308 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



but leaning first on my poles to look down on the 

 ghostly radiant, frozen world. A young moon swam 

 over the mountain shoulder, holding in its crescent 

 the vague wraith of the full sphere, like a bubble in 

 a golden saucer. The light of this moon bathed all 

 the world in its pale, clear glow. The world was 

 not an etching any more. All but the nearest weed- 

 tops had disappeared. But each tree and shrub sent 

 out a pale, firm shadow over the faintly sparkling 

 snow; the world was a silver-point engraving of 

 supreme delicacy, upon a frosted paper; and not 

 the trees, but their shadows were most alive. The 

 air was a frozen crystal which no sound snapped, 

 except, far off in the valley, a dull boom from ex- 

 panding ice in the pond, and the disembodied hoot 

 of an owl up the ravine behind me. Yet there was 

 another sound. Listening intently, I could hear it 

 behind, below, on both sides — the sound of running 

 water, like a wind just waking, or like the world's 

 soft breathing as it lay wrapped in frozen dream. 



Far below gleamed a single reddish-gold window- 

 square, oddly unrelated to the lonely scene. Yet 

 thither I must go. My skees squeaked on the snow 

 as I slid them forward and caught the first rush of 

 icy air in my lungs. 



The young moon has dropped now behind the 

 mountain shoulder, and Orion, who nightly springs 

 from his couch beyond the eastern hills, is up amid 

 the game flocks of the stars. My window-square 

 glows out into darkness lit with a dim white radiance 

 from the snow. The weed-top etchings are only in 

 my memory. 



I know moods — as who does not? — when it would 



