'Let us,' said
the old trooper, 'ride back a little into the wood, and strike the
river higher up.' They rode in under the boughs, the ground-ivy
crackling under the hoofs, and the branches striking against their
steel caps. After about twenty minutes' riding they came out again
upon the river, and after another ten minutes found a place where it
was possible to cross without sinking below the stirrups. The wood
upon the other side was very thin, and broke the moonlight into long
streams. The wind had arisen, and had begun to drive the clouds
rapidly across the face of the moon, so that thin streams of light
seemed to be dancing a grotesque dance among the scattered bushes and
small fir-trees. The tops of the trees began also to moan, and the
sound of it was like the voice of the dead in the wind; and the
troopers remembered the belief that tells how the dead in purgatory
are spitted upon the points of the trees and upon the points of the
rocks. They turned a little to the south, in the hope that they might
strike the beaten path again, but they could find no trace of it.
Meanwhile, the moaning grew louder and louder, and the dance of the
white moon-fires more and more rapid. Gradually they began to be
aware of a sound of distant music. It was the sound of a bagpipe, and
they rode towards it with great joy.
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