Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/451

 or two. All the same, the girl on the well-bred chestnut horse kept sailing away, up hill, down hill, and along sidelings steep as the roof of a house; the whole thing (to quote Whyte-Melville) 'done with the graceful ease of a person who is playing upon a favourite instrument while seated in an armchair.' We kept in sight the second detachment, coming up in time to bid farewell as they turned off to the residence of the bride's family, where there was to be a dance in celebration of the auspicious event. We separated with my unspoken benison upon so promising a pair.

The wedding guests having departed, we paced on for half-a-dozen miles until a break in the solemn forest, like a Canadian clearing, disclosed the welcome outline of the half-way hostelry. Here were there distinct traces of the austerity of the patriarch Winter, so mild of mien on the lower levels. Half a foot of snow lay on the roofs of barn and stable, while the remnant of a gigantic snow-image, reduced to the appearance of a quartz boulder, lay in front of the house.

A bare half-hour for refection was all that could be spared here, and as our steed ate his corn with apparently the same zest that characterised our consumption of lunch, it was time well spent. Boot and saddle again.

'But first, good mine host, what is the exact distance? The sun is low; the road indifferent rough; the night unfriendly for camping out.'

'Fifteen mile if you take the "cut"; eighteen by the road, every yard of it.'

'We mistrust short "cuts,"' say we, consulting the watch, which indicates 3.30 ; 'they have lured us into difficulties ere now. But three miles make a tempting deduction from the weary end of the journey. We cannot miss it. Thanks; of that I am aware. Turn to the left, opposite the second house, cross the creek, turn to the right, and follow straight on.'

Of course. Just so. The old formula. How many a time have we cursed it and the well-intentioned giver, by all our gods, when stumbling, hours after, trackless, over an unknown country in darkness and despair. Reflected that by merely following the high road we should have been warmly housed, cheered, and fed long before. However, unusual enterprise or the mountain air induces us to try the