understanding hovered over us, and an unsung song of thankfulness for escape when in peril was uppermost in the heart and unspoken on the lips.
From this "loop-hole of retreat from the busy world," we could not be unmindful of the beauty of the landscape or be otherwise than impressed with the spirit of the hour. We noted the farmer and his family raking their last half acre of new made hay; while from the pastures that completed the sweep of the horizon, came the musical refrain of tinkling cow-bells—a symphony as sweet as operatic airs to ears tuned in sympathy and harmony with the melodies of pastoral scenes. Peace, repose, unalloyed happiness! A spectacle in striking contrast with the hurrying, worrying crowd that elbows its way in the busy marts of commerce or plies its selfish vocation in the workshops and among the professions.
Calm and still! At our right the mirrored lake outlined the landscape and gently lashed the shore. At our left the brook ended its winding journey from the hills and mountains, bringing odors of ferns and wild-flowers and whispering messages which none but a dreamer dare attempt to translate, even in solitude. Murmuring soft and low! Sweet ecstasy! Far from the maddening crowd, the hum of spindles, the ring of anvils, the scream of the locomotive whistle, the clamor of bells and the excitement of the street all dead upon our ear and silent in our memory.—our senses quickened and made appreciative by surprising beauty; our eyes feasting on grandeur that no brush or pen can transcribe.
Night came on all too quickly. The last rays of the setting sun gilded the mountain tops and haloed the horizon, adding boldness and awe to the outline of the landscape; anon, evening curtains, like the drapery about a couch, narrowed our vision and caused a strange sense of loneliness to settle upon us. Reader, it is in such a place and at such an hour that thoughtful man realizes his littleness and is content to believe that he plays a very small and very unimportant part in the affairs of life.
While we were thus abstrusely contemplating things fanciful and yet real in the ideal, the darkness became mellowed by starlight and moonlight, and natural objects took on more boldness and expressiveness, which caused us to soliloquize "if there be sermons in stones, surely there may be philosophy and story in the babbling brook." And so, half conscious of a purpose and wholly at ease, we reclined upon the mossy bank and listened—listened to the brook, and it murmured:—
"Pilgrim, do you realize that I am very old?—that before the white man had habitation in these mountains and valleys, before farm-houses, churches and school-houses dotted these hill-sides, before villages and railroads were builded, I was companion and friend with the red man and with races that have long since become extinct? Do you realize that you sit at the feet of a seer, and commune with the inspiration of poetry and romance? Do you realize that I dwelt in this mountainous region before history was written and art had votaries?"
There was a long pause, in which our thoughts rambled, and a prehistoric race, and the deductions of geology came to the foreground for serious consideration. We cross-questioned our limited knowledge on this subject for a while, and were becoming confused in a labyrinth of perplexing uncertainty, when the brook again attracted our attention with its murmuring:
"I will not dwell on these things," it seemed to say, "or attempt to overwhelm your mind with startling problems. Let me simply say—having no other motive just now than to furnish wholesome entertainment until the return of your companion—that you can not guess, nor could you report on paper the hundredth part of the facts and fancies that are woven into my career; neither could you
