nd bright over a pebbly bed,
although the margin on the hither side was somewhat swampy, with tufts
of willows and bushes of dark alder fringing it here and there, and
dipping their branches in its waters--the farther bank was skirted by a
tall grove of maple, hickory, and oak, with a thick undergrowth of sumac
arrayed in all the gorgeous garniture of autumn, purples and brilliant
scarlets and chrome yellows, mixed up and harmonized with the dark
copper foliage of a few sere beeches, and the gray trunks apparent here
and there through the thin screen of the fast falling leaves.

Beyond this grove, the bank rose bold and rich in swelling curves, with
a fine corn-field, topped already to admit every sunbeam to the ripening
ears. A buckwheat stubble, conspicuous by its deep ruddy hue, and two or
three brown pastures divided by high fences, along the lines of which
flourished a copious growth of cat-briers and sumacs, with here and
there a goodly tree waving above them, made up the centre of the
picture. Beyond this cultured knoll there seemed to be a deep pitch of
the land clothed with a hanging wood of heavy timber; and, above this
again, the soil surged upward into a huge and round-topped hill, with
several golden stubbles, shining out from the frame-work of primeval
forest, which, dark with many a mighty pine, covered the mountain to the
top, except where at its western edge it showed a huge and rifted
precipice of rock.

To the right, looking down the stream, the hills closed in quite to the
water's brink on the far side, rough and uncultivated, with many a blue
and misty peak discovered through the gaps in their bold, broken
outline, and a broad, lake-like sheet, as calm and brightly pictured as
a mirror, reflecting their inverted beauties so wondrously distinct and
vivid, that the amazed eye might not recognize the parting between
reality and shadow. An old gray mill, deeply embosomed in a clump of
weeping willows, still verdant, though the woods were sere and waxing
leafless, explained the nature of that tranquil pool, while, beyond
that, the hills swept down from the rear of the building, which
contained the parlor whence the two sportsmen gazed, and seemed entirely
to bar the valley, so suddenly, and in so short a curve, did it wind
round their western shoulder. To the left hand, the view was closed by a
thick belt of second growth, through which the sandy road and glittering
stream wandered away together on thei