Then, turning out from the fence, in order to skirt a wide hazel thicket, he tripped over an outcrop of rock, and tumbled into a drift.

Getting to his feet, he sought to regain the fence; but the fall had shaken his senses and he floundered off in the opposite direction.

After a rod or two of such futile plunging, a stumbling step took him clean off the edge of the world, and into the air.
All this, for the merest instant.

Then, he landed with a jounce in a heap of brush and dead leaves.

Squatting there, breathless, he stretched out his mittened hand, along the ground.