They sometimes talked about it till they separated in a furious temper, not with each other but with him.

There was a distinct track of footsteps through the narrow band of low brambles and underwood between the stockade and the forest.

This had been made by Felix in his daily visits to his canoe.
The forest there consisted principally of hawthorn-trees and thorn thickets, with some scattered oaks and ashes; the timber was sparse, but the fern was now fast rising up so thick, that in the height of summer it would be difficult to walk through it.

The tips of the fronds unrolling were now not up to the knee; then the brake would reach to the shoulder.

The path wound round the thickets (the blackthorn being quite impenetrable except with the axe) and came again to the river some four or five hundred yards from the stockade.