From Fox's Earth 



In this angler's paradise, amid so many wooers, 

 he sought the scarred, rude-featured tarn. Not 

 once, as all do, but again and again ; not to try, 

 but to linger. Morning by morning, so long as 

 he stayed there and he still returned season 

 after season he climbed, with his long shadow 

 to the westward. And, in the late twilight, his 

 dim form could be hardly made out descending 

 the slope. Sometimes heavy, oftener light, was 

 his basket. Fish are there ; not very large, but 

 fairly numerous. Though seldom disturbed, they 

 have moods of their own, and seem specially 

 susceptible to the subtle changes of these rare 

 altitudes. The water, too, is rarer. 



Heavy or light, each was a record day. The 

 charm was not reckoned by the catch. Heedless 

 was he of the number, in his new-born dream of 

 to-morrow. His was a light sleep, an eager 

 waking. Not the hope of adding to the catch 

 of yesterday gave the bright morning face with 

 which he breasted the hill ; nor did the luck of 

 the day turn the head on the pillar of the neck, 

 to look back on the scene he had left behind. 

 Subtle the spell that was working within. He 

 found what was not in St. Mary's, or was no 

 longer there : that which had left the valley and 

 taken refuge in the hills. He climbed for what 

 he saw, and still more for what he felt. A little 

 creative imagination might have given it to a 

 higher vision. The vague would have taken 



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