The two
trumpeters in honour go before; and as we file down the long alley,
and up through devious footpaths among rocks and pine-trees, with
every here and there a dark passage of shadow, and every here and
there a spacious outlook over moonlit woods, these two precede us and
sound many a jolly flourish as they walk. We gather ferns and dry
boughs into the cavern, and soon a good blaze flutters the shadows of
the old bandits' haunt, and shows shapely beards and comely faces and
toilettes ranged about the wall. The bowl is lit, and the punch is
burnt and sent round in scalding thimblefuls. So a good hour or two
may pass with song and jest. And then we go home in the moonlit
morning, straggling a good deal among the birch tufts and the
boulders, but ever called together again, as one of our leaders winds
his horn. Perhaps some one of the party will not heed the summons,
but chooses out some by-way of his own. As he follows the winding
sandy road, he hears the flourishes grow fainter and fainter in the
distance, and die finally out, and still walks on in the strange
coolness and silence and between the crisp lights and shadows of the
moonlit woods, until suddenly the bell rings out the hour from far-
away Chailly, and he starts to find himself alone.
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