Phineas’s recovery was speedier than she had at first hoped, and the two were soon venturing forth from Eleri’s comfortable cottage and finding their way back to the road again. Perhaps it was because some part of the road had been lost, or perhaps it was some other trouble; but when Ilsevel, with Phineas’s arm clasped through hers, issued her orders to the road: ‘On to the place where Gilligold hides, and quickly!’ — they were indeed swept away into somewhere else, but it was nowhere of any use at all.
They emerged in a different Hollow, and an odd place it was, for it appeared to consist of a wide meadow ringed in hedgerows, and with a single house planted in the centre of it. The house was of a bygone fashion, though it nonetheless appeared quite new. A grand place, built from great bl
