Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [445]

The lane widened, and in a minute he came to the footpath she had told him of, a mere cattle-track which plunged between the bushes. … He had no watch, but it could not be fifteen yet. — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 445

Note

The absence of a watch is the first felt liberation of the chapter — time uncounted, unregulated, existing outside the Party’s schedules. The pastoral ‘dappled light and shade… pools of gold’ of the opening paragraph frames the wood as a place out of Party time entirely.