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The gentlemen spoke highly in favour of the country as far as they walked; it was perfectly clear of any kind of under-wood; the trees upon it were all very tall, and stood very wide apart; the soil was also examined, and found very good: a small patch was dug up, and a few potatoes, Indian-corn, melon, and other seeds sown.
When the tides were at their spring, and the year 1802 of our era in the same condition, Horatia Dorothy Darling, younger daughter of the aforesaid Admiral, choosing a very quiet path among thick shrubs and under-wood, came all alone to a wooden building, which her father called his Round-house.
Here they had some difficulty in forcing their way through the dense under-wood and broad leaves, most of which seemed very strange to Martin and his comrade, being so gigantic. There were also many kinds of ferns, which sometimes arched over their heads and completely shut out the view, while some of them crept up the trees like climbing-plants.
The clouds began to clear away soon after they landed, and the brilliant light of the southern constellations revealed to them dimly the appearance of the coast. It was a low sandy beach skirting the sea and extending back for about a quarter of a mile in the form of a grassy plain, dotted here and there with scrubby under-wood. Beyond this was a dark line of forest.
Much relieved about Balaam's immediate future, Molly incited him to a really noble trot, and did not allow him to relapse even on the flat which followed. Through the rattling and the jolting, however, Ruth could still hear a stealthy rustle in the fern and under-wood. The man was following them.
Beyond this, on the right, was a steep rocky hillock, covered with tall and thrifty timber of some thirty years' growth, but wholly free from under-wood.
But this is by the by: While I was cutting down some wood here, I perceived that behind a very thick branch of low brush-wood, or under-wood, there was a kind of hollow place: I was curious to look in it, and getting with difficulty into the mouth of it, I found it was pretty large: that is to say, sufficient for me to stand upright in it, and perhaps another with me: but I must confess to you that I made more haste out than I did in, when, looking farther into the place, and which was perfectly dark, I saw two broad shining eyes of some creature, whether devil or man I knew not, which twinkled like two stars; the dim light from the cave's mouth shining directly in, and making the reflection.
Beneath the thickets the under-wood world was very busy, where squirrels squatted or prowled and cunning fox-sparrows avoided the starlings and blackbirds; and the big cinnamon-tinted, speckle-breasted thrashers scuffled among last year's leaves or, balanced on some leafy spray, carolled ecstatically of this earthly paradise.
So they were both afraid; the wild boar crept into the under-wood and the wolf jumped up a tree. The dog and the cat, when they came up, wondered that there was no one to be seen. The wild boar, however, had not been able to hide himself altogether; and one of his ears was still to be seen.
The reader may wonder how I should know her in this attire in the dusk, and where there was not the smallest probability of finding her. Suffice it to say that I did recognise her at once; and passing between two great tree-trunks, and through an opening in some under-wood, was by her side in a moment.
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