Verty gazed after him for some moments with a puzzled expression—then smiled—then shook his head; then glanced at the bundle. It was heavy enough for two porters, and Verty opened his eyes at the thought of Mr. Rushton's having appeared in public, in the town of Winchester, with such a mass upon his back.
"He's very good, though," said Verty; "I don't know why he's so kind to me. How ma mere will like them—I know they are what she wants."
And Verty betook himself to his work, only stopping to partake of his dinner of cold venison and biscuits. By the afternoon, he had done a very good task; and then mounting Cloud, with the bundle before him, he took his way homeward, via Apple Orchard.
CHAPTER LIX.
THE PORTRAIT SMILES.
Our fine Virginia autumn not only dowers the world with beautiful forests, and fresh breezes, and a thousand lovely aspects of the beautiful world—fine golden sunsets, musical dawns, and gorgeous noontides full of languid glory;—it also has its direct influence on the mind.
Would you dream? Go to the autumn woods; the life there is one golden round of fancies, such as come alone beneath waning forests, where the glories of the flower-crowned summer have yielded to a spell more powerful, objects more enthralling—because those objects have the charm of a maiden slowly passing, with a loveliness a thousand times increased, and sublimated, to the holy skies.
Would you have active life? That is there too—the deer, and sound of bugles rattling through the trees, and rousing echoes which go flashing through the hills, and filling the whole universe with jubilant laughter. Every mood has something offered for its entertainment in the grand autumns of our Blue-Ridge dominated land: chiefly the thoughtful, however, the serene and happy.
You dream there, under the boughs all gold, and blue, and crimson. Little things which obscured the eternal landscape, pass away, and the great stars, above the world, come out and flood the mind with a far other light than that which flowed from earthly tapers and rushlights. The heart is purer for such hours of thought; and as the splendid autumn marches on with pensive smiles, you see a glory in his waning cheek which neither the tender Spring, nor the rich, glittering Summer ever approached—an expression of hope and resignation which is greater than strength and victory. Ah, me! if we could always look, like autumn, on the coming storms and freezing snows, and see the light and warmth beyond the veil!
Verty went on beneath the autumn skies, and through the woods, the rustle of whose leaves was music to his forest-trained ear; and so arrived at Apple Orchard as the sun was setting brightly behind the pines, which he kindled gloriously.