84 THE CLERK OF THE WOODS 



the man and the day. It is short (two miles, 

 or a little more, will bring me to the end of 

 it), it starts directly from the door, with no 

 preliminary plodding through dusty village 

 streets, and it is not a thoroughfare, so that 

 I am sure to meet nobody, or next to no- 

 body, the whole afternoon long. At any 

 rate, no wagon loads of staring " excursion- 

 ists " will disturb my meditations. It is sub- 

 stantially level, also ; and once more (for a 

 man cannot think of everything at once) it is 

 wooded on one side and open to the afternoon 

 sun on the other. For the present occasion, 

 furthermore, it is perhaps a point in its favor 

 that it does not distract me with mountain 

 prospects. Mountains are not for all moods ; 

 there are many other things worth looking at. 

 Here, at this minute, as I come up a slope, 

 I face halfway about to admire a stretch of 

 Gale River, a hundred feet below, flowing 

 straight toward me, the water of a steely 

 blue, so far away that it appears to be mo- 

 tionless, and so little in volume that even 

 the smaller boulders are no more than half 

 covered. Beyond it the hillside woods are 

 gorgeously arrayed pale green, with reds 



