and Wolf, his two deer hounds.

Then his head would droop--a dim smile would glimmer upon his lips,
and his long, curling hair would fall in disordered masses around
his burnt face, almost hiding it from view. At such moments Verty
dreamed--the real world had disappeared--perforce of that imagination
given him by heaven, he entered calm and happy into the boundless
universe of reverie and fancy.

For a time he would go along thus, his arms hanging down, his head
bent upon his breast, his body swinging from side to side with every
movement of his shaggy little horse. Then he would rouse himself, and
perhaps fit an arrow to his bow, and aim at some bird, or some wild
turkey disappearing in the glades. Happy birds! the arrow never
left the string. Verty's hand would fall--the bow would drop at his
side--he would fix his eyes upon the autumn woods, and smile.

He went on thus through the glades of the forest, over the hills, and
along the banks of little streams towards the west. The autumn reigned
in golden splendor--and not alone in gold: in purple, and azure and
crimson, with a wealth of slowly falling leaves which soon would pass
away, the poor perished glories of the fair golden year. The wild
geese flying South sent their faint carol from the clouds--the swamp
sparrow twittered, and the still copse was stirred by the silent croak
of some wandering wild turkey, or the far forest made most musical
with that sound which the master of Wharncliffe Lodge delighted in,
the "belling of the hart."

Verty drank in these forest sounds, and the full glories of the
Autumn, rapturously--while he looked and listened, all his sadness