'
So homeward I go through a labyrinth of fir-stems and, what is worse,
fir-stumps, which need both my eyes and my horse's at every moment;
and woe to the 'anchorite,' as old Bunbury names him, who carries his
nose in the air, and his fore feet well under him. Woe to the self-
willed or hard-hided horse who cannot take the slightest hint of the
heel, and wince hind legs or fore out of the way of those jagged
points which lie in wait for him. Woe, in fact, to all who are
clumsy or cowardly, or in anywise not 'masters of the situation.'
Pleasant riding it is, though, if you dare look anywhere but over
your horse's nose, under the dark roof between the red fir-pillars,
in that rich subdued light. Now I plunge into a gloomy dell, wherein
is no tinkling rivulet, ever pure; but instead a bog, hewn out into a
chess-board of squares, parted by deep narrow ditches some twenty
feet apart. Blundering among the stems I go, fetlock-deep in peat,
and jumping at every third stride one of the said uncanny gripes,
half hidden in long hassock grass.
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