Only once did he actually encounter people, finding himself one day passing through a lodge. It was oddly quiet after what he had experienced at Derwyn’s, and such inhabitants as were to be seen were all men, sitting, apparently casually, on the lower branches of the trees. They watched him silently as he passed by, but for the most part he avoided their gaze, sensing that they would be only too ready to intervene should he show any sign of halting his journey there. Though he was not in any way menaced, the experience was frightening, renewing in him as it did, the fear of strangers that was his natural heritage and which had been so vividly justified by the arrival of Nilsson and his men.
Despite his dark preoccupation however, this reception offended him. ‘Did they know who I am?’ he a
