"Foolish boy! Thus to sit listening to water and wind, and the lengthening shadows telling how swiftly the day is waning! On with the moccasins! Up and away!" And on they were in a twinkling. But now they were on, why was the boy not up and away? There he still sat, his eyes fastened upon the red temptations, bigger with wonder than ever before! The colorless beads, describing the arrow and heart, had grown, in an instant, red as blood. "Bleed, poor heart! bleed!" cried a soft voice close beside him. "Bleed! or be to your mother forever a sorrow!" "Bleed, false heart! bleed!" cried a stern voice close behind him. "Bleed! or be to your father forever a curse! You have chosen! Abide by your choice! Up and away!" With a high spring, the moccasins lifted their wearer bodily up from the ground, and began executing a variety of fantastic antics, as completely foreign to any design or will on the part of the boy as if he had been but a wire-worked puppet. Whereat peals of elfish laughter came ringing out, with explosive abruptness, from every side--from the leafy heart of the forest, from the rocky breast of the hill, from the empty depths of the sky, from the solid depths of the earth--wild and mocking laughter, mingled with cries of "Put him through! Put him through!" Then, as suddenly, the laughter ceased, when, with a hop, step and prodigious jump, by way of a start, the red moccasins bounded off through the forest, no more to be guided or curbed than the feet of a wild and unbridled horse. Through darksome wood and glimmering glade, over rugged hill and tangled vale, with incredible swiftness sped they on; nor turned aside for bramble covert or reedy brake, but right through the thick of them dashed, till the boy was covered with scratches from head to foot, and his garments all torn into rags. "Stop! stop! I pray you, stop!" cried poor Sprigg, in piteous accent, at every new peril which seemed to threaten his destruction. At length, as if in spite, the moccasins stopped, so abruptly that he was thrown forward upon the ground, with a violence that left him stunned for several moments. Then, with hands that shook, did he assay to free himself from the accursed things. Too late; they clung to his feet, as if they had grown to the flesh, and the harder he tugged at them the closer they clung. In fear and rage he stamped with them upon the ground, and they, in revenge, squeezed and pinched his toes, till he screamed outright with the pain inflicted. Then, again, they were off at the same wild speed, and with no more regard for any purpose or wish of his than had he been but a dead load in them, and they had taken into themselves all part of his life and all his will.