A deep languor brooded over the land: the still, warm enchantment of an
Indian Summer which, protracted though it were unseasonably into the
Ides of November, had yet lost nothing of its witchery. There was no
wind, but now and again the air stirred softly, and when it stirred was
cool; as if the earth sighed in sheer lassitude. Out of a cloudless
sky, translucent sapphire at its zenith fading into hazy topaz-yellow
at the horizon, golden sunlight slanted, casting shadows heavy and
colourful; on the edge of the woodlands they clung like thin purple
smoke, but motionless, and against them, here and there, a clump of
sumach blazed like a bed of embers, or some tree loath to shed its
autumnal livery flamed scarlet, russet, and mauve. The peace of the
hour was intense, and only emphasised by a dull, throbbing
undertone--the muted murmur of the distant sea.

Amber had professed acquaintance with his way; it seemed rather to be
intimacy, for when he chose to forsake the main-travelled road he did
so boldly, striking off upon a wagon-track which, leading across the
fields, delved presently into the heart of the forest. Here it ran
snakily and, carved by broad-tired wheels and beaten out by slowly
plodding hoofs in a soil more than half sand, glimmered white as
rock-salt where the drifting leaves had left it naked.

Once in this semi-dusk made luminous by sunlight which touched and
quivered upon dead leaf and withered bush and bare brown bough like
splashes of molten gold, the young man moved more sedately. The hush of
the forest world bore heavily upon his senses; the slight and stealthy
rustlings in the brush, the clear dense ringing of some remote axe, an
attenuated clamour of cawing from some far crows' congress, but served
to accentuate its influence. On that windless day the vital breath of