"How well he rides!" she said to Nanette. "He looks exactly like a little lord."
Nanette made no reply: she was thinking to herself, "But he can neither read nor write with any decency, and he is not mannerly nor obedient."
On rode the "little lord," over the winding road, until many a turn, and at least two good miles, had separated him from the castle.
There were several narrow roads leading into the wooded district which bordered the river-road. Beyond these woods rose the mountains, some near, some distant, blue and purple against the fleecy sky.
A delightful sense of novelty took possession of Rick as he entered one of these unknown paths. He felt as an explorer feels when he comes into a strange country. How stupid he had been, he thought, always to be riding up and down the river-road. It was a shady forest-lane: little brooks winding down the hills and ledges made a pleasant sound, and sometimes a swollen stream ran directly across the road. The pony, as well as Rick, liked to go splashing through the water.
After riding about a mile through the woods, a narrow path diverged from the lane. The lane itself had been a gradual ascent, but this path evidently led up a much steeper hill. Rick wondered very much where this narrower path would lead: he was inclined to think it was the way to some castle. In that castle, perhaps there was another boy. There were no children living near the Lordelle castle, except the children of the servants and peasants.
No sooner did it enter Rick's mind that he might find a playmate by following the smaller path, than he turned his pony out of the lane, thinking he would come back and follow that at some other day.
The new path wound upwards constantly; but, as it was seldom very steep, neither Rick nor the pony minded that. It was a very pleasant path; and after Rick had given up the hope that it led to a castle, he was so curious to know where it ended, that he still kept on.
After a while this path branched off, by several other paths, still narrower,—one of them to the left, one to the right, and another between these two, but yet not in a direct line to the main path.
Rick concluded to go a little way on one path, and then come back and go a little way on the others, so as to get an idea of each. Accordingly, he took the middle path. But he had scarcely entered this path, before it divided into two other paths. As one of these was wider than the other, he took that. After riding on a little way, Rick and the pony came suddenly out into an open level space.