And there were none that did not
fear strange wars when they saw Shepperalk swerve and leap along the
public ways. So he passed from city to city.
By night he lay down unpanting in the reeds of some marsh or forest;
before dawn he rose triumphant, and hugely drank of some river in the
dark, and splashing out of it would trot to some high place to find
the sunrise, and to send echoing eastwards the exultant greetings of
his jubilant horn. And lo! the sunrise coming up from the echoes, and
the plains new-lit by the day, and the leagues spinning by like water
flung from a top, and that gay companion, the loudly laughing wind,
and men and the fears of men and their little cities; and, after that,
great rivers and waste spaces and huge new hills, and then new lands
beyond them, and more cities of men, and always the old companion, the
glorious wind. Kingdom by kingdom slipt by, and still his breath was
even. "It is a golden thing to gallop on good turf in one's youth,"
said the young man-horse, the centaur. "Ha, ha," said the wind of the
hills, and the winds of the plain answered.
Bells pealed in frantic towers, wise men consulted parchments,
astrologers sought of the portent from the stars, the aged made subtle
prophecies. "Is he not swift?" said the young. "How glad he is," said
the children.
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