The sun was setting upon one of the rich grassy glades of that forest,

which we have mentioned in the beginning of the chapter. Hundreds of

broad-headed, short-stemmed, wide-branched oaks, which had witnessed

perhaps the stately march of the Roman soldiery, flung their gnarled

arms over a thick carpet of the most delicious green sward; in some

places they were intermingled with beeches, hollies, and copsewood of

various descriptions, so closely as totally to intercept the level beams

of the sinking sun; in others they receded from each other, forming

those long sweeping vistas, in the intricacy of which the eye delights

to lose itself, while imagination considers them as the paths to yet

wilder scenes of silvan solitude. Here the red rays of the sun shot a

broken and discoloured light, that partially hung upon the shattered

boughs and mossy trunks of the trees, and there they illuminated in

brilliant patches the portions of turf to which they made their way. A

considerable open space, in the midst of this glade, seemed formerly to

have been dedicated to the rites of Druidical superstition; for, on

the summit of a hillock, so regular as to seem artificial, there still

remained part of a circle of rough unhewn stones, of large dimensions.

Seven stood upright; the rest had been dislodged from their places,

probably by the zeal of some convert to Christianity, and lay, some

prostrate near their former site, and others on the side of the hill.

One large stone only had found its way to the bottom, and in stopping

the course of a small brook, which glided smoothly round the foot of

the eminence, gave, by its opposition, a feeble voice of murmur to the

placid and elsewhere silent streamlet.

The human figures which completed this landscape, were in number two,

partaking, in their dress and appearance, of that wild and rustic

character, which belonged to the woodlands of the West-Riding of

Yorkshire at that early period. The eldest of these men had a

stern, savage, and wild aspect. His garment was of the simplest form

imaginable, being a close jacket with sleeves, composed of the tanned

skin of some animal, on which the hair had been originally left, but

which had been worn off in so many places, that it would have been

difficult to distinguish from the patches that remained, to what

creature the fur had belonged. This primeval vestment reached from

the throat to the knees, and served at once all the usual purposes

of body-clothing; there was no wider opening at the collar, than

was necessary to admit the passage of the head, from which it may be

inferred, that it was put on by slipping it over the head and shoulders,

in the manner of a modern shirt, or ancient hauberk. Sandals, bound

with thongs made of boars' hide, protected the feet, and a roll of thin

leather was twined artificially round the legs, and, ascending above the

calf, left the knees bare, like those of a Scottish Highlander. To make

the jacket sit yet more close to the body, it was gathered at the middle

by a broad leathern belt, secured by a brass buckle; to one side of

which was attached a sort of scrip, and to the other a ram's horn,

accoutred with a mouthpiece, for the purpose of blowing. In the same

belt was stuck one of those long, broad, sharp-pointed, and two-edged

knives, with a buck's-horn handle, which were fabricated in the

neighbourhood, and bore even at this early period the name of a

Sheffield whittle.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024