r and carriage did not
sufficiently do so.

Our new acquaintance had, by this time, emerged into one of those
regions of brown, broken, heathery waste, thinly mottled with tree and
shrub, which seem usually to distinguish the first steppes on the
approach to our mountain country. Though undulating, and rising
occasionally into hill and crag, the tract was yet sufficiently
monotonous; rather saddened than relieved by the gentle sunset, which
seemed to gild in mockery the skeleton woods and forests, just
recovering from the keen biting blasts of a severe and protracted
winter.

Our traveller, naturally of a dreamy and musing spirit, here fell
unconsciously into a narrow footpath, an old Indian trace, and without
pause or observation, followed it as if quite indifferent whither it
led. He was evidently absorbed in that occupation--a very unusual one
with youth on horseback--that "chewing of the cud of sweet and bitter
thought"--which testifies for premature troubles and still gnawing
anxieties of soul. His thoughts were seemingly in full unison with the
almost grave-like stillness and solemn hush of everything around him.
His spirit appeared to yield itself up entirely to the mournful
barrenness and uninviting associations, from which all but himself,
birds and beasts, and the very insects, seemed utterly to have departed.
The faint hum of a single wood-chuck, which, from its confused motions,
appeared to have wandered into an unknown territory, and by its uneasy
action and frequent chirping, seemed to indicate a perfect knowledge of
the fact, was the only object which at intervals broke through the spell
of silence which hung so heavily upon the sense. The air of our
traveller was that of one who appeared unable, however desirous he might
be, to avoid the train of sad thought which such a scene was so
eminently calculated to inspire; and, of consequence, who seemed
disposed, for this object, to call up some of those internal resources
of one's own mind and memory, which so mysteriously bear us away from
the present, whatever its powers, its pains, or its pleasures, and to
carry us into a territory of the heart's own selection. But, whether the
past in his case, were more to be dreaded than the present; or whether
it was that there was something in the immediate prospect which appealed
to sterile hopes, and provoking memories, it is very certain that our
young companion exhibited a most singular indifference to the fact