IN QUEST OF RAVENS 57 



— a boundless woodland panorama, with 

 clearings and houses in Whiteside valley, 

 and innumerable hazy mountains rising one 

 beyond another in every direction. The 

 world of new leafage below us, now 

 darkened by cloud shadows, now shining in 

 the sun, was beautiful far beyond any skill 

 of mine to picture it. 



We were still walking and quietly enjoy- 

 ing — my fellow tourists being, fortunately, 

 of the non-exclamatory type — when the 

 silence was broken by loud screams. 

 " Ravens ! " I thought, — for when the 

 mind is full it is liable to spill over at any 

 sudden jar, — and, dropping my umbrella, 

 I sprang to the edge of the cliff. The bird 

 was only a hawk, soaring and screaming, 

 too far away to be made out ; a duck-hawk, 

 perhaps, but certainly not a raven. " How 

 you frightened me ! " said one of the ladies. 

 " I thought you were going to throw your- 

 self over the precipice." My hobby-horse 

 amused her, — as it did me also, — but she 

 was herself too sound an enthusiast to be 

 really unsympathetic. A New Jersey 

 grandmother, she made nothing of a 

 thirteen-mile tramp, a thorough drenching. 



