ed the air with motes
like golden dust. Our horsemen heeded not the sunshine or the shade.
Occupied each with his own train of thought, they silently rode on.

Davenham Wood, through which they urged their course, had, in the olden
time, been a forest of some extent. It was then an appendage to the
domains of Rookwood, but had passed from the hands of that family to
those of a wealthy adjoining landowner and lawyer, Sir Edward Davenham,
in the keeping of whose descendants it had ever after continued. A noble
wood it was, and numbered many patriarchal trees. Ancient oaks, with
broad, gnarled limbs, which the storms of five hundred years had vainly
striven to uproot, and which were now sternly decaying; gigantic beech
trees, with silvery stems shooting smoothly upwards, sustaining branches
of such size, that each, dissevered, would in itself have formed a tree,
populous with leaves, and variegated with rich autumnal tints; the
sprightly sycamore, the dark chestnut, the weird wych-elm, the majestic
elm itself, festooned with ivy, every variety of wood, dark, dense, and
intricate, composed the forest through which they rode; and so
multitudinous was the timber, so closely planted, so entirely filled up
with a thick, matted vegetation, which had been allowed to collect
beneath, that little view was afforded, had any been desired by the
parties, into the labyrinth of the grove. Tree after tree, clad in the
glowing livery of the season, was passed, and as rapidly succeeded by
others. Occasionally a bough projected over their path, compelling the
riders to incline their heads as they passed; but, heedless of such
difficulties, they pressed on. Now the road grew lighter, and they
became at once sensible of the genial influence of the sun. The
transition was as agreeable as instantaneous. They had opened upon an
extensive plantation of full-grown pines, whose tall, branchless stems
grew up like a forest of masts, and freely admitted the pleasant
sunshine. Beneath those trees, the soil was sandy and destitute of all
undergrowth, though covered with brown, hair-like fibres and dry cones,
shed by the pines. The agile squirrel, that freest denizen of the grove,
starting from the ground as the horsemen galloped on, sprang up the
nearest tree, and might be seen angrily gazing at the disturbers of his
haunts, beating the branches with his fore feet, in expression of
displeasure; the rabbit darted across their path; the jays flew
screami