As the mysterious quaker proceeded in his musings, which he occasionally vented aloud, his looks, fixed mournfully on the ground, fell by chance upon a shrub-leaf close to the earth, the under surface of which was turned up, looking white and glistening among the green fronds. This he, at first, regarded with great indifference; but having observed it a second time, a thought entered his brain, which caused him to rise and advance towards it, to examine whether it had been deranged by the winds, by the foot of a beast, or by some more important agency. Its foot-stalk was broken; and divers decaying leaves beneath it were crushed into the ground. These appearances induced him to look about him with much care; and the search terminated in the discovery of several foot-marks in the damp soil, evidently impressed by a pair of moccasined feet, and that very recently. This discovery infused singular animation into his spirit, which was quickened by a sudden shout from the road behind. He sprang behind a bush, until the comer, one of his late sentinels, dashed by; then resuming the search, he found himself following a human trail, that led him into such a labyrinth of bog and bramble, as might have made him repent his presumption, had he possessed the grace to repent any thing. He persisted however with much resolution, and still made his way by the tracks, until the sudden appearance of a huge rattlesnake, bruiting under his nose, startled him out of his propriety and the path together. In a word, he soon proved himself to be no woodman; and, in the course of five or ten minutes' walk, was so completely lost and mazed among the depths of a wild swamp, as to have lost even the power of extricating himself. "'Ay, now,'" said he, with a groan, "'I am in Arden; the more fool I; when I was at home, I was in a better place; but travellers must be content.'" Then looking about him disconsolately, he perceived, through the trees, a little eminence, where he could rest himself, and whence, he thought, he might discover some path out of the wilderness. He proceeded towards it forthwith. It was a swell of land, on the summit very rocky, covered with beech and maple trees, and with an undergrowth of spice-wood and its fragrant sister, the sassafras. Among these he thought he heard the babbling of a little water-course; and this sound he hailed with satisfaction, for he was already tormented with thirst. As he passed up the hill, he stepped into a little nook, not above a dozen paces in circuit, enclosed by rocks and bushes, and so overshadowed by beeches as to form a thick-roofed grotto, on the floor of which sparkled a meager rill, flowing from a spring at the bottom of a rock.