And now their road dipped downhill, and they passed a huge oak and
then another. More and more often now they met these solitary
giants, till their view began to be obscured by them. The road
dwindled till it was no better than a track, the earth beside it
was wild and rocky; Rodriguez wondered to what manner of land he
was coming. But continually the branches of some tree obscured his
view and the only indication he had of it was from the road he
trod, which seemed to tell him that men came here seldom. Beyond
every huge tree that they passed as they went downhill Rodriguez
hoped to get a better view, but always there stood another to
close the vista. It was some while before he realised that he had
entered a forest. They were come to Shadow Valley.
The grandeur of this place, penetrated by shafts of sunlight,
coloured by flashes of floating butterflies, filled by the chaunt
of birds rising over the long hum of insects, lifted the fallen
spirits of Rodriguez as he walked on through the morning.
He still would not have exchanged his rose for the whole forest;
but in the mighty solemnity of the forest his mourning for the
lady that he feared he had lost no longer seemed the only solemn
thing: indeed, the sombre forest seemed well attuned to his mood;
and what complaint have we against Fate wherever this is so. His
mood was one of tragic loss, the defeat of an enterprise that his
hopes had undertaken, to seize victory on the apex of the world,
to walk all his days only just outside the edge of Paradise, for
no less than that his hopes and his first love promised each
other; and then he walked despairing in small rain.
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