He went out of the west door and across the grassy space to the gap in the wall, through which he disappeared.

Beyond was the rough descent to wood and stream.
Jamie spoke: "He's a queer body! He says he thinks that he lived a long time ago, and then a shorter time ago, and then now.

He says that some days he sees it all come up in a kind of dark desert." Alice put in her word, "Mother says he's many in one, and that the many and one don't yet recognize each other." "Your mother is a wise woman," said the tutor.

"Let me see how the work goes." The pine-tree, outside the wall, overhung a rude natural stairway of stony ledge and outcropping root with patches of moss and heath.

Down this went Alexander into a cool dimness of fir and oak and birch, watered by a little stream.