At length he emerged into a wide clearing across which ran a ragged fence of time-stained wood overgrown with woodbine and more or less buried in nettles, darnels, shrubs and young trees. In the centre of this there was an old-fashioned stile, which Owain took to be the place of meeting. Beyond the open ground stretched for some distance, and faintly in the warm twilight he could see a tall wall and beyond it the thick foliage of oaks, beeches and elms. This was undoubtedly the place, as he remembered how the girl at the Bull Inn had assured him that the wood lay long-side the park of the squire, and no great distance from a red brick wall. Therefore Owain walked briskly up to the stile, taking off his straw hat for the sake of coolness, and looked all round the place to see if the person who had advertised was waiting. He saw no one. A glance at his watch after lighting a match showed him that he had been fifteen minutes walking from the church to the stile, so he wondered if the person had grown tired of waiting. But that was unlikely, since he was not so very much behind his time. The man--he presumed that it was a man--who had advertised would certainly wait longer when he had taken so much trouble to bring about the meeting. Hench therefore believed that something had detained the person in question, and sat down on the stile to wait. Already the moon was well up in the cloudless sky and her silver radiance flooded the whole solemn woodland. Owain admired the mingled beauty of light and shade, listened to the distant nightingale singing triumphantly, and stared every now and then round about to make sure that he would not miss his man, since he did not know from which quarter he would appear. Then came a surprise, and a highly unpleasant one.