ot quite control their spirits, for the walk of a horse is
even half as fast again while he is full of vigour. The turn of the
track soon shut out the stockade; they were alone in the woods.

Long since, early as they were, the sun had dried the dew, for his beams
warm the atmosphere quickly as the spring advances towards summer. But
it was still fresh and sweet among the trees, and even Felix, though
bound on so gloomy an errand, could not choose but feel the joyous
influence of the morning. Oliver sang aloud in his rich deep voice, and
the thud, thud of the horses' hoofs kept time to the ballad.

The thrushes flew but a little way back from the path as they passed,
and began to sing again directly they were by. The whistling of
blackbirds came from afar where there were open glades or a running
stream; the notes of the cuckoo became fainter and fainter as they
advanced farther from the stockade, for the cuckoo likes the woodlands
that immediately border on cultivation. For some miles the track was
broad, passing through thickets of thorn and low hawthorn-trees with
immense masses of tangled underwood between, brambles and woodbine
twisted and matted together, impervious above but hollow beneath; under
these they could hear the bush-hens running to and fro and scratching at
the dead leaves which strewed the ground. Sounds of clucking deeper in
betrayed the situation of their nests.

Rushes, and the dead sedges of last year, up through which the green
fresh leaves were thrusting themselves, in some places stood beside the
way, fringing the thorns where the hollow ground often held the water
from rainstorms. Out from these bushes a rabbit occasionally started and
bounded across to the other side. Here, where there were so few trees,
and the forest chiefly consisted of bush, they could see some distance
on either hand, and also a wide breadth of the sky. After a time the
thorn bushes were succeeded by ash wood, where the trees stood closer to
the path, contracting the view; it was moister here, the hoofs cut into
the grass, which was coarse and rank. The trees growing so close
together destroyed themselves, their lower branches rubbed together and
were killed, so that in many spots the riders could see a long way
between the trunks.

Every time the wind blew they could hear a distant cracking of branches
as the dead boughs, broken by the swaying of the trees, fell off and
came down. Had any one attempted to walk into t