254 IValks in New England 



one saw this except as he heard the story, but 

 then he saw it as plain as day ; there was the dam, 

 and the skater must have traveled in the air nigh 

 ten rods if he wanted to strike good ice. What 

 more would you have ? 



For those of other predilections there are rare 

 charms in a solitary night exploration on skates 

 of a mountain stream. The glorious brilliance of 

 the moonlight reflected in the crystal ice ; the 

 glittering restlessness of the far stars in the steely 

 sky ; the west wind that cuts across the tingling 

 cheek as a bend is turned, the wind that whis 

 pers and murmurs in the cloudy pines ; the shad 

 ows of the hills, dark and vague, but at the edges 

 of the sky sharply defined ; the quiet pools of 

 clear ice, transparent in daylight as plate glass, 

 but now like black marble ; the waters where 

 some descent is made, gurgling beneath the skim 

 of crystal, and sending in advance great bubbles 

 that claw their way like living creatures ; then the 

 steeper rapids bursting quite free of trammels for 

 a space, around which the skater carefully trims 

 his way, over the shallow edge of brittle ice ; the 

 surprise of warm air currents now and again ; the 

 never-freezing spring beneath the roots of the old 

 hemlock, whose waters make an open hemicycle 

 where they enter the river ; all these, and a cer 

 tain wild transfiguration of the earth and sky a 



