When he put him in her arms, she blessed him, and Curdie went on his way rejoicing.
And so the day went on, and the evening came, and in the middle of a great desolate heath he began to feel tired, and sat down under an ancient hawthorn, through which every now and then a lone wind that seemed to come from nowhere and to go nowhither sighed and hissed.

It was very old and distorted.

There was not another tree for miles all around.

It seemed to have lived so long, and to have been so torn and tossed by the tempests on that moor, that it had at last gathered a wind of its own, which got up now and then, tumbled itself about, and lay down again.
Curdie had been so eager to get on that he had eaten nothing since his breakfast.

But he had had plenty of water, for Many little streams had crossed his path.