On a round table, which should have occupied the centre of the parlor, now pulled up to the window-seat, whereon reclined the worthies, stood a large pitcher of iced water; a square case-bottle of cut crystal filled, as the flavor which pervaded the whole room sufficiently demonstrated, with superb old Antigua Shrub; several large rummers corresponding to the fashion of the bottle; a twisted taper of green wax, and a small silver plate with six or eight cheroots, real manillas.
Supper was evidently over, and the friends, amply feasted, were now luxuriating in the delicious indolence, half-dozing, half-daydreaming, of a calm sleepy smoke, modestly lubricated by an occasional sip of the cool beverage before them. If we except a pile of box-coats, capes, and mackintoshes of every cut and color--a traveling liquor-case which, standing open, displayed the tops of three more bottles similar to that on the table, and spaces lined with velvet for all the glass in use--and another little leathern box, which, like the liquor-case, showed its contents of several silver plates, knives, forks, spoons, flasks of sauce, and condiments of different kinds--the whole interior, as a painter would have called it, has been depicted with all accuracy.
Without, the view on which the windows opened was indeed most lovely. The day had been very bright and calm; there was not a single cloud in the pale transparent heaven, and the sun, which had shone cheerfully all day from his first rising in the east, till now when he was hanging like a ball of bloody fire in the thin filmy haze which curtained the horizon, was still shooting his long rays, and casting many a shadow over the slopes and hollows which diversified the scene.
Immediately across the road lay a rich velvet meadow, luxuriant still and green--for the preceding month had been rather wet, and frost had not set in to nip its verdure--sloping down southerly to a broad shallow trout-stream, which rippled all glittering and bright over a pebbly bed, although the margin on the hither side was somewhat swampy, with tufts of willows and bushes of dark alder fringing it here and there, and dipping their branches in its waters--the farther bank was skirted by a tall grove of maple, hickory, and oak, with a thick undergrowth of sumac arrayed in all the gorgeous garniture of autumn, purples and brilliant scarlets and chrome yellows, mixed up and harmonized with the dark copper foliage of a few sere beeches, and the gray trunks apparent here and there through the thin screen of the fast falling leaves.
Beyond this grove, the bank rose bold and rich in swelling curves, with a fine corn-field, topped already to admit every sunbeam to the ripening ears. A buckwheat stubble, conspicuous by its deep ruddy hue, and two or three brown pastures divided by high fences, along the lines of which flourished a copious growth of cat-briers and sumacs, with here and there a goodly tree waving above them, made up the centre of the picture. Beyond this cultured knoll there seemed to be a deep pitch of the land clothed with a hanging wood of heavy timber; and, above this again, the soil surged upward into a huge and round-topped hill, with several golden stubbles, shining out from the frame-work of primeval forest, which, dark with many a mighty pine, covered the mountain to the top, except where at its western edge it showed a huge and rifted precipice of rock.
To the right, looking down the stream, the hills closed in quite to the water's brink on the far side, rough and uncultivated, with many a blue and misty peak discovered through the gaps in their bold, broken outline, and a broad, lake-like sheet, as calm and brightly pictured as a mirror, reflecting their inverted beauties so wondrously distinct and vivid, that the amazed eye might not recognize the parting between reality and shadow. An old gray mill, deeply embosomed in a clump of weeping willows, still verdant, though the woods were sere and waxing leafless, explained the nature of that tranquil pool, while, beyond that, the hills swept down from the rear of the building, which contained the parlor whence the two sportsmen gazed, and seemed entirely to bar the valley, so suddenly, and in so short a curve, did it wind round their western shoulder. To the left hand, the view was closed by a thick belt of second growth, through which the sandy road and glittering stream wandered away together on their mazy path, and over which the summits of yet loftier and more rugged steeps towered heavenward.
Over this valley they had for some time gazed in silence, till now the broad sun sank behind the mountains, and the shrill whistle of the quail, which had been momently audible during the whole afternoon, ceased suddenly; four or five night-hawks might be seen wheeling high in pursuit of their insect prey through the thin atmosphere, and the sharp chirrup of a solitary katydid, the last of its summer tribe, was the only sound that interrupted the faint rush of the rapid stream, which came more clearly on the ear now that the louder noises of busy babbling daylight had yielded to the stillness of approaching night. Before long a bright gleam shot through the tufted outline of a dark wooded hill, and shortly after, just when a gray and misty shadow had settled down upon the half-seen landscape, the broad full moon came soaring up above the tree-tops, pouring her soft and silver radiance over the lovely valley, and investing its rare beauties with something of romance--a sentiment which belongs not to the gay, gaudy sunshine.
Just at this moment, while neither of the friends felt much inclined to talk, the door opened suddenly, and Timothy's black head was thrust in, with a query if "they didn't need t' waax candles?"
"Not yet, Tim," answered Archer, "not yet for an hour or so--but hold a minute--how have the horses fed?"
"T' ould gray drayed off directly, and he's gane tull t' loike bricks-- but t' bay's no but sillyish--he keeps a breaking oot again for iver-- and sae Ay'se give him a hot maash enow!"