8 A SUMMER BOATING TRIP 



and baffling curves concealed. As a fisherman and 

 pedestrian I had been able to come at the stream only 

 at certain points: now the most private and secluded 

 retreats of the nymph would be opened to me; every 

 bend and eddy, every cove hedged in by swamps or 

 passage walled in by high alders, would be at the beck 

 of my paddle. 



Whom shall one take with him when he goes a-court- 

 ing Nature? This is always a vital question. There 

 are persons who will stand between you and that which 

 you seek: they obtrude themselves; they monopolize 

 your attention; they blunt your sense of the shy, half- 

 revealed intelligences about you. I want for companion 

 a dog or a boy, or a person who has the virtues of dogs 

 and boys, transparency, good-nature, curiosity, open 

 sejage, and a nameless quality that is akin to trees and 

 growths and the inarticulate forces of nature. With 

 him you are alone, and yet have company; you are free; 

 you feel no disturbing element ; the influences of nature 

 stream through him and around him ; he is a good con- 

 ductor of the subtle fluid. The quality or qualification 

 I refer to belongs to most persons who spend their lives 

 in the open air, to soldiers, hunters, fishers, laborers, 

 and to artists and poets of the right sort. How full of 

 it, to choose an illustrious example, was such a man as 

 Walter Scott! 



But no such person came in answer to my prayer, so 

 I set out alone. 



It was fit that I put my boat into the water at Ark- 

 ville, but it may seem a little incongruous that I should 

 launch her into Dry Brook; yet Dry Brook is here a 

 fine large trout stream, and I soon found its waters 

 were wet enough for all practical purposes. The Dela- 



