The place where the traveller found himself seemed unpropitious for
obtaining either shelter or refreshment, and he was likely to be reduced
to the usual expedient of knights-errant, who, on such occasions, turned
their horses to graze, and laid themselves down to meditate on their
lady-mistress, with an oak-tree for a canopy. But the Black Knight
either had no mistress to meditate upon, or, being as indifferent
in love as he seemed to be in war, was not sufficiently occupied by
passionate reflections upon her beauty and cruelty, to be able to
parry the effects of fatigue and hunger, and suffer love to act as
a substitute for the solid comforts of a bed and supper. He felt
dissatisfied, therefore, when, looking around, he found himself deeply
involved in woods, through which indeed there were many open glades,
and some paths, but such as seemed only formed by the numerous herds of
cattle which grazed in the forest, or by the animals of chase, and the
hunters who made prey of them.

The sun, by which the knight had chiefly directed his course, had now
sunk behind the Derbyshire hills on his left, and every effort which he
might make to pursue his journey was as likely to lead him out of his
road as to advance him on his route. After having in vain endeavoured
to select the most beaten path, in hopes it might lead to the cottage of
some herdsman, or the silvan lodge of a forester, and having repeatedly
found himself totally unable to determine on a choice, the knight
resolved to trust to the sagacity of his horse; experience having,
on former occasions, made him acquainted with the wonderful talent
possessed by these animals for extricating themselves and their riders
on such emergencies.