42 WARWICK WOODLANDS. 



man when her husband cut her tongue out, 'cause she had too 

 much jaw." 



Finishing his discourse, he squatted himself down on the stool 

 of a largo hemlock, which, being recently cut down, cumbered 

 the woodside with its giant stern, and secured him, with its ever- 

 green top now lowly laid and withering, from the most narrow 

 scrutiny ; while I, giving the gallant horse his head, went at a 

 brisk hand-gallop across the firm short turf of the fair sloping 

 hill-side, taking a moderate fence in my stroke, which Peacock 

 cleared in a style that satisfied me Harry had by no means ex- 

 aggerated his capacity to act as hunter, in lieu of the less glorious 

 occupation, to which in general he was doomed. 



In half a minute more I reached my post, and though an hour 

 passed before I heard the slightest sound betokening the chase, 

 never did I more thoroughly enjoy an hour. 



The loveliness of the whole scene before me the broad rich 

 sweep of meadowland lying, all bathed in dew, under the pale 

 gray light of an autumnal morning, with groups of cattle couch- 

 ed still between the trees where they had passed the night ; the 

 distant hills, veiled partially in mist, partially rearing their round 

 leafy heads toward the brightening sky ; and then the various 

 changes of the landscape, as slowly the day broke behind the 

 eastern hill ; and all the various sounds of bird, and beast, and 

 insect, which each succeeding variation of the morning served 

 to call into life as if by magic. First a faint rosy flush stole up 

 the eastern sky, and nearly at the self-same moment, two or 

 three vagrant crows came flapping heavily along, at a height so 

 immeasurable that their harsh voices were by distance modified 

 into a pleasing murmur. And now a little fish jumped in the 

 streamlet ; and the splash, trifling as it was, with which he fell 

 back on the quiet surface, half startled me. 



A moment afterward an acorn plumped down on my head, and 

 as I looked up, there sat, on a limb not ten feet above me, an 

 impudent rogue of a gray squirrel, half as big as a rabbit, erect 

 upon his haunches, working away at the twin brother of the 

 acorn he had dropped upon my hat to break my reverie, rasping 

 it audibly with his chisel-shaped teeth, and grinning at me just 

 as coolly as though I were a harmless scare-crow. 



When I grew tired of observing him, and looked toward the 

 sky again, behold the western ridge, which is far higher than the 

 eastern hills, had caught upon its summits the first bright rays 

 of the yet unseen day-god ; while the rosy flush of the east had 



