260 Walks in New England 



Yet at the best a road is a road, and the instinct 

 of conformity is such in us that once started on 

 it, we follow it faithfully. Wagon tracks or sleigh 

 tracks, tis much the same. It gets monotonous, 

 but one has the ever precious sense that one is 

 going to a definite goal. We take a prospect or 

 two by the way, but after all, there is a certain 

 impression of business about a highway. 



And so if one is not bound on any business, on 

 a brisk but cheery winter morning, even though 

 he may mean to climb a mountain before the day 

 is done, there are odds in favour of the cross-lots 

 plan. It is not so easy for the muscles, but it is 

 more interesting for the nerves. There is a cer 

 tain triumph in trampling on difficulties, such 

 as the drifts on a rocky hillside and the over- 

 ankle snow in the woods. It is a jolly thing to 

 leap from tussock to tussock in the warm-watered 

 marsh, or even to hang on to an old-fashioned 

 rail fence while one treads tentatively on what may 

 be solid ground and may be a deceptive coating 

 over ice as thin as isinglass. There is excitement 

 in plunging through a thicket of birches and alders 

 and osiers, plentifully accompanied with black 

 berry brier and complicated by bittersweet vines 

 and wild grapes. How stupid is a bridge, when 

 you come to a brook and look for the likeliest 

 spot for a leap ! a leap is freedom, while a bridge 



