At all events the best time for walking was gone when I quitted it, and then I could think of no better plan than to climb down into the old long untrodden road, or channel, again just to see where it would lead me.

After all, I said, my time is my own, and to abandon the old way I have walked in so long without discovering the end would be a mistake.

So I went on in it once more, and in about twenty minutes it came to an end before a group of old farm buildings in a hollow in the woods.

The space occupied by the buildings was quite walled round and shut in by a dense growth of trees and bushes; and there was no soul there and no domestic animal.

The place had apparently been vacant many years, and the buildings were in a ruinous condition, with the roofs falling in.
Now when I look back on that walk I blame myself for having gone on my way without trying to find out something of the history of that forsaken home to which the lonely old road had led me.