The purple shades of twilight soon clouded the scene, deepened by the heavy masses of foliage, which cast a greater degree of obscurity upon their narrow path; for they had now left the oak-flat and entered the gorge of the valley.

The utter loneliness of the path, the grotesque shadows of the trees, that stretched in long array across the steep banks on either side, taking, now this, now that wild and fanciful shape, awakened strange feelings of dread in the mind of these poor forlorn wanderers; like most persons bred up in solitude, their imaginations were strongly tinctured with superstitious fears.

Here then, in the lonely wilderness, far from their beloved parents and social hearth, with no visible arm to protect them from danger, none to encourage or to cheer them, can it be matter of surprise if they started with terror-blanched cheeks at every fitful breeze that rustled the leaves or waved the branches above them?
The gay and lively Louis, blithe as any wild bird in the bright sunlight, was the most easily oppressed by this strange superstitious fear, when the shades of evening were closing round, and he would start with ill-disguised terror at every sound or shape that met his ear or eye, though the next minute he was the first to laugh at his own weakness.

In Hector, the feeling was of a graver, more solemn cast, recalling to his mind all the wild and wondrous tales with which his father was wont to entertain the children, as they crouched round the huge log-fire of an evening.

It is strange the charm these marvellous tales possess for the youthful mind, no matter how improbable, or how often told; year after year they will be listened to with the same ardour, with an interest that appears to grow with repetition.