Henry of Stramen inherited all his father's implacability, but he had often yielded to his sister's solicitation to dedicate to the chase the day he had devoted to a descent upon the lordship of Hers.

The troubled condition of Germany had also diverted the chiefs from the disputes of their firesides to the civil wars of the empire; and neither the Lord of Hers nor the Baron of Stramen gave much attention to aught else than the league that Rodolph was forming against Henry IV of the house of Franconia.
Gilbert, left almost without a companion--for the good priest Herman, whose time was divided between his pastoral duties, his prayers, and his studies, saw him but at intervals--found time to hang very heavily upon his hands.

He thought the old reaper weary and sluggish, for the scythe flies fast only when we employ or enjoy the moments.

The autumn blast was beginning to lend a thousand bright colors to the trees, and the giddy leaves, like giddy mortals, threw off their simple green for the gaudy livery that was but a prelude to their fall--for the beauty that, like the dying note of the swan, was but the beauty of death.

It was the season of all others for the chase, that health-giving but dangerous pastime, which our ancestors pursued with almost incredible eagerness, hunting the stag or the boar, over hill and dale, bog and jungle, through every twist and turn, as their Anglo-Saxon descendants now pursue the flying dollar.
But Gilbert often declined the invitation of the forester to fly the falcon, rarely indulging in his favorite amusement.