114: MARKING THE HARMONIES. 



arm of a dead tree on the island before us, sat a bald eagle, 

 pluming himself; and high above the lake the osprey soared* 

 turning his piercing eye downward, watching for his prey. 



" I've been thinking," said Smith, as he refilled his pipe, 

 " of what the Doctor was saying the other evening about 

 every body having a streak of the vagabond in him, which 

 makes him relish an occasional tramp in the old woods 

 among the natural things ; things that have not been mar- 

 red by the barbarisms, so to speak, of civilization. I'm 

 inclined to believe his theory to be true, but I see a difficulty 

 in its practical working. Now, suppose, Doctor, that you and 

 I being out here together vagabondizing, as you term it, and 

 your streak of the vagabond being twice as large as mine, 

 you would of course desire to play the savage twice as long 

 as I should. There would, in that case, be a marring of the 

 harmonies. I should be anxious to get back to civilization, 

 while you, being rather in your normal element, would in- 

 sist upon 'laying around loose,' as you say, for Mercy 

 knows how long." 



" Gentlemen," said the Doctor in reply, " only hear this 

 fellow 1 He's getting homesick already. He has no wife, 

 not a child in the world, no business, nothing to call him 

 home save a superannuated pointer, and an old Tom cat, and 

 yet he would leave these glorious old woods, these beautiful 

 lakes, these rivers, these trout and deer, and all the glad 

 music of the wild things, to-morrow, and go back to the 

 dust, the poisoned atmosphere, the eternal jostling and mo- 

 notonous noises of the city ! Truly a vagabond and a 



