makers; on the white headdresses of nurses and the white-winged caps of the Sisters of St. Vincent,—­all this grew monotonous to this native of still more monotonous wastes.  The long, black shadows of short, blue-skirted, sabotted women and short, blue-bloused, sabotted men slowly working in the fields, with slow oxen, or still slower heavy Norman horses; the same horses gayly bedecked, dragging slowly not only heavy wagons, but their own apparently more monstrous weight over the white road, fretted his nervous Western energy, and made him impatient to get on.

At the close of the second day he found some relief on entering a trackless wood,—­not the usual formal avenue of equidistant trees, leading to nowhere, and stopping upon the open field,—­but apparently a genuine forest as wild as one of his own “oak bottoms.”  Gnarled roots and twisted branches flung themselves across his path; his mustang’s hoofs sank in deep pits of moss and last year’s withered leaves; trailing vines caught his heavy-stirruped feet, or brushed his broad sombrero; the vista before him seemed only to endlessly repeat the same sylvan glade; he was in fancy once more in the primeval Western forest, and encompassed by its vast, dim silences.  He did not know that he had in fact only penetrated an ancient park which in former days resounded to the winding fanfare of the chase, and was still, on stated occasions, swept over by accurately green-coated Parisians and green-plumed Dianes, who had come down by train!  To him it meant only unfettered and unlimited freedom.

He rose in his stirrups, and sent a characteristic yell ringing down the dim aisles before him.  But, alas! at the same moment, his mustang, accustomed to the firmer grip of the prairie, in lashing out, stepped upon a slimy root, and fell heavily, rolling over his clinging and still unlodged rider.  For a few moments both lay still.  Then Dick extricated himself with an oath, rose giddily, dragged up his horse,—­who, after the fashion of his race, was meekly succumbing to his reclining position,—­and then became aware that the unfortunate beast was badly sprained in the shoulder, and temporarily lame.  The sudden recollection that he was some miles from the road, and that the sun was sinking, concentrated his scattered faculties.  The prospect of sleeping out in that summer woodland was nothing to the pioneer-bred Dick; he could make his horse and himself comfortable anywhere—­but he was delaying his arrival at Havre.  He must regain the high road,—­or some wayside inn.  He glanced around him; the westering sun was a guide for his general direction; the road must follow it north or south; he would find a “clearing” somewhere.  But here Dick was mistaken; there seemed no interruption of, no encroachment upon this sylvan tract, as in his western woods.  There was no track or trail to be found; he missed even the ordinary woodland signs that denoted the path of animals to water.  For the park, from the time a Northern Duke had first alienated it from the virgin forest, had been rigidly preserved.