It was at this point that Grif came to the conclusion that he had watched the game long enough. Palmer had offered to lend him his butterfly-net, and now he went into the hall to get it. Shouts and laughter still came from the shrubbery, where evidently the ball had not yet been found, but Grif did not go to the searchers’ assistance. Instead, he ran round behind the stables, climbed the low wall beyond, and dropped down into the wood. It was not that he wanted to be unsociable, but something in the morning called to him, something in the bright clear air, the radiant sunshine, the rapturous singing of a lark. His blood was stirred, and a restlessness had entered into him. He must run and shout and roll in the grass like a colt. If Jim wanted to come it would be all right, but he could not wait for him. He would leave plenty of tracks that the scout would be able to follow. He made his way through the trees and the thick undergrowth, blundering at length upon a kind of path, or what had once been a path, for it was now overgrown with brambles. The voices of the croquet-players grew fainter and fainter in the distance, the quiet of the wood deeper and deeper, till at last he felt he was alone. Simultaneously with this he became aware of a new sound, the low cool noise of running water. It seemed quite close, and he paused, trying to get the direction. Then he forced a passage through the bushes on the right, sliding downhill, his feet sinking in loose mould and beds of withered leaves. Dry sticks snapped under his tread, brambles and trailing creepers clutched at his knickerbockers. But the farther he went, the thinner the trees grew, and the easier he found it to walk, till by the time he reached the grassy margin of the stream he was out again in the sunlight. On the opposite bank the ground was marshy, with beds of irises in full bloom. The purple flowers, smoked with a delicate grey, shone vividly amid their green spiked leaves, and Grif sat down to wait for Jim in case he should be following. The wood just here was no denser than a park. To right and left of the iris-swamp it stretched away in a grassy valley, bathed in sunlight. Then, where the slope began on either side, the trees grew thicker, towering to the sky and shutting out all view of what lay beyond. It was intensely quiet. He could hardly believe he was not more than five minutes’ walk from home, so solitary and undisturbed the spot seemed, so remote from human habitation. The tall feathery mountain-ashes, which looked as if a breath could bend them to the ground, stood motionless; the dark beech-leaves shone like polished jewels. Clumps of anemone-leaves grew in the shadow cast by old silver-grey roots, and the fallen tree on which he sat was festooned with the leaves of a nightshade, whose spiked flowers, purple and yellow, dropped down to the surface of the water.