Then the Shadows rose gently to the window,
passed through it, and sinking slowing upon the field of outstretched
snow, commenced an orderly gliding rather than march along the frozen
surface. They took it by turns to bear the king, as they sped with the
swiftness of thought, in a straight line towards the north. The polestar
rose above their heads with visible rapidity; for indeed they moved
quite as fast as the sad thoughts, though not with all the speed of
happy desires. England and Scotland slid past the litter of the king of
the Shadows. Over rivers and lakes they skimmed and glided. They climbed
the high mountains, and crossed the valleys with an unfelt bound; till
they came to John-o'-Groat's house and the northern sea. The sea was not
frozen; for all the stars shone as clear out of the deeps below as they
shone out of the deeps above; and as the bearers slid along the
blue-grey surface, with never a furrow in their track, so clear was the
water beneath, that the king saw neither surface, bottom, nor substance
to it, and seemed to be gliding only through the blue sphere of heaven,
with the stars above him, and the stars below him, and between the stars
and him nothing but an emptiness, where, for the first time in his life,
his soul felt that it had room enough.
"At length they reached the rocky shores of Iceland, where they landed,
still pursuing their journey.
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