Some Sample Walks 41 



of the Catskills. On either side the hills 

 sweep upward, almost vertically, but their 

 grimness is concealed in a copious forest 

 growth. Old landslides have narrowed the 

 valley between them, so that there is room 

 for a road and a rill and nothing more ; 

 and the gloom, the wildness, the silence of 

 the place, are impressive, even though one 

 has seen the Alps, the Rockies, and the 

 Selkirks. There is no house, nor fence, 

 nor field, and travellers go through it 

 swerving neither to right nor left for a 

 matter of two miles. Beside the rill ferns 

 grow to a man's height. 



Returning to the present river, we dine 

 at the old Eagle tavern, its former bar still 

 a loitering-place for village worthies, and a 

 faint odor prevailing through it of genera- 

 tions of pipes. As its name denotes, Proc- 

 torsville was settled by the Proctors, an- 

 cestors of Redfield Proctor, governor of 

 Vermont, senator, secretary of war, and 

 owner of Rutland marble-quarries. The 

 little house where he was born stands in 

 the shaded village street, and another home 

 of the family is on the topmost of three 



