Guy Rivers | Page 4

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 that he was in a wild empire of the forest--a
wilderness--and that the sun was rapidly approaching his setting. The
bridle held heedlessly, lay loose upon the neck of his steed; and it was
only when the noble animal, more solicitous about his night's lodging
than his rider, or rendered anxious by his seeming stupor, suddenly
came to a full stand in the narrow pathway, that the youth seemed to
grow conscious of his doubtful situation, and appeared to shake off his
apathy and to look about him.
He now perceived that he had lost the little Indian pathway which he
had so long pursued. There was no sign of route or road on any side.
The prospect was greatly narrowed; he was in a valley, and the trees
had suddenly thickened around him. Certain hills, which his eyes had

hitherto noted on the right, had disappeared wholly from sight. He had
evidently deflected greatly from his proper course, and the horizon was
now too circumscribed to permit him to distinguish any of those
guiding signs upon which he had relied for his progress. From a bald
tract he had unwittingly passed into the mazes of a somewhat
thickly-growing wood.
"Old Blucher," he said, addressing his horse, and speaking in clear
silvery tones--"what have you done, old fellow? Whither have you
brought us?"
The philosophy which tells us, when lost, to give the reins to the steed,
will avail but little in a region where the horse has never been before.
This our traveller seemed very well to know. But the blame was not
chargeable upon Blucher. He had tacitly appealed to the beast for his
direction when suffering the bridle to fall upon his neck. He was not
willing, now, to accord to him a farther discretion; and was quite too
much of the man to forbear any longer the proper exercise of his own
faculties. With the quickening intelligence in his eyes, and the
compression of his lips, declaring a resolute will, he pricked the animal
forward, no longer giving way to those brown musings, which, during
the previous hour, had not only taken him to remote regions but very
much out of his way besides. In sober earnest, he had lost the way, and,
in sober earnest, he set about to recover it; but a ten minutes' farther
ride only led him to farther involvements; and he paused, for a moment,
to hold tacit counsel with his steed, whose behavior was very much that
of one who understands fully his own, and the predicament of his
master. Our traveller then dismounted, and, suffering his bridle to rest
upon the neck of the docile beast, he coursed about on all sides, looking
close to the earth in hopes to find some ancient traces of a pathway. But
his search was vain. His anxieties increased. The sunlight was growing
fainter and fainter; and, in spite of the reckless manner, which he still
wore, you might see a lurking and growing anxiety in his quick and
restless eye. He was vexed with himself that he had suffered his wits to
let fall his reins; and his disquiet was but imperfectly concealed under
the careless gesture and rather philosophic swing of his graceful person,
as, plying his silent way, through clumps of brush, and bush, and tree,

he vainly peered along the earth for the missing traces of the route. He
looked up for the openings in the tree-tops--he looked west, at the
rapidly speeding sun, and shook his head at his horse. Though bold of
heart, no doubt, and tolerably well aware of the usual backwoods mode
of procedure in all such cases of embarrassment, our traveller had been
too gently nurtured to affect a lodge in the wilderness that night--its
very "vast contiguity of shade" being anything but attractive in his
present mood. No doubt, he could have borne the necessity as well as
any other man, but still he held it a necessity to be avoided if possible.
He had, we are fain to confess, but small passion for that "grassy
couch," and "leafy bower," and those other rural felicities, of which
your city poets, who lie snug in garrets, are so prone to sing; and
always gave the most unromantic preference to comfortable lodgings
and a good roof; so, persevering in his search after the pathway, while