214 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
footpath ; but as you recede farther from the 
outer ocean and approach Gloucester, you come 
among still wilder ledges, unsafe without a 
guide, and you find in one place a cluster of 
deserted houses, too difficult of access to re- 
move even their materials, so that they are left 
to moulder alone. I used to wander in those 
woods, summer after summer, till I had made 
my own chart of their devious tracks. And now 
when I close my eyes in this Oldport midsum- 
mer, the soft Italian air takes on something of 
a Scandinavian vigor; for the incessant roll of 
carriages I hear the tinkle of the quarryman’s 
hammer and the veery’s song; and I long for 
those perfumed and breezy pastures, and for 
those promontories of granite where the fresh 
water is nectar and the salt sea has a regal 
blue. 
I recall another footpath near Worcester, 
Massachusetts ; it leads up from the low mea- 
dows into the wildest region of all that vicinity, 
Tatesset Hill. Leaving behind you the open 
pastures where the cattle lie beneath the chest- 
nut-trees or drink from the shallow brook, you 
pass among the birches and maples, where the 
woodsman’s shanty stands in the clearing, and 
the raspberry fields are merry with children’s 
voices. The familiar birds and butterflies lin- 
ger below with them, and in the upper and 
