On one of the brightest days of the year in which our story begins, a numerous hunting-party was bustling about an old-fashioned hunting-box which then stood on the borders of the forest. The first rays of the sun had scarcely pierced through the thick foliage, when the grooms and kennel-keepers led out the hunters by their bridles and the hounds in leashes, which sprang yelping up to the shoulders of their keepers in joyful anticipation of the coming sport. The huge store-wagons, each drawn by from six to ten oxen, have already gone on before to fixed rallying-places, whither all the quarry is to be carried. The villagers for miles round have been enlisted as beaters, and stand together in picturesque groups armed with axes, pitch-forks, and occasional muskets. A few smaller groups have been posted at regular intervals along the wood, with canoes made from the trunks of trees. Their duty is to scare the game back from the swamp, should it turn thither for refuge. Every man, every beast shows signs of that precipitancy, that ardour, that restlessness by which the true huntsman is always distinguishable; only a few of the older hands find time to sit by the fire and roast slices of bacon with perfect equanimity. At last comes the signal for departure, the blast of a horn from the porch of the hunting-box; the retinue spring shouting upon their snorting horses; the unruly, barking pack drag the kennel-men hither and thither; the huntsmen wind up their heavy shooting muskets, and every one stands in eager expectation of their lord and his noble guests. They have not long to wait. A cavalcade, with a few attendant pages, descends the hill. Foremost rides a tall, muscular man--the lord of the manor--the rest, as if involuntarily, linger some little way behind him. His broad shoulders and superbly-arched chest indicate herculean strength; his sun-burnt features are wonderfully well preserved, not a wrinkle is to be seen on them; his short clipped beard and his shaggy moustache, which is twisted sharply upwards, give his face a martial expression, and his very pronounced aquiline nose and coal-black, bushy eyebrows lend him a haughty, dictatorial air; while the dreamy cut of his lips, his mild, oval, blue eyes and high, smooth forehead throw a poetic shimmer over his peculiarly chivalrous countenance. A round, unembroidered hat, surmounted by an eagle's plume, covers his closely-cropped hair; his upper garment is a simple green, shaggy jacket, which he wears open, thus allowing you a glance at his under-garment, a white buckskin dolman,[1] trimmed with silver braid. By his side hangs a broad scimitar in an ivory sheath, and the mother-of-pearl handle of a crooked Turkish dagger peeps forth from a scarlet girdle richly set with precious stones. [Footnote 1: _Dolman._ An Hungarian pelisse. A more magnificent kind, worn only on state occasions, is called the _attila_.]