I am still carrying that fish. How seldom we 

 are able to restore the bare exaction, to say 

 nothing of the fourfold ! My tree was harder 

 to climb than Zacchseus's. Mine was an ancient 

 white oak, with the nest set directly upon its 

 dead top. I had stood within this very nest 

 twelve years before ; but even with the help of 

 my conscience I could not get into it now. Kot 

 that I had grown older or larger. Twelve years 

 do not count unless they carry one past forty. 

 It was the nest that had grown. Gazing up at 

 it, I readily believed the old farmer in the Zane's 

 house who said it would take a pair of mules to 

 haul it. He thought it larger than one that 

 blew down in the marsh the previous winter, 

 which made three cart-loads. 



One thinks of Stirling and of the castles frown- 

 ing down upon the Rhine as he comes out of the 

 wide, flat marsh beneath this great nest, crown- 

 ing this loftiest eminence in all the region. But 

 no chateau of the Alps, no beetling crag-lodged 

 castle of the Rhine, can match the fish-hawk's 

 nest for sheer boldness and daring. Only the 

 eagles' nests upon the fierce dizzy pinnacles in 

 the Yosemite surpass the home of the fish-hawk 

 5 [65] 



