"Who is that
laughing?"
"Some profane intruder!" said the goddess Diana. "I shall send an
arrow through his heart, or change him into a stag, as I did Actaeon,
if he peeps from behind the trees!"
"Me take his scalp!" cried the Indian chief, brandishing his tomahawk,
and cutting a great caper in the air.
"I'll root him in the earth with a spell that I have at my tongue's
end!" squeaked Moll Pitcher. "And the green moss shall grow all over
him, before he gets free again!"
"The voice was Miles Coverdale's," said the fiendish fiddler, with a
whisk of his tail and a toss of his horns. "My music has brought him
hither. He is always ready to dance to the Devil's tune!"
Thus put on the right track, they all recognized the voice at once,
and set up a simultaneous shout.
"Miles! Miles! Miles Coverdale, where are you?" they cried.
"Zenobia! Queen Zenobia! here is one of your vassals lurking in the
wood. Command him to approach and pay his duty!"
The whole fantastic rabble forthwith streamed off in pursuit of me,
so that I was like a mad poet hunted by chimeras. Having fairly the
start of them, however, I succeeded in making my escape, and soon
left their merriment and riot at a good distance in the rear. Its
fainter tones assumed a kind of mournfulness, and were finally lost
in the hush and solemnity of the wood. In my haste, I stumbled over
a heap of logs and sticks that had been cut for firewood, a great
while ago, by some former possessor of the soil, and piled up square,
in order to be carted or sledded away to the farmhouse.
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