He did not say all this aloud; but certainly some such painful surmises flashed upon him as he forced his snorting and reluctant horse, by a vigorous use of the spurs, through the thickly interwoven brushwood that grew on the bank of the river, the dull and monotonous rush of which, encumbered as it was by large pieces of ice, was sufficient to appal even a stouter heart than that of this young Scottish soldier of fortune. With a brief invocation on his lips, he gave his horse the reins and gored it with the rowels. A strong, active, and clean-limbed, but somewhat undersized animal from the steppes of the Ukraine, with a fierce and angry snort, it plunged into the torrent, and breasted the icy masses bravely. The slippery fragments that glided past, struck at times both horse and rider, forcing them to swerve down the stream; others were dashed by the whirling eddies against the projecting pieces of rock or roots of old trees; but after twice nearly despairing of achieving the passage, and believing himself lost, his horse trod firmly on the opposite bank. It emerged, panting, snorting, dripping, and trembling in every fibre, from the flood, and then Captain Balgonie found that he had escaped with life, and had safely passed the swollen waters of the Louga! Leading his sturdy little steed by the bridle and caressing it the while, he made his way up the opposite bank, guided only by the lights in the mansion (or castle); but he proceeded with extreme difficulty, for the underwood was thick and dense as that which grew round the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty; ere long, however, he reached a plateau, the border of a park or lawn, and saw the snow-whitened walls and turrets of the edifice towering before him. Rising from a balustraded terrace, with an arched porte-cochère in front, the façade was square, and three storied, having a central dome like an inverted punchbowl, and several little angular towers, tall and slender like minarets; these cut the sky-line, and were surrounded each by a broad cornice or gallery, and terminated by a bulbous-shaped roof, exactly like an onion with its acute end in the air. The lights in its many windows, the red and yellow coloured curtains within, all indicated warmth and comfort; while with the snow flakes freezing on his sodden and saturated uniform, his limbs benumbed, and his teeth well-nigh chattering, Balgonie hastily led his horse under the porte-cochère, and applied his hand vigorously to the great brazen knocker on the front door. It was speedily opened, and a white-bearded _dvornick_, or porter, wearing a long flowing _shoubah_, or coat of fur, lined with red flannel, admitted him with many humble genuflections, at the same time summoning a groom to take charge of his horse.