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 of freedom. In this oppressive eighteenth century of ours, with its slaveries of rank and fashion, one must go into a wood of moonlight in the middle of the night for one’s pulses to pipe to the natural joys of unrestraint. At least I thought so then, and in the exuberance of the moment I concocted a merry plot for the diversion of myself and the mystification of the Corporal and his men. Nor was it made of mischief merely, since it was to be ordered in such a cunning way that it should still further throw them off the rebel’s track, and confirm their theory that they had already seen him in this wood.

First I returned upon the road I had come by and spied out where they were. This was a matter of small difficulty, as their voices were plainly to be distinguished close at hand.

Creeping through the thickets at the direction of their tones, I came at last to a place where a rift among the tree tops let the brightness in. It poured upon the Corporal and his men, assembled in still another consultation underneath a glorious silver-birch, arch and lissome as a maid, which rose above them with graces indescribable, and seemed from where I stood to fade into the sky. Clearly my pursuers were seriously at fault, and even dubious of the road to take in this strange wilderness. ’Twas in my mind to minister to this perplexity.

Selecting a spot appropriate to the purpose, I cheerfully set about preparing them the surprise I had in store. I crushed my soft, three-cornered hat into a pocket in my cloak, unbound my hair, and let its whole dark luxury shine with moonlight to my waist. This in itself I considered sufficient to destroy all resemblance between the figure I intended to present, and the fugitive they had so lately chased across the park, and as all of them must be extremely ill-acquainted with the features of my Lady Barbara, having only beheld them for an instant the previous night, ’twas not at all likely that they would be recognised just now. This done I crept some distance up the glade, and as I did so took occasion to recall the weirdest melody I knew, which partook of the nature of a chant, wedded the absurdest doggerel to it, though it must not be denied the merit of being a kind of interpretation of my abandoned fancy, and lifted my voice up loud and shrilly in a song. Having fallen after the first bar or two into a proper strain, I warmed to the wanton mirth of it and plunged my spirit completely in its whim.

I tripped from my concealment in the glade into an open avenue leading to a spot in which the soldiers stood in council. Full before their astounded eyes, I came dancing down the moonlight singing:

“This world it is not weary,

Though my life is very long;

For I’m the child of faery,

And my heart it is a song.