Explore "Barlasch of the Guard" by Henry Seton Merriman on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Distinct with footprints yet / Of many a mighty marcher gone that way.
There are many who overlook the fact that in Northern lands, more especially in such plains as Lithuania, Courland, and Poland, travel in winter is easier than at any other time of year. The rivers, which run sluggishly in their ditch-like beds, are frozen so completely that the bridges are no longer required. The roads, in summer almost impassable -- mere ruts across the plain -- are for the time ignored, and the traveller strikes a beeline from place to place across a level of frozen snow.