The Seem woods, where we went nutting, covered, as I said, but a little patch, but a dozen miles to the eastward there were real forests, in which a boy might get lost; and there were deer in them, which made a picnic there ever so exciting. That had to be engineered by the grown-ups, for it meant impressing practically the entire rolling stock of the town for the day. Then its half-dozen ancient Holsteiners, yellow-wheeled open wagons with seats for eight or a dozen, pulled up early in the Square, where all upper-tendom was waiting with much provender to board them for Gram. Many were the dubious headshakes of those who were left behind as to the promises of the weather. The wind was in the east, and the clouds prophesied rain. They did that regularly, and they kept their promise at least half the time. It was sometimes a bedraggled crowd that made cover at sunset. But if even half the day was fair, it paid well for the trip. The change from the barren, rather stern outlook from the Old Town, where the sea-wind stunted tree and thicket so that it always sloped down to nothing in the west as if some giant scythe had trimmed it so, to the beech woods with their shelter and quiet and their luxury of color and vegetation, was very alluring. While our elders took tea at the forester’s, where the tea-urn was always simmering, expecting company, and duly admired the furniture in the Countess’s drawing-room at the Château, we boys organized a mighty hunt for boar and bear, and sometimes were lucky enough to start a roebuck. Then, indeed, was the hunt a success, and our minds were stocked for many a day to come with stuff for day-dreams.