OR THE GNOME VALLEY. 41 



a strange and fitful whispering of the ocean of leaves that was spread 

 before, and on either side of him; and, perhaps, the solitary cry of 

 some bird of prey, rendering the silence more oppressive, by a mo- 

 mentary interruption of its reign. 



Two days Kuyp spent in penetrating the forests that lay in the 

 neighbourhood of his native settlement. Towards the approach of 

 evening on the third, the country began to assume other and still 

 more majestic aspects. He was approaching a towering ridge of 

 mountains of unequal height and magnitude, their bases clothed with 

 luxuriant verdure, abounding in birds of the most brilliant plumage, 

 and broken with picturesque confusion into masses of rock, and 

 partial breaks of water, and copsewood. 



He threw himself on a soft green bank; and, taking off his cap, 

 abandoned himself to a feeling of delicious listlessness ; either 

 watching the clouds, as they floated one after the other over the 

 heavens; listening to the murmuring of a distant waterfall, or the 

 plaintive cry of the distant mountain eagle; or conjuring up shapes 

 among the ancient trees before him, and 



" Chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies:" 



but night gradually began to creep on, and the scene to fade from 

 his view. Rising hurriedly, and surprised at the length of time he 

 had spent in rumination, he called Maurice, and endeavoured to rind 

 some shelter for the night : his bag of provisions, too, ran low ; and 

 he hoped by encountering some eatable animal to be furnished with 

 the means of replenishing it. Cautiously advancing, therefore, into 

 a romantic gla'de that opened-before him, and seemed to invite his 

 footsteps, rifle charged and primed, he peered before and about 

 him, on the look-out for an object of attack. Fortune favoured him 

 more than he could have hoped for : about forty paces before him a 

 deer bounded across the sward. Casting a quick and terrified glance 

 from his bright dark eye at the unwelcome intruder, it hastened for- 

 wards, and, after two or three ineffectual attempts to pierce' the 

 thicket of branches and leaves that formed an impenetrable barrier in 

 many places beside it, leaped boldly upwards, flying like the wind 

 over an almost perpendicular acclivity. Kuyp's rifle was however 

 levelled in a moment crack ! the shot had told. Thus supplied 

 with Afresh and wholesome provision, Kuyp, after making a hearty 

 woodland dinner, and washing it down with a copious draught of the 

 clearest water, duly impregnated with the contents of his flask, now 

 turned his thoughts upon constructing a temporary night shelter. 

 Having, by the help of his friendly axe, cut a number of stakes from 

 the branches of the trees about him, bending almost to the ground, 

 he fixed them in a small circle in the earth ; and wrapping himself 

 tightly in his cloak, carefully laying his weapons within instant 

 reach, composed himself to sleep. His slumbers were undisturbed 

 by the visit of any hairy wanderer, and he did not awake until the 

 sun was high in the fervid heavens. Provoked at his unconscious 

 waste of time, and anxious, now that he had got far from the abodes 

 of mankind, to make the most of the day, he started quickly up; and, 

 M.M. No. 7. F 



