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 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