8o PASTORAL DAYS. 



the shadowy mystery of the moonlit gloom I stole my way among the 

 sheltering golden-rod ; when the lofty flume, like a huge horned creat- 

 ure, seemed to stride athwart me in the darkness, and the fitful boyish 

 fancy saw strange phantoms in the floating, melting mist. This ancient 

 structure reposes in a verdant dell at the foot of Snug Hamlet Hill. 

 A choice of two roads lies before us — one short and direct, the other 

 a roundabout approach. A sudden impulse leads me into the latter. 

 On right and left I see the same old rocks and trees. There stands the 

 aged beech to whose gnarled and hollow trunk I traced the agile flying- 

 squirrel, and with suffocating flame and smoke drove him from his hid- 

 ing-place. Here between large rocks and stones the trout-stream runs 

 its course, now pouring in small cataracts, now eddying into still, dark 

 nooks, where in those by-gone times I dropped the line of expectancy, 

 but showed the clumsiness of adversity. A few minutes later, and we are 

 gliding again by the dark Shepaug, now flowing calm and silent beneath 

 a rugged bank, wild and umbrageous, where the swarm of katydids, with 

 grating discord, maintain their old dispute, that never-ending feud. The 

 wheels turn noiselessly in the shifting sand as we pursue our way. The 

 low gray fog steals lightly over the lily-pads, floating into seclusion be- 

 neath the sheltering boughs, or, like an evanescent spirit, borne upon the 

 evening breath, is lifted from the gloom, and slowly melts into the twi- 

 light sky. The solitary whippoorwill from his mysterious haunt, per- 

 haps in yonder tree, perhaps in the mountain loneliness beyond, proclaims 

 with dismal cry his oft-repeated wail. And as we ascend the darkening 

 path, through the still night air, in measured cadence long and sad, we 

 hear the toll of the distant knell. Threescore-and-ten its numbers tell 

 of the earthly years — a curfew requiem for the dead. Even as we pass 

 the little chapel at the summit of the hill, and the bell has scarcely ceased 

 its melancholy tidings, we hear the shouts and merry laughs of the boys 

 on the village green. Presently its broad expanse, shut in by twinkling 

 windows and massive trees, spreads out before us, as a clear and ringing 

 voice, like that of old, echoes through the growing darkness, " One hun- 

 dred ! Nothing said, coming ahead !" and a dim figure steals cautiously 

 from the steps of the old white church to seek in the sequestered hiding- 

 places. With a heart that fairly thumps, I urge my pony onward across 

 the green, and ere he slackens his pace I am at my journey's end. The 

 dear old Snuggery, with its gables manifold and quaint, its fantastic 

 wines and towers, stands there before me, the o-lowinof windows beaming 



