At last our
guide thought it best that we should make our way to a lonely
farm-house, about seven miles short of our night's destination, where,
in any case, the party was to have called in passing. So we wound on
through the narrow wood-paths in single file--sinking occasionally
pastern-deep, where the thin ice over mud-holes supplanted the safe
crackling snow-crests--traversing frequent fords, where rills had
swollen into brooks and turbid streams; some of those gullies must have
been dark even at noon-day, with overhanging cypress and pine; they were
so bitterly black now that you were fain to follow close on the splash
in your front, for no mortal ken could have pierced half a horse's
length ahead. At length, we left the path altogether, and pulling down a
snake fence, passed through the gap into open fields. It was all plain
sailing here, and a great relief after groping through the dim woodland;
we encountered no obstacle but an occasional "zigzag," easily
demolished, till we came to a deep hollow, where the guide
dismounted--evidently rather vague as to his bearings--and proceeded to
feel his way. Somewhere about here there was a "branch" (or rivulet) to
be crossed, and danger of bog and marsh if you went astray. At last he
professed to have discovered the right point; but neither force nor
persuasion could induce the stubborn brute he rode to face it.
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