"Here easy quiet, a secure retreat,
A harmless life that knows not how to cheat,
With home-bred plenty—the owner bless,
And rural pleasures crown his happiness;
Unvexed with quarrels, undisturb'd with noise,
The country king his peaceful realm enjoys."
—Dryden.
There was the steady tramp, tramp of horses' feet o'er the woodland trail and, by the moon's shimmering gleam that sifted down through the shadowy forest screen o'erhead, two horsemen could be perceived picking cautiously their way in the darkness of the shadow. In clear places, where the moonlight beamed unhindered, they pressed forward into a brisk trot and then again slowing down to a steady tramp as they plunged once more into some shadow. The road was uncertain, filled with pitfalls, stumps of fallen forest giants, and other hindrances that necessitated careful procedure. It was Ande and Dick on their way to the home of Hugh Lark, raft-pilot, and squatter on a ridge of hills, the watershed between the Great and Little Lycamahonings that poured their floods into the Allegheny River. The hoot of a night owl sounded dismally in the neighbouring forest and then, as if his call was the waving of an orchestra leader's baton, forth burst in full chorus hundreds of other birds of night, the most with the weird song "Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will."
The effect was grewsome and Ande shivered slightly.
"Dick," said he, "I had a dream last night that troubled me much."
Dick was all attention.
"It seemed in my dream that I had found somewhere a pearl of great price and I cherished it as I did my own soul. In the upper Big Lycamahoning district I found a large, silver ingot. In seeking to grasp the ingot I lost the pearl, and I was filled with sorrow, and then the ingot turned into a diamond of the first water and I was glad. I awoke then, and the sun was beaming brightly in through the tavern window on my face."
Ande ceased speaking. Dick was silent for he was thinking, and, though a good, sincere Methodist, was slightly superstitious.
"God knows, Ande, what it all means, but it seems to me that ee'll lose summat and gain summat better."