When he awoke the sky was alive with beautiful stars. With all of these he was familiar. He rose; and by the delicate light of the heavens, which melted the dark canopies above him, pressed through the brakes and thickets into the heart of the forest. Many were the nimble-footed wild creatures that crossed his path, and in the darkness startled him; he was sensible all about him of weird cries and wonderful voices; they came upon him from every side; but he still pressed on and on into the untrodden darkness of the wood. In his progress his garments were rent and his hands bled freely. In the process of time, the pathlessness which confronted him everywhere grew less impenetrable. The dawn crept again into the east, the birds took up their loud songs, and flowers and herbs and all the wild things of nature were spread before him in the morning light. Pressing ever on and on, he came out at last upon the fringe of this great wood, and by now the sun had risen to warm his veins. The wayfarer was now come to the breast of the mighty mother; and on this second day he reposed many hours on the green, dry earth of the forest, looking all about him into its dark recesses, and observing in a kind of secret joy the ways of the rich, wild life of whom he claimed kinship. Towards evening he came upon another little house in the heart of the great wood, and then he remembered that he was hungry. Here he obtained from another aged woman a hunch of white bread and a bowl of delicious milk. And then for the second time he lay down and slept in the heart of the great wood. Days and days did he pass in his wanderings. Sometimes he was in the woodland places, sometimes upon the weald. He would lie in the fallows in the burning afternoon sun; and now and again in the chill of the night, if he could not find warmth in the thickets, he would enjoy the protection of a barn or a cowhouse, or, if these were to seek, he would walk in a joyful silence through the long hours, until the morning was again in his eyes. One day in his ceaseless journeying he suddenly beheld the sea. It was at noon upon a delicious day of midsummer. He ran down to the beach, with a noble rapture in his veins, and, flinging off his clothes, he waded out into the cool water. For many days he kept ever by the side of the sea. He could not forsake that marvellous companion; and on several occasions, when he found old men in boats upon the beach, he persuaded them to row him out upon the many-smiling wilderness.