the range of westerly hills, soon left them in gloom; but they anxiously
hurried forward when the stream wound its noisy way among steep stony
banks, clothed scantily with pines and a few scattered silver-barked
poplars. And now they became bewildered by two paths leading in opposite
directions; one upward among the rocky hills, the other through the opening
gorge of a deep ravine.

Here, overcome with fatigue, Catharine seated herself on a large block of
granite, near a great bushy pine that grew beside the path by the ravine,
unable to proceed, and Hector, with a grave and troubled countenance,
stood beside her, looking round with an air of great perplexity. Louis,
seating himself at Catharine's feet, surveyed the deep gloomy valley before
them, and sighed heavily. The conviction had now forcibly struck him that
they had mistaken the path altogether. The very aspect of the country was
different; the growth of the trees, the flow of the stream, all indicated a
change of soil and scene. Darkness was fast drawing its impenetrable veil
around them; a few stars were stealing out, and gleaming down as if with
pitying glance upon the young wanderers; but they could not light up their
pathway, or point their homeward track. The only sound, save the lulling
murmur of the rippling stream below, was the plaintive note of the
whip-poor-will, from a gnarled oak that grew near them, and the harsh
grating scream of the night hawk, darting about in the higher regions of
the air, pursuing its noisy congeners, or swooping down with that peculiar
hollow rushing sound, as of a person blowing into some empty vessel, when
it seizes with wide-extended bill its insect prey.

Hector was the first to break the silence. "Cousin Louis, we were wrong in
following the course of the stream; I fear we shall never find our way back
to-night."