A murmur of assent came from the men. Even the horses seemed to
take fresh heart. They flattened their backs to draw the heavy
loads, and blew the frost from their nostrils as they pushed
ahead.

The night grew broader and less oppressive. A gate of brightness
was opened secretly somewhere in the sky; higher and higher
swelled the clear moon-flood, until it poured over the eastern
wall of forest into the road. A drove of wolves howled faintly in
the distance, but they were receding, and the sound soon died
away. The stars sparkled merrily through the stringent air; the
small, round moon shone like silver; little breaths of the
dreaming wind wandered whispering across the pointed fir-tops, as
the pilgrims toiled bravely onward, following their clue of light
through a labyrinth of darkness.

After a while the road began to open out a little. There were
spaces of meadow-land, fringed with alders, behind which a
boisterous river ran, clashing through spears of ice.

Rude houses of hewn logs appeared in the openings, each one
casting a patch of inky blackness upon the snow. Then the
travellers passed a larger group of dwellings, all silent and
unlighted; and beyond, they saw a great house, with many
outbuildings and enclosed courtyards, from which the hounds bayed
furiously, and a noise of stamping horses came from the stalls.
But there was no other sound of life. The fields around lay bare
to the moon. They saw no man, except that once, on a path that
skirted the farther edge of a meadow, three dark figures passed
by, running very swiftly.