Instead he threw the reins down and walked away.
"We may as well part company, since you want to go your own way," he
said.
He had not taken more than two steps before the horse came after him,
took a cautious grip on his master's coat sleeve, and stopped him.
Afterward the dean could not understand how it happened but, dark as
it was, the horse looked straight in his eyes. He gave his master a
look that was both pleading and reproachful.
"I have served you day after day and done your bidding," he seemed to
say. "Will you not follow me this one night?"
Without further delay the dean sprang into the saddle.
"Go on!" he said. "I will not desert you when you are in trouble."
He let the horse go as he wished and it was a hazardous journey,
uphill all the way. The forest grew so thick that he could not see two
feet ahead, but it seemed as if they were climbing a high mountain.
The horse took perilous steps.
"Surely you don't intend to go up Black's Ridge, do you?" asked the
dean, who knew that was one of the highest peaks in Haelsingland.
They mounted up and up, and the higher they went the more scattering
were the trees. At last they rode on bare highland where the dean
could look in every direction. Great tracts of land went up and down
in mountains and valleys covered with dark trees.
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