They had reached a spot where, upon the summit of an eminence, numbers of large oaks crested the forest. Wide apart, and taller than the English oak, though not so large in stem, the trees suffered the eye to wander over the grassy ground, somewhat broken by rock, which sloped down between hundreds of large bolls to the tops of the lower forest trees, and thence to a scene of almost matchless beauty beyond. Still slanting downwards with a gentle sweep, the woodlands were seen approaching the banks of a small lake, about two miles distant, while, beyond the sheet of water, which lay glittering like gold in the clear morning sunshine, rose up high purple hills, with the shadows of grand clouds floating over them. Around the lake, on every side, were rocky promontories and slanting points of lower land jutting out into the water; and, where they stood above, they could see all the fair features of the scene itself, and the images of the clouds and sky redoubled by the golden mirror. To give another charm to the spot, and make ear and eye combine in enjoyment, the voices of distant waters came upon the breeze, not with a roar exactly, but with rather more than a murmur, showing that some large river was pouring over a steep not far away.
"Hark!" ejaculated Lord H----. "Is there a waterfall near?"
"Too far to go to it to-day," answered Edith. "We must economize our scenes, lest we should exhaust them all before you go, and you should think more than ever that our country wants variety."
"I cannot think so with that prospect before my eyes," replied the young nobleman. "Look how it has changed already! The mountain is all in shade, and so is the lake; but those low, wavy, wood-covered hills, which lie between the two, are starting out in the prominence of sunshine. A truly beautiful scene is full of variety in itself. Every day changes its aspect, every hour, every season. The light of morning, and evening, and mid-day, alters it entirely; and the spring and the summer, the autumn and the winter, robe it in different hues. I have often thought that a fair landscape is like a fine mind, in which every varying event of life brings forth new beauties."
"Alas, that the mind is not always like the landscape!" exclaimed Edith. "God willed it so, I doubt not, for there is harmony in all His works; but man's will and God's will are not always one."
"Perhaps, after all," said her companion, thoughtfully, "the best way to keep them in harmony is for man, as much as may be, to recur to Nature, which is but an expression of God's will."
"Oh yes!" cried Walter Prevost, eagerly; "I am sure the more we give ourselves up to the factitious and insincere contrivances of what we call society, the more we alienate ourselves from truth and God."
The young nobleman gazed at him with a smile almost melancholy.
"Very young," he thought, "to come to such sad conclusions. But do you not, my friend Walter," added he aloud, "think there might be such a thing as extracting from society all that is good and fine in it, and leaving the chaff and dross for others? The simile of the bee and the poisonous flower holds good with man. Let us take what is sweet and beneficial in all we find growing in the world's garden, and reject all that is worthless, poisonous, and foul. But truly this is an enchanting scene. It wants, methinks, only the figure of an Indian in the foreground. And there comes one, I fancy, to fill up the picture.--Stay, stay, we shall want no rifles. It is but a woman coming through the trees."
"It is Otaitsa--it is the Blossom!" cried Edith and Walter in a breath, as they looked forward to a spot where, across the yellow sunshine as it streamed through the trees, a female figure, clad in the gaily-embroidered and brightly-coloured gakaah or petticoat of the Indian women, was seen advancing with a rapid yet somewhat doubtful step.