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So he determined on the near and straight path, through Long Stratton and Willingham, down the old bridle-way from Willingham ploughed field, every village there, and in the isle likewise, had and has still its "field," or ancient clearing of ploughed land, and then to try that terrible half-mile, with the courage and wit of a general to whom human lives were as those of the gnats under the hedge.
The cottage in which Agellius dwelt was on the other side of the hollow bridle-way which crossed the hill. To make for home he had first to walk some little distance along it; and scarcely had he descended into it for that purpose, when he found himself in the front of a band of revellers, who were returning from some scene of impious festivity.
To this there were two modes of access: one by a paved bridle-way, or boreen, that ran up directly before the door the other by a green lane, that diverged from the boreen about a furlong below the house.
We passed by Soto Luino, and shaping our course through a wild but picturesque country, we found ourselves about nightfall at the foot of a steep hill, up which led a narrow bridle-way, amidst a grove of lofty trees. Long before we had reached the top it had become quite dark, and the rain had increased considerably.
During a short lull in the storm, just as she had finished her story, we heard the sound of iron-shod hoofs approaching the cottage. There was no bridle-way into the glen. A knock came to the door, and, on opening it, we saw an old man seated on a horse, with a long slenderly-filled sack lying across the saddle before him.
"Nothing more than this: I want you to insist that aunt Gertrude and I ought to make the ascent of Montanvert and visit the Mer de Glace before uncle Denham arrives." "Why, would he object?" "I do not think anything would induce him to trust either of us on one of those narrow mule-paths." "But everybody goes up Montanvert as a matter of course. The bridle-way is perfectly safe."
He rode rapidly along the well-defined bridle-way, and soon emerged into a broader thoroughfare. Presently he heard the high-pitched, quavering notes of a negro melody, faint at first and seeming as much a part of nature as the russet glint of the setting sun through the trees.
But in walking one would take the path along the river for nearly a mile, thence rise up the hill to the top of Crutchley Wood, descend through the wood to Crutchley Bottom, and, passing along the valley, come out at the foot of Cleeve Hill, just opposite to Orley Farm Gate. The distance for a horseman was somewhat greater, seeing that there was not as yet any bridle-way through Crutchley Wood.
So all his host camped themselves in Willingham field, by the old earthwork which men now call Belsar's Hills; and down the bridle-way poured countless men, bearing timber and fagots cut from all the hills, that they might bridge the black half-mile.
This muffled dialogue, if we may use the expression, was now interrupted by a change in their route. At a Rath, which here capped an eminence of the road, a narrow bridle-way diverged to the right, and after a gradual ascent for about a mile and a half, was lost upon a rough upland, that might be almost termed a moor.
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