Sitting thus, his hat thrown a little
back from his clustering curls, the white neck and shoulders of his
horse uplifting him above the crested mass of fern, his red sash the one
fleck of color in their olive depths, I am afraid he looked much
more like the real minstrel of the grove than the unknown poetess who
transfigured it. But this, as has been already indicated, was Jack
Hamlin's peculiar gift. Even as he had previously outshone the vaquero
in his borrowed dress, he now silenced and supplanted a few fluttering
blue-jays--rightful tenants of the wood--with a more graceful and airy
presence and a far sweeter voice.
The open horizon towards the west had taken a warmer color from the
already slanting sun when Mr. Hamlin, having rested his horse, turned
to that direction. He had noticed that the wood was thinner there,
and, pushing forward, he was presently rewarded by the sound of far-off
wheels, and knew he must be near the high-road that the boy had spoken
of. Having given up his previous intention of crossing the stream, there
seemed nothing better for him to do than to follow the truant's advice
and take the road back to Green Springs.
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