The twilight was
richly clear, and there were some faint yellow lines of the sun's last
glances lingering still on the remote horizon. The moon, too, in the
opposite sky, about to come forth, had sent before her some few faint
harbingers of her approach; and it was not difficult for the sturdy
woodman to discern the body of the traveller, lying, as it did, almost
in his path. A few paces farther on stood his steed, cropping the young
grass, and occasionally, with uplifted head, looking round with
something like human wonderment, for the assertion of that authority
which heretofore had him in charge. At the approach of the stranger he
did not start, but, seeming conscious of some change for the better in
his own prospects, he fell again to work upon the herbage as if no
interruption had occurred to his repast.
The song of the woodman ceased as he discovered the body. With an
exclamation, he stooped down to examine it, and his hands were suffused
with the blood which had found its way through the garments.
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