I realized now, I should unhesitatingly have taken the narrower, left-hand path, whose distant prospect curved in a westerly direction and whose surface was beaten flatter than the one I chose.
    Moreover, memory told me that the overhanging branches had been cut back by the sticks and crops and billhooks of former travellers anxious to ease their way through the crowding trees.
    Instead, without even pausing to think - indeed, being deep in happy recollections of Jennet - I had selected the tougher but broader track which, after some quarter-mile, gradually dwindled to little more than a trail of trodden down grasses between encroaching brakes of elder and thrusting saplings. The trees arched and towered above my head, while sodden leaves, denied any hint of sun, squelched beneath my feet in a treacherous, slippery morass. Furthermore, I was moving inexorably, if almost imperceptibly, in an easterly direction, away from the junction with the Winchester road.
    I cursed myself roundly for my foolishness and the uncaring arrogance which had led to my present predicament. Although predicament was perhaps too strong a word, for I had no serious doubt of being able to cut my way through the tangle of undergrowth to my left and rejoin the proper path whenever I chose. I decided, however, to follow the grassy trail for a little while longer, in the hope of finding another such animal track, which would save me the cost of torn hose and a snagged jerkin. Also, my bulky pack could prove a severe handicap in virgin territory, where untamed bramble thickets were as plentiful as the crop of pale blossoms that they at present carried.
    Suddenly the trees drew back a little and I found myself in what had once been a small clearing, but was now knee deep in grass and flowers. And in the middle was an abandoned shrine, the niche where once its saint had stood hollow-eyed and empty. The cracked grey stones thrust above a smother of ivy like bones from broken skin and a tangle of loosestrife, succory and tansy pushed its way through holes and crevices in the crumbling mortar. I moved closer, trampling the long grass underfoot, slid the pack from my back and examined the shrine more carefully. There was no indication as to which saint it had been dedicated to, but I did have some idea as to why it had been so thoroughly forgotten. A swift reconnaissance of the surrounding area showed me humps and bumps in the turf, together with