A MOUNTAIN-SIDE RAMBLE. 179 



pulled myself together, as an Englishman 

 would say, I faced the sun and began " step- 

 ping westward," though with no thought of 

 Wordsworth's poem. A spectator might 

 have suspected that if I was not " rattled," 

 I was at least not far from it. " Now who 

 is this," he might have queried, 



" whose sore task 

 Does not divide the Sunday from the week ? " 



Meanwhile I was, of course, on the look- 

 out for any signs of the missing path, and 

 after a time I descried in the distance, on 

 one side, what looked like a patch of bushes 

 growing in the midst of the forest. I made 

 for it, and, as I expected, found myself once 

 more on the trail. This time I held it, 

 reached the bridge, crossed it, and, still 

 keeping up my pace, was presently out in 

 the sunshine of the old farm, startling a 

 brood of young partridges on the way. 

 Happy birds ! They were never afraid of 

 passing a night in the woods. A most ab- 

 surd notion ! But man, as he is the strong- 

 est of all animals, so is he also the weakest 

 and most defenseless. 



This last reflection is an afterthought, I 

 freely acknowledge. At the moment I was 



