Few sights could have been less welcome; what already she had suffered, and, far more, what she had apprehended, filled her with terrour; and her imagination was fearfully at work, now to bring her to the hut which she had so suspiciously fled; now to the encounter of disorderly young assailants, with no Dash for her protection; now to the attack of lurking thieves, and strolling vagabonds; and now to the danger of being bewildered and lost in the mazes of the Forest.
The last of these evils soon ceased to be a mere phantasm of fear; the wind no sooner was calmed than the moon again was obscured, and all around her was darker, and therefore more tremendous than ever.
She continued to move on, though without knowing whether she were advancing or retrograding. But, ere long, her walk became embarrassed and difficult; her progress was every way obstructed; and her retreat at the same time impeded; and she found herself in a thick wood, of which the deep hanging boughs continually annoyed her face and her limbs; while the unscythed grass, the growth of ages, entangled her feet, and made every step a labour.
Wearied and dejected, she leaned against a tree, and determined to make no further attempt to proceed, till some gleam of dawn should direct her way.
She had not remained long in this position of despondence, ere she discerned, through the trees, at a considerable distance, a dim light.
She concluded that this must proceed from some dwelling; and, feeling instantly revived, re-commenced her journey: yet, presently, she stopt and hesitated,—it might emit from the hut! In the dead of the night there was little probability that any common cottagers would require a light.
Discomfited, discouraged, she again leaned against a tree.
Yet some one might be ill; and the chamber of sickness and danger could no more, in the cottage, than in the palace, be consigned to darkness. She determined, therefore, to approach the spot, and, at break of day, to examine the premises; certain she could not ever mistake, or ever forget, the situation of the hut.
She went forward.
The light, in a few moments, disappeared; but she was not, therefore, led to consider it as a Will with the Wisp, to beguile her to some illusion; for, ere it vanished, it displayed, in passing sideways, a view of a cottage double or treble the length of the dreaded hut.