"'Now who are thou of the darksome brow
Who wanderest here so free?'
"'Oh, I'm one that will walk the green green woods,
Nor ever ask leave of thee.'"--S. M.

A fine evening--six centuries ago--shed a bright parting light over
Alton Wood, illuminating the gray lichens that clung to the rugged
trunks of the old oak trees, and shining on the smoother bark of the
graceful beech, with that sidelong light that, towards evening, gives
an especial charm to woodland scenery. The long shadows lay across
an open green glade, narrowing towards one end, where a path, nearly
lost amid dwarf furze, crested heather, and soft bent-grass, led
towards a hut, rudely constructed of sods of turf and branches of
trees, whose gray crackling foliage contrasted with the fresh verdure
around. There was no endeavour at a window, nor chimney; but the
door of wattled boughs was carefully secured by a long twisted withe.

A halbert, a broken arrow, a deer-skin pegged out on the ground to
dry, a bundle of faggots, a bare and blackened patch of grass, strewn
with wood ashes, were tokens of recent habitation, though the
reiterations of the nightingale, the deep tones of the blackbird and
the hum of insects, were the only sounds that broke the stillness.

Suddenly the silence was interrupted by a clear, loud, ringing
whistle, repeated at brief intervals and now and then exchanged for
the call--"Leonillo! Leon!" A footstep approached, rapidly
overtaken and passed by the rushing gallop of a large animal; and
there broke on the scene a large tawny hound, prancing, bounding, and
turning round joyfully, pawing the air, and wagging his tail, in
welcome to the figure who followed him.