etter. We shall be all the longer getting there. But, listen.
To go by train would be almost too sudden a shock. I don't believe we
could stand it. To be here to-day, breathing this God's fresh air, living
the lives of natural men in a natural world, and to-morrow--Broadway, the
horrible crowds, the hustle, the dirt, the smells, the uproar."

For answer Colin watched the clean rain fleeting through the trees, and
groaned aloud.

"But now if we walked, we would, so to say, let ourselves down lightly,
inure ourselves by gradual approach to the thought of life once more with
our fellows. Besides, we should be walking in the wake of the Summer. She
has only moved a little East as yet. We might catch her up on her way to
New York, and thus move with the moving season, keeping in step with the
Zodiac. Then, at last, ... how much more fitting our entry into New York,
not by way of some sordid and clangorous depot, but through the spacious
corridors of the Highlands and the lordly gates of the Hudson!"

When I had thus attained my crescendo, Colin rose impressively, and
embraced me with true French effusion.

"Old man," he said, "that's just great. It's an inspiration from on high.
It makes me feel better already. Gee! but that's bully."

French as was his blood, it will be observed that Colin's expletives were
thoroughly American. Of course, he should have said _sacre mille cochons_
or _nom de Dieu de nom de Dieu_; but, though in appearance, so to say, an
embodied "_sacre"_ he seemed to find the American vernacular sufficiently
expressive.

"Is it a go, then?" said I.

"It's a go," said Colin, once more in American.

And we shook on it.

CHAPTER VII

MAPS AND FAREWELLS

It was wonderful what a change our new plan wrought in our spirits.

Our melancholy was immediately dispersed, and its place taken by active
anticipations of our journey. The North wind in the trees, instead of
blustering dismissal, sounded to our ears like the fluttering of the
blue-peter at the masthead of our voyage. Strange heart of man! A day
back we were in tears at the thought of going. Now we are all smiles to
think of it, all impatience to be gone. We quote Whitman a dozen times
in the hour, and it is all "afoot and light-hearted" with us, and "the
open road."

But there were some farewells to make to people as well as to trees.
There were friends at Elim to bid adieu, and also there were maps to be
consulted, and knapsacks to b