| | 4 | Author: | Howells
William Dean
1837-1920 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Rise of Silas Lapham  | | | | Published: | 2003 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | When Bartley Hubbard went to interview Silas
Lapham for the "Solid Men of Boston" series, which
he undertook to finish up in The Events, after he
replaced their original projector on that newspaper,
Lapham received him in his private office by previous
appointment. "Will you and General Lapham—" Dear Friend,—I expected when I sent you that note,
that you would understand, almost the next day, why I
could not see you any more. You must know now, and
you must not think that if anything happened to my
father, I should wish you to help him. But that is no
reason why I should not thank you, and I do thank you,
for offering. It was like you, I will say that. Dearest,—What I did was nothing, till you praised it.
Everything I have and am is yours. Won't you send a line
by the bearer, to say that I may come to see you? I know
how you feel; but I am sure that I can make you think
differently. You must consider that I loved you without
a thought of your father's circumstances, and always shall. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 11 | Author: | unknown | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Berkeley papers | | | | Published: | 2005 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | I promised to write to you from our dear Brothers, hoping
that by my stay here my spirits would be better than when
at home & I could write a more interesting letter. But oh how
uncertain are all we promise ourselves on Earth. The Lord in
his wisdom has seen fit to take poor, dear little Frank to
himself & many hearts are sad like my own. Oh he looks so sweet,
so much like a little angel. Oh I think so much of the joy in
Heaven. Our dear Father has I trust met with his son, & his
little grandson, & they with those who went before them are now
praising that Saviour who bought them with his precious blood.
May all of us prove faithful & finally meet them is my prayer. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 12 | Author: | Hall
James
1793-1868 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Legends of the West | | | | Published: | 2006 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | The beautiful forests of Kentucky, when first
visited by the adventurous footsteps of the pioneers,
presented a scene of native luxuriance, such as has
seldom been witnessed by the human eye. So vast
a body of fertile soil had never before been known
to exist on this continent. The magnificent forest
trees attained a gigantic height, and were adorned
with a foliage of unrivalled splendour. The deep
rich green of the leaves, and the brilliant tints of the
flowers, nourished into full maturity of size and
beauty by the extraordinary fertility of the soil,
not only attracted the admiration of the hunter, but
warmed the fancy of the poet, and forcibly arrested
the attention of the naturalist. As the pioneers
proceeded step by step, new wonders were discovered;
and the features of the country, together with
its productions, as they became gradually developed,
continued to present the same bold peculiarities and
broad outlines. The same scale of greatness pervaded
all the works of nature. The noble rivers,
all tending towards one great estuary, swept through
an almost boundless extent of country, and seemed
to be as infinite in number as they were grand in
size. The wild animals were innumerable. The
forests teemed with living creatures, for this was the
paradise of the brute creation. Here were literally
“the cattle upon a thousand hills.” The buffaloe,
the elk, and the deer roamed in vast herds, and
all the streams were rich in those animals whose fur
is so much esteemed in commerce. Here lurked
the solitary panther, the lion of our region, and here
prowled the savage wolf. The nutritious fruits of
the forest, and the juicy buds of the exuberant
thickets, reared the indolent bear to an enormous
size. Even the bowels of the earth exhibited stupendous
evidences of the master hand of creation.
The great limestone beds of the country were perforated
with spacious caverns, of vast extent and
splendid appearance, many of which yielded valuable
minerals; while the gigantic bones found buried
in the earth, far exceeding in size those of all known
animals on the globe, attested the former existence
in this region, of brutes of fearful magnitude. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 13 | Author: | Herbert
Henry William
1807-1858 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The brothers | | | | Published: | 2006 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | It has been a day of storm and darkness—the
morning dawned upon the mustering of the elements—vast
towering clouds rose mass upon
mass, stratum above stratum, till the whole horizon
was over-canopied. Then there was a stern
and breathless pause, as if the tempest-demon
were collecting his energies in silent resolution;
anon its own internal weight appeared to rend the
vaporous shroud asunder, and the big rain poured
down in torrents. At moments, indeed, the sunbeams
have struggled through the driving rack,
and darted down their pensiles of soft light, showing
even more blithely golden than their wont,
from the very contrast of the surrounding gloom.
Still—noon arrived, and there was no cessation of
the strife. At that hour, the blue lightning was
splitting the tortured clouds in twain, and the
thunder roaring and crashing close above our
heads. The melancholy wailing of the winds
among the sculptured pinnacles and ivyed turrets
of our Elizabethan mansion—the sobbing and
creaking of the immemorial oak-trees, their huge
branches wrestling with the gale—the dashing and
pattering of the heavy rain—and, deeper and more
melancholy than all, the gradually increasing moan
of the distant river, have conspired all day long to
cast a gloom alike upon the face of nature and the
heart of man. Yet now evening has brought back
peace, and calm delicious sunshine. “They have prevailed, and we are torn asunder
—when, oh when to meet? They dragged me from
your bleeding body—they bound me on a horse—
they bore me—Oh God! Oh God!—that I should
VOL. I.—Q
not dare to tell you whither!—No, my beloved, I dare
not—such is the sole condition on which the miserable
satisfaction of writing these few lines is granted.
They tell me that your wounds are slight—that you
will have regained your strength ere this shall reach
you; they tell me that you will again be in the
field of glory: but they tell me that I shall never
see you more—they tell me that death—your death,
Harry, shall follow on the slightest effort at my
rescue—and they tell me truly! You know not—
oh! may you never know—the boundless wickedness,
the wellnigh boundless power of my persecutor.
Never have I done aught, planned aught, for my
deliverance, but it has been revealed to him, and
blighted in the very bud, almost before I had conceived
it. And he—this fearful and malignant being—he
has sworn an oath, which I have never
heard him break, or bend from, that you shall not
have well put foot in stirrup to search out my prison,
ere the assassin's knife shall reach your heart! Oh,
my beloved, mine is a hard, a miserable duty—my
heart overflowing with deep unutterable love, I am
compelled to hide myself from him whom to see
were the very acme of imagined happiness. I am
compelled—I am compelled to pray you, as you
value—not life, for what noble spirit ever thinks of
life save as of a loan that must be one day repaid—
but as you value all that is more dear than life—all
that ennobles it, and makes it holy—as you value
your ancestral name—your own untarnished fame
—ay! and—I will write it, though it chokeme—as
you value me, I do beseech you to forget—Oh never!
never! think not I meant to say forget me!—
but to forego me—to be patient—to bear, as I now
bear, in silence—and in hope! Were there a
chance—a possibility, however slight or desperate,
of your success—I would write, Gird yourself up
for the task like a warrior for the battle-field—and
follow me to the very ends of the earth; but now I
know that so to do could not in aught aid our hopes
—aid them, did I say!—aid!—them!it would sever
them for ever by the pitiless steel—it would bury
them in the darkness of an untimely tomb. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 14 | Author: | Herbert
Henry William
1807-1858 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The brothers | | | | Published: | 2006 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Hastily springing to my feet, I had already
donned my clothes, and was buckling on my Milan
corslet, when old Martin entered my chamber,
fully equipped as a supernumerary subaltern of
my regiment. It was one of those customs of the
day, which has, since the time of which I write,
fallen completely into disuse, that every corps,
independent of its regular stands of national
and regimental colours, was distinguished by a
smaller standard, bearing the coat-armorial of its
commanding officer. This usage—which had
probably originated during the civil wars, wherein
each regiment was, for the most part, raised by its
colonel from among his own territorial and feudatory
dependants—I was particular to maintain in
my own instance the more scrupulously, as being
a stranger in a foreign land, and of course conscious
that, unless asserted by myself, my personal
dignity would not be much regarded by others.
It was partly with a view to this, as well as to
secure to myself a bold and trusty follower in the
field, that I had solicited for the foster-brother of
my father an appointment which certainly would
appear more suitable for a far younger man. But
no one, who had seen Martin Lydford on that
morning, would have deemed it possible that nearly
two-thirds of a century had passed over the head
of the erect and powerful veteran, who unfolded,
with a smile of daring exultation, the tattered and
time-honoured banner of my ancient house. He
wore a heavy antique helmet, with breast and back-pieces
of bright steel; immense jack-boots, and
high buff gauntlets reaching nearly to his elbows.
A long broadsword of English manufacture—
which, by-the-way, had done good service in its
time on many a stricken field—with a poniard of
formidable dimensions, completed his personal
equipment. But in addition to these he carried,
slung transversely across his shoulders, my petronel,
a choice piece of Spanish workmanship,
with an exceedingly small bore, and an indented,
or, as it is now termed, a rifled[1]
[1]The rifle, though a weapon of great rarity, was in use at
this period; as is evident from the piece with which the regent
Murray was shot, nearly a century earlier than the date of this
narrative. It is preserved in the gallery of the Duke of Hamilton,
and has a brass barrel slightly but distinctly rifled.
barrel. It was
not the fashion for officers to carry so cumbersome
a weapon, but I was, at the same time, unwilling
to lose a friend that had in several instances
served my turn, and perhaps saved my
life. The old man's eyes were full of tears as he
unfurled the colours, which had not floated for
many a day in action; but a sunny smile played on
his lips. “Harry”—it ran thus—“once more, my own,
own Harry! | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 15 | Author: | Herbert
Henry William
1807-1858 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Marmaduke Wyvil, or, The maid's revenge | | | | Published: | 2006 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | In a sequestered vale of merry England, not many miles from the county town of
Worcester, there stands, in excellent preservation, even to the present day, one of those
many mansions scattered through the land, which—formerly the manor houses of a
race, now, like their dwellings, becoming rapidly extinct, the good old English squires—
have, for the most part, been converted into farm-houses; since their old-time proprietors
have, simultaneously with the growth of vaster fortunes, and the rise of loftier
dignities, declined into a humbler sphere. In the days of which we write, however,
Woolverton Hall was in the hands of the same family, which had dwelt there, father
and son, for ages. It was a tall, irregular edifice, of bright red brick, composed of two
long buildings, with steep flagged roofs and pointed gables, meeting exactly at right
angles so as to form a letter L; the longer limb running due east and west, the shorter
abutting on the eastern end, and pointing with its gable, southerly. In this south gable,
near the top, was a tall, gothic, lanceolated window, its mullions and casings wrought
of a yellowish sand-stone, to match the corner stones of all the angles, which were
faced with the same material; beneath this window, which, as seen from without,
appeared to reach nearly from the floor to the ceiling of the second story, was the date,
1559—the numerals, several feet in length, composed of rusty iron; and above it, on
the summit of the gable, a tall weather-cock, surmounted by a vane shaped like a dolphin,
which had once been fairly gilded, but now was all dim and tarnished by long
exposure to the seasons. To this part of the house there were no chimneys, which
was the more remarkable, that the rest of the building was somewhat superfluously
adorned with these appendages, rising like columns, quaintly wrought of brickwork in
the old Elizabethan style. Corresponding to the gothic window in position, though by
no means so lofty, a range of five large square-topped latticed windows, divided each
into four compartments by a cross-shaped stone transom, ran all along that front of the
other wing, which, with the abutting chapel—for such it seemed to be—formed the
interior angle of the L. From the point of the western roof, to match, as it were, the
weathercock which crowned the other gable, projected a long beam or horn of stone,
at an angle of about ninety degrees, curiously wreathed with a deep spiral groove,
not much unlike the tusk of that singular animal, the sword-fish. “I know not, cousin Alice, that I should have written at all by this present opportunity,
the barque `Good Providence,' about to sail this morning from Tower Stairs, I
being at this time in London; but that some matters came to my ear last night, which
I judge all-important to be made known to you forthwith; and should it seem to you,
that I am overbold in touching on them, you will, I think, excuse me, seeing that I
write only for your personal advantage; and further, that I once unwittingly misled
you in relation to one, of whom you have thought favorably. To be brief, cousin
Alice, I learned yesternight that the report which Cromwell sent to me at first, was not
the truth at all; he not as yet having perused the papers! There was, indeed, a letter
to Sir Edward Vavasour from Captain Wyvil; but it related solely to a projected rising
in the north, which Wyvil, it would seem, discouraged; and contained not one word
touching yourself, or his escape from Woolverton. All that affected you or Master
Selby, was written in a long epistle, addressed to yourself, and marked on the outside,
`to be delivered privately by Master Bartram.' What more it contained I know not,
for it was burnt by the lord general at once, who rated, as I hear, the council very
roundly for breaking private seals, and troubling their heads with women's matters.
This I conceived it my duty to let you know forthwith, as you, I know, drew false conclusions
from the rumor; and I, to my shame be it said, strengthened, so far as in me
lay, instead of seeking to allay your indignation. I deem it therefore my bounden duty
to let you know these facts; and that although it may have been indiscreet in Captain
Wyvil to commit such things at all to writing, he certainly is quite exonerated from all
charge of anything base or dishonorable. I am rejoiced to have it in my power to add,
that something in the style and tenor of his letter, had affected the lord general so
favorably, that I have been able to obtain his promise of a full pardon for yourself, and
your father, within the space of six months, and a reversal of the decree of sequestration:
so that, by the next spring at farthest, you may return to Woolverton. I have
no doubt, moreover, so much was Cromwell gratified by the tone of Captain Wyvil's
letter to Sir Edmund, deprecating any partial risings, which could but tend to bloodshed
and fresh miseries, without effecting anything to aid the royal cause, and speaking with
indignant condemnation of those infamous schemes which we hear of—that, if at any
future period he should feel disposed to return to England, a ready abrogation of his
outlawry could be obtained; he only binding himself on parole of honor, to take no
hostile steps against the existing government. Should you meet with him, as you
doubtless will in Paris, whither I fancy, by all we hear of Monsieur Turenne's successes,
you will proceed ere long; pray say to him, should he entertain such views, he
will at all times find in me, one anxious to assist him by all means in my power. I
may add here, that every post that has reached us from the armies, speaks of his gallantry
and conduct, as a partisan commander, in the highest terms of commendation.
I have inclosed herewith bills on Parisian goldsmiths for one thousand pounds, made
payable to your name; which you will indorse upon them, on receiving their value,
but not sooner, as in case of loss they are useless until your name is signed upon them.
I have preferred this mode, to sending them to my kind friend and cousin, Master
Selby, fearing that his secluded habits and tastes for literary occupation, may render
him averse, or at least indisposed, to the details of business. Praying you, my dear
Mistress Alice, to hold me ever in your remembrance, and to commend me to your
good father's friendship, I subscribe myself, “I charge thee come to me, on the very instant.
“Thine, “Marmaduke”—thus ran the letter which cost her so much pains—“or, for the first and
last time, dear Marmaduke, I have thought much and deeply on our last meeting; and
if I cannot quite acquit you of having sinned against me, I must confess that in some
sort I have wronged vou; this—for we two shall never meet again in this world—I
wish to repair. I do not believe that you have wilfully, or with a preconceived determination,
wronged me as you have done. Your constancy was not of that enduring
quality—your mind not of that vigorous and resolute stamp to resist absence and brave
temptation. This perhaps was not, and should not be esteemed your fault; but the misfortune
rather, and frailty of your nature. I have, moreover, seen and learned to know,
since we two parted, her who has been happier than I in gaining your affections—may
she be happier, likewise, in retaining them! and having seen and known her, I recognize
in her free soul and fearless spirit, a spell more potent than any I possess to hold
dominion over the love of a mind like yours; to bring out your excellencies—for you
have many such—to their brightest lustre, and to inhibit and restrain your foibles.
That you should love her, therefore, and that your love for her should surpass that—
perhaps but a fancy, born of circumstances and gratitude—which you once entertained
for me, I do not marvel. Had you dealt uprightly by me, and candidly, all had been
well. Now mark me—if I have anything for which to forgive, I do so—how freely and
how happily! and if my words, wrung from me by passion, have wronged you anything,
forgive me likewise! But do not, Marmaduke, from this that I write, deceive yourself,
or vainly fancy that I repent of my late decision. No! I am fixed—and fixed for ever!
Nay! but a thousand times more firmer since I have learned to love that beautiful and
noble creature whom I give to you for your wife. Yes—start not as you read—I give
to you! Cherish her, love her, honor her! for she is worthy of all cherishing, all love, all
honor! Treasure her as the apple of your eye—cleave to her as your sweetest stay in
time of trouble. Thus, and thus only can you now show the love that once you felt—
the kindness that I hope you will feel for ever—to poor, poor Alice Selby. Yes, Marmaduke,
I give her to you! may you be happy! and to be so you must be virtuous and
true! I send you, herewith, what will enable you to perform the conditions of Henry
Oswald. It is my own to bestow, and with my whole soul do I bestow it. Do not
shrink back, do not refuse my gift, Marmaduke—do not, I beseech you. If your proud
heart disdain it, think and remember, I am proud likewise; yet I humble myself to
entreat you, if ever I have done you aught of unkindness—if you now owe me anything
of love, or gratitude, or reparation—refuse not my poor boon! It is now the only
thing that can make her, who was once your Alice, happy! By the life which I gave
you! by the love which I bore you! by the affections squandered on you! the hopes
blighted by you! by your own happiness, and hers to whom the gift shall unite you! I
adjure you—hard though the task be to your haughty soul—refuse me not! No, Marmaduke,
you will not! The old man, the good old man who loved you—he is dead. I tell
you not this to grieve you, for he knew nothing which had passed from me, nor, I
believe, suspected anything. His last words were a blessing upon me, and, I doubt not,
upon you likewise; and in this knowledge I rejoice daily. I would not for the world,
that he had thought me wronged, for that would bitterly have grieved him; and, perhaps,
good and forgiving as he was, he would not have then blessed you. He is gone,
Marmaduke, and I shall, ere long, follow him! and you will give us both a tear and a green
spot in your memory! And you too, Marmaduke—you must one day go hence, and your
bright Isabella; and we shall one day meet and know each other, not as now, through
a glass darkly, but face to face. And then—then, Marmaduke, let Isabella thank me
for having made her yours, and tell me you have made her happy; and that will well
9
repay me for all my transient sorrows. Fear not then—scruple not to accept this my
parting gift; two persons only in the wide world besides myself know of it, and trust me,
their mouths will be for ever silent. Farewell, then, my beloved! for so in this last
parting—so I must call you. Peace, and prosperity, and love, and blessings be about
you! Farewell! and when you think of Alice Selby, think of her as one who loved you
to the very last, and prayed for you, and blessed you, and will bless you dying! | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 16 | Author: | Herbert
Henry William
1807-1858 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Ringwood the rover | | | | Published: | 2006 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | The earliest dawning of a lovely summer day,
in the year 1659, was pouring its sweet light, unclouded
yet with that fierce heat which renders
almost insupportable the noontide hours, over the
forests which encircled, with a belt of ever-during
verdure, the Spanish city of St. Augustine. It
was already in those days a place of much importance,
with nunneries, and steepled churches,
and terraced dwellings, with white walls and jalousies
peeping from out the foliage of dark orange
groves, and all those beautiful peculiarities of
semi-Moorish taste, which lend so much of poetry
and of romance to the old towns of Spain. It had its
flanking walls, its ditches, and its palisades, presenting
their impregnable resistance to the fierce
and wily Indian, whom the relentless cruelty of
the white colonist, of whatsover nation, had at
length goaded into systematic and continual hostility;
in seaward bastions, with water-gate and
demilune, mounted with heavy cannon, and garrisoned
by old Castilians, under an officer who
bore the style of royal governor. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 17 | Author: | Herbert
Henry William
1807-1858 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The village inn, or, The adventure of Bellechassaigne | | | | Published: | 2006 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | On the western outskirts of a little hamlet, situated on the verge
of a great forest, not many miles from Vitry, on the high-road
leading from Bar le Due to Paris, there stood in the summer of
1653, a large old-fashioned inn, which has long since yielded,
like all things earthly, to the consuming hand of time, but which
in its day possessed no limited or narrow reputation. So excellent
indeed was its accommodations, so celebrated its cuisine, and
so remarkable the courtesy of the aubergist, that the cerf blanc
of Lagny la Forêt, was known so well to all who journeyed in
that district, that travellers would often turn aside from the direct
line of their route in order to enjoy its far-famed hospitality. It
was a solitary building of considerable size, situated in a spot of
singular and romantic loveliness at the foot of three soft green
hills, which sloped down easily on every side except the south,
with two small glens between them, each watered by a bright and
sparkling rivulet, which meeting at their base, swept off in easy
curves through a rich level meadow, and joined a more considerable
stream at the distance of a quarter of a mile, or perhaps less,
to the southward. The summits of two of these green knolls,
for they were indeed little more—those to the north and west, were
crowned by the tall trees of the neighboring forest which covered
the whole face of the country for miles in that direction, and many
scattered oaks and ashes grew straggling down their sides, the
outposts as it were and sentinels of the vast verdant host. The
third or eastern hill, unlike its neighbors, was cleared almost entirely
of wood and very richly cultivated in meadow-land and pastures,
divided from each other by lines of thriving fruit-trees,
among which wound a narrow sandy road toward the village,
lying just out of sight beyond the summit—its tall and lance-like
spire standing out clear and sharp against the sky, above the
rounded brow. Just in the hollow where the streams blended
their bright waters, stood the old inn, a large irregular rambling
edifice, with steep projecting gables and latticed windows, no two
of them alike; of every shape and size that can be fancied, and a
huge oaken porch all overrun with jessamine and woodbine,
facing the yellow road. Four or five weeping-willows of vast
size grew on the margin of the stream, quite overarching the stone
bridge, which spanned it close to the western gable, and bathed
the old moss-grown roof with cool and grateful umhrage; while
a small strip of garden on either side the door, fenced by a rustic
paling and thickly set with sweet-briars and many-colored rose-bushes,
completed the attractions of the spot. The stables and
out-buildings were all behind the house, concealed from view by
the nature of the ground, nor were there any indications that the
house itself was one for public entertainment, unless it were an
antiquated sign representing the White, Stag whence the inn's
name, which swung from a cross-piece morticed into the trunk of
one of the great willows, and a long horse-trough supplied with
living water by a little aqueduct from a spring in the hill-side,
with a stone horseblock by its end. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 18 | Author: | Herbert
Henry William
1807-1858 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Guarica, the charib bride | | | | Published: | 2006 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | The heavy dew of the tropics was yet
lying bright and unexhaled on every herb
and flower; myriads of which, in most
profuse variety of odor and bloom, strewed,
like one gorgeous carpet, the beautiful savannahs,
and wild forest glades of the fair
province of Cahay. The sun had not fairly
risen, although the warm and rosy light
which harbingered his coming, was tinging,
with its fairy dyes, the small and fleecy
clouds that floated, like the isles of some
enchanted sea, over the azure skies. The
faint sea-breeze, which murmured still
among the fresh green leaves, though it
was fast subsiding, was laden with perfumes
of such strange richness, that while
they gratified they almost cloyed the
senses; birds of the most superb and gorgeous
plumage were glancing, meteor-like,
among the boughs; but the innumerable
insect tribes, which almost rival
them in beauty, had not as yet been called
forth to their life of a day, by the young
sunbeams. The loveliness of those sequestered
haunts, which had but recently
been opened to the untiring and insatiate
avarice of the Europeans, exceeded the
most wild conceptions, the most voluptuous
dreams, of the romancer or the poet. The
solemn verdure of the mighty woods thick
set with trees, more graceful than the
shades of those ægean Isles, where the
Ionian muse was born to witch the world
for ages—the light and feathery mimosas,
the fan-like heads of the tall palms, towering
a hundred feet above their humbler, yet
still lofty brethren—the giant oaks, their
whole trunks overgrown with thousands of
bright parasites, and their vast branches
canopied with vines and creepers—masses
of tangled and impervious foliage—the natural
lawns, watered by rills of crystal—
the rocks, that reared themselves among
the forests, mantled not as the crags of the
cold northern climes, with dark and melancholy
ivy, but with festoons of fruits and
flowers that might have graced the gardens
of the fabulous Hesperides. It was
upon such a scene, as is but imperfectly
and feebly shadowed forth, in the most
glowing language, that the sweet dawn
was breaking, when, from a distance,
through the lovely woodlands, the mellow
notes of a horn, clearly and scientifically
winded, came floating on the gentle air;
again it pealed forth its wild cadences,
nearer and louder than before—and then
the deep and ringing bay of a full mouthed
hound succeeded. Scarcely had the first
echo of the woods replied to the unwonted
sounds, before a beautiful, slight hind, forcing
her way through a dense thicket of
briers, dashed with the speed of mortal terror
into the centre of a small savannah,
through which stole almost silently a broad
bright rivulet of very limpid water. Pausing
for a second's space upon the brink, the
delicate creature stood, with its swan-like
neck curved backward, its thin ear erect,
its full black eye dilated, and its expanded
nostrils snuffing the tainted breeze. It was
but for a second that she stood; for the next
moment a louder and more boisterous crash
arose from the direction whence she had
first appeared—the blended tongues of
several hounds running together on a hot
and recent trail. Tossing her head aloft,
she gathered her slight limbs under her,
sprung at one vigorous and elastic bound
over the rivulet, and was lost instantly to
view among the thickets of the further
side. A few minutes elapsed during which
the fierce baying of the hounds came quicker
and more sharply on the ear; and then,
from the same brake out of which the bind
had started, rushed, with his eyes glowing
lika coals of fire, his head high in the air,
and his long feathery tail lashing his tawny
sides, a formidable blood hound, of that savage
breed which was, in after times, so
brutally employed against the hapless Indians
by their Christian conquerors. Another,
and another, and a fourth succeeded,
making the vaulted woods to bellow with
the deep cadences of their continuous cry.
Hard on the blood hounds, crashing through
the tangled branches with reckless and impetuous
ardor, a solitary huntsman followed
splendidly mounted on a fiery Andalusian
charger, of a deep chestnut color, with four
white legs, and a white blaze down his
face, whose long thin mane, and the large
cord-like veins that might be seen meandering
over his muscular, sleek limbs, attested,
as surely as the longest pedigree,
the purity of his blood. The rider was a
young man of some four or five-and-twenty
years, well, and rather powerfully made
than otherwise, though not above the middle
stature; his long dark hair, black eye,
and swarthy skin told of a slight admixture
of the Moorish blood; while the expression
of his features, though now excited somewhat
by the exhilaration of the chase,
grave, dignified and noble, bespoke him
without a doubt a polished cavalier of
Spain. His dress, adapted to the occupation
which he so gallantly pursued, was a
green doublet belted close about his waist
by a girdle of Cordovan leather, from which
swung, clinking at every stride of his
horse, against the stirrup, a long and basket-hilted
bilboa blade, in a steel scabbard,
which was the only weapon that he wore,
except a short two-edged stiletto, thrust
into the belt at the left side. A broad
sombrero hat, with a drooping feather,
breeches and gloves of chamois leather,
laced down the seams with silver, and russet
buskins drawn up to the knee, completed
his attire. He sat his horse gracefully
and firmly; and the ease with which
he supported him, and wheeled him to and
fro among the fallen trees and rocks, notwithstanding
the fiery speed at which he
rode, bespoke him no less skillful than intrepid
as a horseman. The chase continued
for above an hour, during which
every species of scenery that the level portions
of the isle contained was traversed by
the hunter; the open forest, the dense
swampy brake, the wide luxuriant savannah—and
each at such hot speed, that
though he turned aside neither for bush,
nor bank, though he plunged headlong
down the steepest crags, and dashed his
charger, without hesitation, over every fallen
tree that barred his progress, and every
brook or gulley that opposed him, still it
was with no little difficulty that he contrived
to keep the hounds in hearing. And
now the hapless hind, worn out by the sustained
exertions which had at first outstripped
the utmost pace of her pursuers,
but which availed her nothing to escape
from foes against whose most sagacious instinct
and unerring scent she had but fleetness
to oppose—was sinking fast, and must,
as the rider judged by the redoubled speed
and shriller baying of his hounds, soon turn
to bay, or be run down without resistance.
Her graceful head was bowed low toward
the earth; big tears streamed down her
hairy cheeks; her arid tongue lolled from
her frothing jaws; her coat, of late so
sleek and glossy, was all embossed with
sweat and foam, and wounded at more
points than one by the sharp thorns and
prickly underwood through which she had
toiled so fruitlessly. Still she strove on,
staggering and panting in a manner pitiful
to witness, when the deep bay of the blood
hounds was changed suddenly into a series
of sharp and savage yells, as they caught
view of their destined prey. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
|
