Being of this happy mood, and persuading himself that his quarters were exactly to his desire, he prepared, the day after his arrival, to approve his zeal and skill, by sketching some one or other of the pretty prospects presented from the Traveller's Rest. He rose with the dawn and trudged down the ravine, until he reached the river; wherein, after looking about him with much satisfaction, at the hills sleeping in morning mist, he plunged, and amused himself with a bather's enthusiasm, now swimming luxuriously in the limpid and serene flood of the Delaware, and now trying his strength against the ruder current, that came dashing from the rivulet. This bore the patronymical title of Hawk-Hollow Run. And here we may as well observe, that upon a promontory at its mouth, he discovered the origin of that name, which, notwithstanding the efforts of Mr. Gilbert to christen it anew, his neighbours had so obstinately continued to give the valley. Upon a tall and conspicuous oak-tree, dead, barkless, and well nigh branchless, a pair of antique fishing-hawks screamed over their eyry; and here they had preserved it from immemorial ages. The dead tree and the nest of sticks being conspicuous objects, even from a distance on the river, the earlier navigators had soon learned to designate the whole valley after the majestic birds that seemed its monarchs.
After this, he set himself to work with paper and pencil, but with no good effect, not being in the mood, or because he discovered there were divers obstacles in his way. First, the sun did not shine from the right place, and secondly, it shone in the wrong one; then there was no way of getting a rock converted into a chair, at the precise place where he wanted it, though there were so many thousands where he did not; and, in fine, he found himself, when all was ready, waxing eager for breakfast.
After breakfast, he had as many difficulties to encounter; and in short, after making divers essays, he beheld the afternoon sun sink low towards the west, without having accomplished any thing worthy of being deposited in the port-folio. "But never mind," said he, with a philosophical disregard of his indolence and fickleness, "we shall have the fit more strongly upon us on the morrow."
He sat down in the porch and cast his eyes towards the manor house, which was commonly known by the title, so little flattering to the founder's memory, of Gilbert's Folly. At this distance, and from this spot, it had an impressive and even charming appearance. It lay upon the slope of a hill, perhaps a mile or more from the Traveller's Rest; and, as it faced very nearly towards the east, he had remarked it, in the morning, when illuminated by the first beams of the day-spring, shining, with a sort of aristocratic pomp and pride, at its lowly neighbour, from the midst of green woods and airy hills. At the present moment, the front being entirely in shade, it had a somewhat sullen and melancholy look, resulting in part from the sombre hue of the stone of which it was built; and though slanting rays of sunshine, here and there striking on the sides of chimneys, gables, and other elevations, gave it a picturesque relief, it still preserved an air of soberness and gloom. It seemed to lie in the heart of a mighty paddock, once, however, termed a park, that was circumscribed by a line of pollards, sweeping over the hill-side, and here and there broken by groves of unchecked growth. In one or two places on the grounds, were rows of Italian poplars, stretching along in military rank and file, and adding that peculiar palisaded beauty to the landscape, which is seen to the greatest advantage in a hilly country. Here, too, was another exotic stranger, the weeping-willow, drooping in the moist hollow, and shaking its boughs in the pool. The principal trees, however, were the natives of the valley, most of them perhaps left standing in their original places, when the grounds were laid out in the forest. The picture is complete, when it is added that the slopes of the hills were carpeted with the rich embellishments of agriculture: the wheat-fields and maize-plantations, waving like lakes of verdure, in the breeze, were certainly not the least of the charms of Hawk-Hollow, except perhaps, at that moment, to the anti-utilitarian painter.
He regarded the prospect for a long time in silence, and then muttered his thoughts aloud, half to himself, and half to his ancient hostess, who had drawn her wheel up to her favourite seat on the porch, and added its drowsy murmur to the sound of the oak-boughs, rustling together in the breeze:
"This, then," he exclaimed, "is the little elysium, from which wrong, and the revenge of wrong, drove a once happy and honoured family, to wander exiles and outlaws in the land? And not one permitted even to lay his bones in the loam of his birth-place! and no friend left to avenge or lament! 'Quis sit laturus in aras thura?'"
The wheel of Alice revolved with increased velocity, but she betrayed no inclination to yield to the prattling infirmity of age; though she, doubtless, of all persons in the country, was best informed on the subject now uppermost in the mind of the painter. He was in the mood, however, for extracting such information as he could; and after a moment's silence, he resumed, with a direct question,
"That is Avondale Hall, is it not, good mother?"
"It is Gilbert's Folly," replied the hostess, drily. "We know no other name.—There are some call it Falconer's Trump-card—but that is nothing."
"Perhaps not," said the young man: "but who can tell better than yourself? Good mother Elsie—you must forgive me for being so familiar; but, in truth, I love the name—it was the name of my nurse, the first I learned to utter:—I have a great curiosity about these poor Gilberts; and, I was told, no one could inform me about them so well as yourself."