ustice to it?

Seated upon the first slope of a gentle hill, midway of the great valley
heretofore described, the village looked due south, toward the chains of
mountains, which we had crossed on the preceding evening, and which in
that direction bounded the landscape. These ridges, cultivated half-way
up their swelling sides, which lay mapped out before our eyes in all the
various beauty of orchards, yellow stubbles, and rich pastures dotted
with sleek and comely cattle, were rendered yet more lovely and
romantic, by here and there a woody gorge, or rocky chasm, channeling
their smooth flanks, and carrying down their tributary rills, to swell
the main stream at their base. Toward these we took our way by the same
road which we had followed in an opposite direction on the previous
night--but for a short space only--for having crossed the stream, by the
same bridge which we had passed on entering the village, Tom Draw pulled
down a set of bars to the left, and strode out manfully into the
stubble.

"Hold up, good lads!--whe-ew--whewt!" and away went the setters through
the moist stubble, heads up and sterns down, like fox-hounds on a
breast-high scent, yet under the most perfect discipline; for at the
very first note of Harry's whistle, even when racing at the top of their
pace, they would turn simultaneously, alter their course, cross each
other at right angles, and quarter the whole field, leaving no foot of
ground unbeaten.

No game, however, in this instance, rewarded their exertions; and on we
went across a meadow, and two other stubbles, with the like result. But
now we crossed a gentle hill, and, at its base, came on a level tract,
containing at the most ten acres of marsh land, overgrown with high
coarse grass and flags. Beyond this, on the right, was a steep rocky
hillock, covered with tall and thrifty timber of some thirty years'
growth, but wholly free from under-wood. Along the left-hand fence ran a
thick belt of underwood, sumac and birch, with a few young oak trees
interspersed; but in the middle of the swampy level, covering at most
some five or six acres, was a dense circular thicket composed of every
sort of thorny bush and shrub, matted with cat-briers and wild vines,
and overshadowed by a clump of tall and leafy ashes, which had not as
yet lost one atom of their foliage, although the underwood beneath them
was quite sere and leafless.

"Now then," cried Harry, "this is the 'Squire's swamp-hole!' No