The solitary group of pines, that, here and
there, shot up suddenly like illuminated spires;--the harsh and
repulsive hills, that caught, in differing gradations, a glow and glory
from the same bright fountain of light and beauty;--even the low copse,
uniform of height, and of dull hues, not yet quite caparisoned for
spring, yet sprinkled with gleaming eyes, and limned in pencilling beams
and streaks of fire; these, all, appeared suddenly to be subdued in
mood, and appealed, with a freshening interest, to the eye of the
traveller whom at midday their aspects discouraged only.
And there is a traveller--a single horseman--who emerges suddenly from
the thicket, and presses forward, not rapidly, nor yet with the manner
of one disposed to linger, yet whose eyes take in gratefully the
softening influences of that evening sunlight.
In that region, he who travelled at all, at the time of which we write,
must do so on horseback. It were a doubtful progress which any vehicle
would make over the blind and broken paths of that uncultivated realm.
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