An Ill-Marked Stony Drove-Road Guided Me
Forward; And I Met Nearly Half-A-Dozen Bullock-Carts Descending From The
Woods, Each Laden With A Whole Pine-Tree For The Winter's Firing.
At the
top of the woods, which do not climb very high upon this cold ridge, I
struck leftward
By a path among the pines, until I hit on a dell of green
turf, where a streamlet made a little spout over some stones to serve me
for a water-tap. 'In a more sacred or sequestered bower . . . nor nymph
nor faunus haunted.' The trees were not old, but they grew thickly round
the glade: there was no outlook, except north-eastward upon distant hill-
tops, or straight upward to the sky; and the encampment felt secure and
private like a room. By the time I had made my arrangements and fed
Modestine, the day was already beginning to decline. I buckled myself to
the knees into my sack and made a hearty meal; and as soon as the sun
went down, I pulled my cap over my eyes and fell asleep.
Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but in the open world it
passes lightly, with its stars and dews and perfumes, and the hours are
marked by changes in the face of Nature. What seems a kind of temporal
death to people choked between walls and curtains, is only a light and
living slumber to the man who sleeps afield. All night long he can hear
Nature breathing deeply and freely; even as she takes her rest, she turns
and smiles; and there is one stirring hour unknown to those who dwell in
houses, when a wakeful influence goes abroad over the sleeping
hemisphere, and all the outdoor world are on their feet.
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