The Disowned — Complete

I’ll tell you a story if you please to attend. G. KNIGHT: Limbo.
It was the evening of a soft, warm day in the May of 17—. The sun had already set, and the twilight was gathering slowly over the large, still masses of wood which lay on either side of one of those green lanes so peculiar to England. Here and there, the outline of the trees irregularly shrunk back from the road, leaving broad patches of waste land covered with fern and the yellow blossoms of the dwarf furze, and at more distant intervals thick clusters of rushes, from which came the small hum of gnats,—those “evening revellers” alternately rising and sinking in the customary manner of their unknown sports,—till, as the shadows grew darker and darker, their thin and airy shapes were no longer distinguishable, and no solitary token of life or motion broke the voiceless monotony of the surrounding woods.
The first sound which invaded the silence came from the light, quick footsteps of a person whose youth betrayed itself in its elastic and unmeasured tread, and in the gay, free carol which broke out by fits and starts upon the gentle stillness of the evening.
There was something rather indicative of poetical taste than musical science in the selection of this vesper hymn, which always commenced with,—
“‘T is merry, ‘t is merry, in good green wood,”
and never proceeded a syllable further than the end of the second line,—
“when birds are about and singing;”
from the last word of which, after a brief pause, it invariably started forth into joyous “iteration.”
Presently a heavier, yet still more rapid, step than that of the youth was heard behind; and, as it overtook the latter, a loud, clear, good-humoured voice gave the salutation of the evening. The tone in which this courtesy was returned was frank, distinct, and peculiarly harmonious.
“Good evening, my friend. How far is it to W——? I hope I am not out of the direct road?”
“To W——, sir?” said the man, touching his hat, as he perceived, in spite of the dusk, something in the air and voice of his new acquaintance which called for a greater degree of respect than he was at first disposed to accord to a pedestrian traveller,—“to W——, sir? why, you will not surely go there to-night? it is more than eight miles distant, and the roads none of the best.”