Only a sudden gust of wind now and
then sent a murmur through the dark tree-tops and gently swayed the
sombre boughs. And so they sped on, drawing nearer and nearer to the
Wilderness Road, till presently the wind brought the strong odor of
boiling salt water. The woods became now still further darkened and
entangled by many fallen trees which had been felled to make fuel for
the furnaces, and by huge heaps of logs piled ready for burning. Here
and there were great whitening giants of the forest still standing
after they had been slain, as soldiers--death-stricken--stand for an
instant on the field of battle. It seemed to the fanciful boy that the
wind sighed most mournfully among these wan ghosts of trees, and that
the dead boughs, moved by the sighing wind, smote one another with
infinite sadness.
There was no sound other than this moaning of the wind through the
forest and the muffled beating of the pony's feet on the leaf-covered
path. Once a great owl flew across the dark way with a deadened beating
of his heavy wings. Again wolves howled, but so far in the distance that
the sound came as the faintest echo.
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