A SUMMER RAMBLE AMONG THE HEBRIDES. 163 



long forgotten, in which my joy had found vent when on the 

 eve of returning to that home, a home little more than 

 twenty miles away, came chiming as freshly into my me- 

 mory as if scarce a month had passed since I had composed 

 them beside the Conon.* 



Three-and-twenty years form a large portion of the short 

 life of man, one-third, as nearly as can be expressed in un- 

 broken numbers, of the entire term fixed by the psalmist, and 

 full one-half, if we strike off the twilight periods of childhood 

 and immature youth, and of senectitude weary of its toils. I 

 found curious indications among the grounds of Conon-side, 

 of the time that had elapsed since I had last seen them. There 

 was a rectangular pond in a corner of a moor, near the pub- 

 lic road, inhabited by about a dozen voracious, frog-eating 

 pike, that I used frequently to visit The water in the pond 

 was exceedingly limpid ; and I could watch from the banks 

 every motion of the hungry, energetic inmates. And now I 

 struck off from the river-side by a narrow tangled pathway, 

 to visit it once more. I could have found out the place blind- 

 fold : there was a piece of flat brown heath that stretched 

 round its edges, and a mossy slope that rose at its upper side, 

 at the foot of which the taste of the proprietor had placed a 

 rustic chair. The spot, though itself bare and moory, was nearly 

 surrounded by wood, and looked like a clearing in an Ame- 

 rican forest There were lines of graceful larches on two of 

 its sides, and a grove of vigorous beeches that directly fronted 

 the setting sun on a third ; and I had often found it a place 

 of delightful resort, in which to saunter alone in the calm 

 summer evenings, after the work of the day was over. Such 

 was the scene as it existed in my recollection. I came up 

 to it this day through dripping trees, along a neglected path- 

 way ; and found, for the open space and the rectangular pond, 



* The verses here referred to are introduced into " My Schools and 

 Schoolmasters," chapter tenth. 



