Footprints on the Snow, 21 



good snowballs, then, in the lanes on the edge of the 

 coppice, in the clearings of the wood, its surface be- 

 comes as the pages of a great manuscript covered over 

 with these picture writings. No aimless and uncertain 

 marks are these ; no Etruscan tongue to which no man 

 knows the key, but the runes of the shy races that 

 have their dwelling in the fields, a language that the 

 lover of country sights and sounds has early learned to 

 read. 



