CHAPTER VII.
THE SPIRIT OF THE WOODS.
I had soon breasted through the trees to the
side of a dark runnel that darted through the glade.
Arrived there I felt that my enemies were nonplussed,
as I had come by a devious and mazy way
of which they must certainly be ignorant. Surely
I could breathe at last, and when I stopped beside
the stream to recover myself a little, my success
seemed so complete, and I had played such
a pretty trick upon my friend the Corporal withal,
that I was quite complacent at the thought and
felt a disposition to celebrate this triumph in a
new sphere in a fashion that should startle 'em.
Now it must have been the action of the freakish
moon upon my giddy head or the magic of the
woods, or a strain of wild music in the stream, for
somehow as I stood there in that perishing cold
night listening to the solemn river and my enemies
calling through the stern stillness of the trees, all
the wantonness of my spirit was let loose. The
sharp frost made my blood thrill; my heart expanded
to the pale loveliness of the sleeping earth.
This was life. This was spacious air, and the pride
