Leaving the frequented routes to the right, we turned into one of the many hundred tracks that diverge in every direction from the beaten roads, and wandered deeper and deeper into the green shades and solitudes of the forest.  Pausing, presently, to rest, Dalrymple threw himself at full length on the mossy ground, with his hands clasping the back of his head, and his hat over his eyes; whilst I found a luxurious arm-chair in the gnarled roots of a lichen-tufted elm.  Thus we remained for a considerable time puffing away at our cigars in that sociable silence which may almost claim to be an unique privilege of masculine friendship.  Women cannot sit together for long without talking; men can enjoy each other’s companionship for hours with scarcely the interchange of an idea.

Meanwhile, I watched the squirrels up in the beech-trees and the dancing of the green leaves against the sky; and thought dreamily of home, of my father, of the far past, and the possible future.  I asked myself how, when my term of study came to an end, I should ever again endure the old home-life at Saxonholme?  How settle down for life as my father’s partner, conforming myself to his prejudices, obeying all the demands of his imperious temper, and accepting for evermore the monotonous routine of a provincial practice!  It was an intolerable prospect, but no less inevitable than intolerable.  Pondering thus, I sighed heavily, and the sigh roused Dalrymple’s attention.

“Why, Damon,” said he, turning over on his elbow, and pushing up his hat to the level of his eyes, “what’s the matter with you?”

“Oh, nothing—­at least, nothing new.”

“Well, new or old, what is it?  A man must be either in debt, or in love, when he sighs in that way.  You look as melancholy as Werter redivivus!”

“I—­I ought not to be melancholy, I suppose; for I was thinking of home.”

Dalrymple’s face and voice softened immediately.

“Poor boy!” he said, throwing away the end of his cigar, “yours is not a bright home, I fear.  You told me, I think, that you had lost your mother?”

“From infancy.”

“And you have no sisters?”

“None.  I am an only child.”

“Your father, however, is living?”

“Yes, my father lives.  He is a rough-tempered, eccentric man; misanthropic, but clever; kind enough, and generous enough, in his own strange way.  Still—­”

“Still what?”

—­“I dread the life that lies before me!  I dread the life without society, without ambition, without change—­the dull house—­the bounded sphere of action—­the bondage....  But of what use is it to trouble you with these things?”

“This use, that it does you good to tell, and me to listen.  Sympathy, like mercy, blesseth him that gives and him that takes; and if I cannot actually help you, I am, at all events, thankful to be taken out of myself.  Go on—­tell me more of your prospects.  Have you no acquaintance at Saxonholme whose society will make the place pleasant to you?  No boyish friends?  No pretty cousins?  No first-loves, from amongst whom to choose a wife in time to come?”