mood, I had most desperately and, perhaps, childishly undertaken."

There was a stern melancholy in the deep and low utterance--the close
compression of lip--the steady, calm eye of the youth, that somewhat
tended to confirm the almost savage sentiment of despairing indifference
to life, which his sentiments conveyed; and had the effect of eliciting
a larger degree of respectful consideration from the somewhat uncouth
but really well-meaning and kind companion who stood beside him.
Forrester had good sense enough to perceive that Ralph had been gently
nurtured and deferentially treated--that his pride or vanity, or perhaps
some nobler emotion, had suffered slight or rebuke; and that it was more
than probable this emotion would, before long, give place to others, if
not of a more manly and spirited, at least of a more subdued and
reasonable character. Accordingly, without appearing to attach any
importance to, or even to perceive the melancholy defiance contained in
the speech of the young man, he confined himself entirely to a passing
comment upon the facility with which, having his eyes open, and the
bright sunshine and green trees for his guides, he had suffered himself
to lose his way--an incident excessively ludicrous in the contemplation
of one, who, in his own words, could take the tree with the 'possum, the
scent with the hound, the swamp with the deer, and be in at the death
with all of them--for whom the woods had no labyrinth and the night no
mystery. He laughed heartily at the simplicity of the youth, and entered
into many details, not so tedious as long, of the various hairbreadth
escapes, narrow chances, and curious enterprises of his own initiation
into the secrets of wood-craft, and to the trials and perils of which,
in his own probation, his experience had necessarily subjected him. At
length he concluded his narrative by seizing upon one portion of Ralph's
language with an adroitness and ingenuity that might have done credit to
an older diplomatist; and went on to invite the latter to quarter upon