4 A SHARP LOOKOUT. 



coast, yet the seasons pass and I am still loitering, 

 with a half-defined suspicion, perhaps, that, if I re- 

 main quiet and keep a sharp lookout, these countries 

 will come to me. I may stick it out yet, and not 

 miss much after all. The great trouble is for Mo- 

 hammed to know when the mountain really comes to 

 him. Sometimes a rabbit or a jay or a little warbler 

 brings the woods to my door. A loon on the river, 

 and the Canada lakes are here ; the sea-gulls and the 

 fish-hawk bring the sea ; the call of the wild gander 

 at night, what does it suggest ? and the eagle flapping 

 by or floating along on a raft of ice, does not he bring 

 the mountain ? One spring morning five swans flew 

 above my barn in single file, going northward an 

 express train bound for Labrador. It was a more 

 exhilarating sight than if I had seen them in their 

 native haunts. They made a breeze in my mind, 

 like a noble passage in a poem. How gently their 

 great wings flapped; how easy to fly when spring 

 gives the impulse ! On another occasion I saw a 

 line of fowls, probably swans, going northward, at 

 such a height that they appeared like a faint, wav- 

 ing black line against the sky. They must have been 

 at an altitude of two or three miles. I was looking 

 intently at the clouds to see which way they moved, 

 when the birds came into my field of vision. I should 

 never have seen them had they not crossed the pre- 

 cise, spot upon which my eye was fixed. As it was 

 near sundown they were probably launched for an 

 all-night pull. They were going with great speed, 



