SPRING. 
325 
and boat, and thought that he would have a little sport 
with the ducks. There was ice still on the meadows, 
but it was all gone out of the river, and he dropped 
down without obstruction from Sudbury, where he lived, 
to Fair-Haven Pond, which - he found, unexpectedly, 
covered for the most part with a firm field of ice. It 
was a warm day, and he was surprised to see so great a 
body of ice remaining. Not seeing any ducks, he hid 
his boat on the north or back side of an island in the 
pond, and then concealed himself in the bushes on the 
south side, to await them. The ice was melted for three 
or four rods from the shore, and there was a smooth and 
warm sheet of water, with a muddy bottom, such as the 
ducks love, within, and he thought it likely that some 
would be along pretty soon. After he had lain still 
there about an hour he heard a low and seemingly very 
distant sound, but singularly grand and impressive, un¬ 
like any thing he had ever heard, gradually swelling and 
increasing as if it would have a universal and memora¬ 
ble ending, a sullen rush and roar, which seemed to him 
all at once like the sound of a vast body of fowl coming 
in to settle there, and, seizing his gun, he started up in 
haste and excited; but he found, to his surprise, that the 
whole body of the ice had started while he lay there, 
and drifted in to the shore, and the sound he had heard 
was made by its edge grating on the shore, — at first 
gently nibbled and crumbled off, but at length heaving 
up and scattering its wrecks along the island to a con¬ 
siderable height before it came to a stand still. 
At length the sun’s rays have attained the right an¬ 
gle, and warm winds blow up mist and rain and melt 
the snow banks, and the sun dispersing the mist smiles 
on a checkered landscape of russet and white smoking 
