compression of his lips, declaring a resolute will, he pricked the
animal forward, no longer giving way to those brown musings, which,
during the previous hour, had not only taken him to remote regions but
very much out of his way besides. In sober earnest, he had lost the way,
and, in sober earnest, he set about to recover it; but a ten minutes'
farther ride only led him to farther involvements; and he paused, for a
moment, to hold tacit counsel with his steed, whose behavior was very
much that of one who understands fully his own, and the predicament of
his master. Our traveller then dismounted, and, suffering his bridle to
rest upon the neck of the docile beast, he coursed about on all sides,
looking close to the earth in hopes to find some ancient traces of a
pathway. But his search was vain. His anxieties increased. The sunlight
was growing fainter and fainter; and, in spite of the reckless manner,
which he still wore, you might see a lurking and growing anxiety in his
quick and restless eye. He was vexed with himself that he had suffered
his wits to let fall his reins; and his disquiet was but imperfectly
concealed under the careless gesture and rather philosophic swing of his
graceful person, as, plying his silent way, through clumps of brush, and
bush, and tree, he vainly peered along the earth for the missing traces
of the route. He looked up for the openings in the tree-tops--he looked
west, at the rapidly speeding sun, and shook his head at his horse.
Though bold of heart, no doubt, and tolerably well aware of the usual
backwoods mode of procedure in all such cases of embarrassment, our
traveller had been too gently nurtured to affect a lodge in the
wilderness that night--its very "vast contiguity of shade" being
anything but attractive in his present mood. No doubt, he could have
borne the necessity as well as any other man, but still he held it a
necessity to be avoided if possible. He had, we are fain to confess, but
small passion for that "grassy couch," and "leafy bower," and those
other rural felicities, of which your city poets, who lie snug in