horse.

The Squire thus disappears toward the barn. Miss Lavinia superintends
the household operation of "washing up the tea things," and Redbud
puts on her sun-bonnet, and goes to take a stroll.




CHAPTER II.

VERTY AND HIS COMPANIONS.


Redbud is sauntering over the sward, and listening to the wind in the
beautiful fallwoods, when, from those woods which stretch toward the
West, emerges a figure, which immediately rivets her attention. It
is a young man of about eighteen, mounted on a small, shaggy-coated
horse, and clad in a wild forest costume, which defines clearly the
outline of a person, slender, vigorous, and graceful. Over his brown
forehead and smiling face, droops a wide hat, of soft white fur, below
which, a mass of dark chestnut hair nearly covers his shoulders with
its exuberant and tangled curls. Verty--for this is Verty the son, or
adopted son of the old Indian woman, living in the pine hills to the
west--Verty carries in one hand a strange weapon, nothing less than a
long cedar bow, and a sheaf of arrows; in the other, which also holds
his rein, the antlers of a stag, huge and branching in all directions;
around him circle two noble deer-hounds. Verty strongly resembles an
amiable wild cat; and when he sees Redbud, smiles more than ever.