the flats, while the dry ground was covered with holly brake, and
here and there woods of oak and beech made a sea of verdure,
purpling in the distance.

Cultivation was not attempted, but hardy little ponies, cows, goats,
sheep, and pigs were feeding, and picking their way about in the
marshy mead below, and a small garden of pot-herbs, inclosed by a
strong fence of timber, lay on the sunny side of a spacious rambling
forest lodge, only one story high, built of solid timber and roofed
with shingle. It was not without strong pretensions to beauty, as
well as to picturesqueness, for the posts of the door, the
architecture of the deep porch, the frames of the latticed windows,
and the verge boards were all richly carved in grotesque devices.
Over the door was the royal shield, between a pair of magnificent
antlers, the spoils of a deer reported to have been slain by King
Edward IV., as was denoted by the "glorious sun of York" carved
beneath the shield.

In the background among the trees were ranges of stables and
kennels, and on the grass-plat in front of the windows was a row of
beehives. A tame doe lay on the little green sward, not far from a
large rough deer-hound, both close friends who could be trusted at
large. There was a mournful dispirited look about the hound,
evidently an aged animal, for the once black muzzle was touched with
grey, and there was a film over one of the keen beautiful eyes,
which opened eagerly as he pricked his ears and lifted his head at
the rattle of the door latch. Then, as two boys came out, he rose,
and with a slowly waving tail, and a wistful appealing air, came and
laid his head against one of the pair who had appeared in the porch.
They were lads of fourteen and fifteen, clad in suits of new