That road, however, deserves a fuller description, for it was as pleasant a road as ever I travelled in my life, excepting a few spots, of each a mile or a mile and a half in length, where a sandy soil rendered it heavy and fatiguing. A little beyond the place where we first entered upon it, a low stone wall marked the ancient boundary of a forest. Even at that time, however, the large trees had retreated more than a mile from the extreme limit of the wood; and the space that intervened between the wall and the real forest, was covered entirely with the sort of brushwood, or, as the French call it, _taillis_, which rises on the cutting down of larger timber. This gave us a fair view of the kind of ground over which the forest extended, which was of so broken and irregular a nature--full of pits, dells, banks, and ravines, that it would have required infinite labour to render it productive of aught but that which then covered it. After the road began to wind in amongst the higher trees, some of which appeared of great antiquity, we lost all sight of the surrounding country, except where, every now and then, the ground had been cleared by some accidental circumstance, or where the track that we were pursuing ascended to some commanding height. On these occasions, indeed, we sometimes obtained a very splendid view beyond the forest, over tracks of rich and cultivated land; and as I was beginning about that time to find out that the face of nature was a very beautiful thing, and to enjoy the aspect of a fine country with a sort of romantic delight, I often paused to gaze for a moment on any prospect that thus caught my eye. While thus engaged, my companion generally rode on in sulky silence; but I never suffered him to go far without my society, lest any of the roads which intersected the forest, and which I could not, of course, be expected to know, should afford him an opportunity of deviating from the prescribed track before I thought fit to permit him to do so. I had just made one of these pauses, and my companion had just ridden on, in the manner which I have described, when, on looking after him to see how far he had proceeded, I thought I perceived a brighter gleam of sunshine than usually enlivened the gloom of the wood, streaming across the road a little beyond the point at which he had arrived. Suspecting that it might be shining down a cross road, I set spurs to my horse, and was nearly up with him before he reached the little brake. I had just time, however, to gain a more accurate knowledge of the spot, and to perceive that it was a gap, but not a road, down which the light was streaming, when there came a quick, bright flash from the wood, and at the same moment the groom fell headlong to the ground, while his horse dashed on, masterless, along the track before us, and my charger, after rearing violently, rolled over, dyeing the sand with its blood.