It was his hope to gain sufficient start, in the first instance, to enable him to make off so long before his absence should be discovered, that bloodhounds could not be laid on his track until the scent should be already cold; and then keeping the forest-ground, and avoiding all cleared or cultivated lands, to cross the Lancaster sands, and thence, by following up the course of the Kent River, on which he knew Kenric would be stationed as verdurer, to gain the interior labyrinth of fells, moors, morasses, and ravines, which at that time occupied the greater part of Westmoreland and Cumberland. To this end, he managed to conceal himself at nightfall not far from the quarter, before the serfs had collected in their dormitory, intending to prosecute his flight so soon as the neighborhood should be steeped in the silence of night, and the moon should give him sufficient light to find his way through the deep forest mazes; and thus, before daybreak, was already some twenty miles distant from Waltheofstow, where he concealed himself in a deep hazel brake, intending to sleep away the hours of daylight, and resume his flight once more during the partial darkness of the night. It was true that his route lay through the woodland-chase, which spread far and wide over the environs of Fenton in the Forest, and was the property of his new master; but for this he cared little, since there had been so small intercourse between the tenantry and vassals of his late lord and those of Sir Foulke d'Oilly, that he had no fears of being recognized by any chance retainer whom he might possibly encounter, while he knew that, should he chance to be discovered by a passing serf of his own oppressed race, he should not be betrayed by them to their mutual tyrants. Armed, therefore, at large, and already at a considerable distance from the scene of his captivity, he considered himself well-nigh safe when he concealed himself, in the early gray of the dawn, in such a dingle as he felt sure would secure him from the chance intrusion of any casual wayfarers. Under one difficulty, however, he sorely labored. He had been unable to carry with him any provision, however slender; and he must depend on his skill as a forester for his sustenance, by poaching in the woods which he had to traverse, and cooking his game as best he might, borrowing an hour or two of the darkness for the purpose, and kindling his fire in the most remote and obscure places, to avoid danger of the smoke being observed by day, or the glare of the fire by night. He had lost his evening meal on the previous day, and the appetite of the Saxon peasant was proverbially mighty; while, as is ever the case with men who have no motives to self-restraint or economy, abstinence was an unknown power.