but all at once the feeling came upon me that to break the charming sweetness of the scene by the noise of a shot was almost like a desecration. The placid waters of the stream stretched out towards the west, forming a gleaming zone of beauty; the hight of a distant hut came sparkling through the gloom; it could not be otherwise than that, in such association, my memory should recall the picture of another stream, in another land, far away, where I had dreamily passed many and many an evening fishing, and when the lhght of the window within view had sparkled with the welcome of home. I could not help asking myself whether it was not possible even then that loving parents were thinking of the wanderer who was thinking of them. I was by no means saddened at my reverie; I did not for a moment doubt of a happy return; but I became absorbed in my thoughts, and sat pondering on the past for an hour or more, until the trees on the opposite shore had become obscured in the gathering shades of night.
Darkness had so come on that I had no little difficulty in retracing my way to the waggon. I gave my head a succession of thumps against the projecting boughs of the willows, and kept stumbling over their protruding roots; but I held on my road. Ever and again there was some strange and startling noise; first a herd of monkeys, which had been resting on the tree-tops, disturbed by the owls, would break out into a frantic clamour that would gradually die away into weak
