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Horsham is cut off from East Surrey by two great forests, St. Leonard's and Worth. In both the shadows are made long before night, and the roads of those early nineteenth-century days were often mere tracks, roaming inconsequently from hamlet to hamlet and from farm to farm. It was not surprising that Adam Spray should lose his way more than once, and find himself going backwards and forwards over the same ground. He had not been more than five miles from Copthorne since his marriage thirteen years ago, and the strange country terrified and confused him—filling him with fears of robbers (for he pathetically imagined that he might be robbed) and of ghosts.

About six o'clock rain began to fall. At first it only pattered on the leaves overhead, but soon it was sousing through them, soaking the bracken and the path and the Sprays' ragged clothing. The heavy clouds made the dusk fall quickly, and as they went through Pease Pottage, the lamps were lit in the cottage windows and a flood of light streamed out through the open door of the inn. Adam Spray groaned as they went by, and when—a mile or so further on—they came to an empty barn, he suddenly dropped the shaft of his cart, and cried: