midday
`` Certainly I never heard anything of it when I went up to the Shipki in 1904 . But I had been able to be useful to Rup Singh and he gave me a permit for The House in the Woods , and I stopped there for a few days ' shooting . I remember that day so well . I was wandering in the dense woods while my men got their midday grub , and I missed the trail somehow and found myself in a part where the trees were dark and thick and the silence heavy as lead . It was as if the trees were on guard -- they stood shoulder to shoulder and stopped the way . Well , I halted , and had a notion there was something beyond that made me doubt whether to go on . I must have stood there five minutes hesitating .