"This country is clad in a spruce skirt and a gray-stone jacket,"
thought the boy. "But around its waist it wears a girdle which has not
its match in value, for it is embroidered with blue lakes and green
groves. The great ironworks adorn it like a row of precious stones, and
its buckle is a whole city with castles and cathedrals and great
clusters of houses."
When the travellers arrived in the northern forest region, Gorgo
alighted on top of a mountain. As the boy dismounted, the eagle said:
"There's game in this forest, and I can't forget my late captivity and
feel really free until I have gone a-hunting. You won't mind my leaving
you for a while?"
"No, of course, I won't," the boy assured him.
"You may go where you like if only you are back here by sundown," said
the eagle, as he flew off.
The boy sat on a stone gazing across the bare, rocky ground and the
great forests round about.
He felt rather lonely. But soon he heard singing in the forest below,
and saw something bright moving amongst the trees. Presently he saw a
blue and yellow banner, and he knew by the songs and the merry chatter
that it was being borne at the head of a procession. On it came, up the
winding path; he wondered where it and those who followed it were going.
He couldn't believe that anybody would come up to such an ugly, desolate
waste as the place where he sat.
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