After washing as well as I could in the clear stream, I rose and looked
around me. The tree under which I seemed to have lain all night was one
of the advanced guard of a dense forest, towards which the rivulet ran.
Faint traces of a footpath, much overgrown with grass and moss, and with
here and there a pimpernel even, were discernible along the right bank.
"This," thought I, "must surely be the path into Fairy Land, which
the lady of last night promised I should so soon find." I crossed the
rivulet, and accompanied it, keeping the footpath on its right bank,
until it led me, as I expected, into the wood. Here I left it, without
any good reason: and with a vague feeling that I ought to have followed
its course, I took a more southerly direction.