to the summit of a rising
ground crowned with aged oaks and, as he passed beneath their broad
shadows, his troubled spirit, soothed by the quietude of the scene, in
part resumed its serenity.

Luke yielded to the gentle influence of the time and hour. The stillness
of the spot allayed the irritation of his frame, and the dewy chillness
cooled the fever of his brow. Leaning for support against the gnarled
trunk of one of the trees, he gave himself up to contemplation. The
events of the last hour--of his whole existence--passed in rapid review
before him. The thought of the wayward, vagabond life he had led; of the
wild adventures of his youth; of all he had been; of all he had _done_,
of all he had endured--crowded his mind; and then, like the passing of a
cloud flitting across the autumnal moon, and occasionally obscuring the
smiling landscape before him, his soul was shadowed by the remembrance
of the awful revelations of the last hour, and the fearful knowledge he
had acquired of his mother's fate--of his father's guilt.

The eminence on which he stood was one of the highest points of the
park, and commanded a view of the hall, which might be a quarter of a
mile distant, discernible through a broken vista of trees, its whitened
walls glimmering in the moonlight, and its tall chimney spiring far from
out the round masses of wood in which it lay embosomed. The ground
gradually sloped in that direction, occasionally rising into swells,
studded with magnificent timber--dipping into smooth dells, or
stretching out into level glades, until it suddenly sank into a deep
declivity, that formed an effectual division, without the intervention
of a haw-haw, or other barrier, between the chase and the home-park. A
slender stream strayed through this ravine, having found its way thither
from a small reservoir, hidden in the higher plantations to the left;
and further on, in the open ground, and in a line with the hall, though,
of course, much below the level of the building, assisted by many local
springs, and restrained by a variety of natural and artificial
embankments, this brook spread out into an expansive sheet of water.
Crossed by a rustic bridge, the only communication between the parks,
the pool found its outlet into the meads below; and even at that
distance, and in that still hour, you might almost catch the sound of
the brawling waters, as they dashed down the weir in a foaming cascade;
while, far away, in the spreadin