It was absurdly
easy; compared to what he had been undergoing. Besides, the lee
of the fence afforded a certain shelter from wind and snow. The
child realized he had been turned about in the dark; and had been
going in the wrong direction. But now, at last, his course seemed
plain to him.
So he set off briskly, close to the fence;--and directly away
from the nearby road.
For another half-hour he continued his inexplicably long tramp;
always buoyed up by the hope of coming to the road in a few more
steps; and doggedly sure of his bearings. Then, turning out from
the fence, in order to skirt a wide hazel thicket, he tripped
over an outcrop of rock, and tumbled into a drift. Getting to his
feet, he sought to regain the fence; but the fall had shaken his
senses and he floundered off in the opposite direction. After a
rod or two of such futile plunging, a stumbling step took him
clean off the edge of the world, and into the air.
All this, for the merest instant. Then, he landed with a jounce
in a heap of brush and dead leaves. Squatting there, breathless,
he stretched out his mittened hand, along the ground.
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