20 OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



about a loitering brooklet,) the cattle quadrupled in 

 number, the muck-lands yielding their harvests to be 

 composted with the concentrated manures of the 

 town, the very walls to be straightened (of which a 

 beginning had been made), and such stir and move- 

 ment and growth and cumulative fertility as should 

 make the neighborhood open its eyes wide, and stare 

 to a purpose. I saw the wasting rivulets dammed 

 and distributing their fertilizing flow over acres of 

 the side-land ; I saw the maple swamps giving place 

 to wide stretches of heavy meadow ; I saw the wild 

 growth of the pasture-lands cut and piled and burned, 

 and all the hillsides glittering with a new wealth of 

 green. 



But it was not to be. In the very heat of the 

 endeavor, there came a flattering invitation to change 

 the scene of labor and of observation, a single night 

 only being given for decision. I remember the night 

 as if only this morning's sun broke it, and kindled it 

 into day. One way, the brooks, the oaks, the crops, 

 the memories, the homely hopes, lured me ; the other 

 way, I saw splendid and enticing phantasmagoria 

 London Bridge, St. Paul's, Prince Hal, Fleet Street, 

 Bolt Court, Kenilworth, wild ruins. Next morning 

 I gave the key of the corn-crib to the foreman, and 

 bade the farm-land adieu. 



Within a month I was strolling over the fields of 



