Here and there, on grassy banks, great snakes glittered and basked in the noontide heat, while agile lizards crept over the stones or stood panting on the heath-stems, to stalk the flies.
It was strangely silent up here. We could listen to the lambkins, bleating miles away, and the strange wild cry of mountain plover and ptarmigans, while the song of insects flitting from alpine flower to alpine flower was pleasant music to the ear.
On the right I could see the dark tops of pine-trees. But they were far away. Never mind, I would walk towards them. I so love forests and woodlands.
No, I would have no companion save my trusty friend Bob. A word was sufficient to deter Maggie May from accompanying me in my ramble. That word was “Snakes!” Frank was not so easily shaken off; but when I told him I was probably going to write verses, he refrained from forcing his company on me. So Bob and I set out on our rambles alone. Verses? Well, verses come sometimes when least expected. Better than wooing the muse, is being quiet and letting the muse woo you.
But a sweet spirit of melancholy was over me to-day. I wished for silence, I longed for solitude. A breeze was murmuring and sighing through the weird black trees of the forest when I entered it, and I sat me down on a stone to listen to its wail. Nature seemed whispering some sad tale to my ears alone. This to me was spirit rest.
It was indeed a strange forest. The trees were all dark firs, though not tall and not close together. But I had never seen such trees before. Gnarled and bent and fantastic, taking shapes and casting shadows that positively looked uncanny. I had not walked an hour among them till I fancied myself in some enchanted wood, and almost wished myself out of it and away. I stooped down more than once to smooth and talk to the great Newfoundland, to reassure myself; and once, when passing an ugly brown pool of water, I started almost with fright as some water-birds sprang whirring into the air in front of me.
Still I had as yet no thoughts of retracing my footsteps.
When, at last, I climbed a rocky mound and saw the sun going right away down behind a hill, like a ball of blood, I made up my mind to get homewards at once.
But in which direction did the caravan lie? My answer to this was a very hazy one. However, standing on this mound would not help me, so I set out to retrace my steps.
For fully half an hour I walked in what I considered the right direction, but I did not come to the pond again, and the trees seemed different—more close together, and more weird-looking and uncanny, if that were possible.