preface 



For the deeds told in this book are mostly 

 of the lightest nature, such as men do 

 in their hours of play between strenuous 

 labors not so easy to note down. Doings of 

 my season of recreation are here put to- 

 gether at haphazard. Thoughts of my 

 idlest days have the right of way over 

 these pages. 



But may I hope that my thoughts and 

 deeds are not so idle as to be trivial? 

 Whatever is wholesome cannot be without 

 a certain value. I shall be glad if my 

 notes and sketches have in them a strong 

 trace of the gentle exhilaration caught from 

 exercise in the open air and from those 

 indescribable explosions of freshness felt at 

 sunrise, when the archer's boots are wet 

 with dew and the shore-birds are clamor- 

 ous on a white beach-line beyond the 

 marsh. Nor can I deny the comfort it 

 would give me to know that lovers of 

 good old books will sympathize with my 



xi 



