me." And then,
with his terrible carbine under his arm, he retraced his steps,
expecting every moment to see peeping through the trees in front of him,
his uncle's large white house and lofty dove-cote.

But, alas! no such thing met his hungry eyes; still on he walked, trees
after trees were passed, glade after glade, and many a long avenue, but
neither white farm-house nor gay green shutters greeted his anxious
sight. "How odd," thought he, "how very odd; this, I feel confident, is
the identical spot near which I first noticed that odious cuckoo; here
is the self-same little regiment of white daisies that my feet pressed
not half an hour ago; see now, this chestnut, this immense chestnut,
whose monstrous roots lie twisting about the ground like a black brood
of ugly snakes--certainly this was the way I came, surely I saw these
roots, and yet no house appears." And thus, from time to time, he
reasoned with himself, looking on either side for some object that he
could recognize with certainty; at last, grown thoroughly hungry and
impatient, he hallooed and shouted, but no voice replied, not the
slightest sound was floating in the air. It was then he felt he had lost
his way,--that he was alone, yes, alone in the forest of Erveau, in a
leafy wilderness stretching many miles.

Many a vow he made and many a blackberry he picked as he walked hither
and thither, in every direction. The day wore on, the sun had long
passed the meridian, and with the coming evening rose a gentle breeze,
which moaned in the dry ferns; and this and the rustling of the giant
creepers that reached from tree to tree, and swung between the branches,
fell mournfully on the student's ear. A vague fear, a fatal
presentiment of evil began to creep over him; again he shouted, the echo
from a dark wild ravine alone replied; he fired his gun again and again,
the echo alone answered his signal of distress, and nothing could he
hear, except at intervals, far, far away in the green depths of the
forest, the notes cuckoo--cuckoo.

Faint and weary, from hunger and fatigue, the young man, no longer able
to proceed, fell down at the foot of a spreading beech, and gave way to
an agony of grief; drops of cold sweat stood upon his brow; the clammy
feeling of fear took possession of his heart, and though, perhaps, he
would have had no objection to try the fortune of the pistol or the
sword, in any college broil or senseless riot of the populace, the
circumstances u